Just curious....has anyone purchased a set for their MINI? I've just installed a set on my monster Miata, and may, somewhere down the road, install a set on my 2006 MCS.

 

I purchased a set in the +36 offset, silver finish. I haven't used them yet, but have done some test fitting on my car. The wheels come very very close to the trailing arms on the rear suspension (like less than .010" clearance), and from talking to Emilio, it sounds like he is seeing some variance on MINI's. The MINI he tested these on seems to have a bit more clearance than what some of his customers are finding. Not a huge issue if you ask me. I have test fitted with both 225/45/15 Toyo RA-1's and 225/45/15 Hoosiers. With or without spacers, tire clearance shouldn't be an issue whatsoever. I'm getting ready to make some 1/4" spacers and centering rings in the near future, then I'll be good to go. I will say that these wheels are beautiful in person!!!

Jason

 

I have silver finish 15x8 rims and Hoosier A6 225/45-15 tires.
Rim weight about 13 pounds each.

My MCS has Bilstein PSS9 with about 1.7" drop with aggressive autocross alignment. -2.3 negative camber in front and -1.5 degrees in the rear.

Front fits just fine. Rear on left fits trailing arm with 1mm clearance no rubbing. Left rubs a little with certain wheel and not with another probably 1/2mm clearance only. No rubbing with my current adjustable Madness rear swaybar but depending on design of the rear bar there could be rubbing.

Planning for some wheel spacers for the rears about 2.5 to 3mm should work. Any more than that and I would have to change to longer wheel studs.

I've scrubbed in the tires and am waiting for march 25 for the next event. Seems OK.

 

Any pictures on the car?

 

My new studs arrived from Tirerack yesterday, I should get a chance to mount things up by this weekend, I'll take pics of my setup and post.

Jason

 

I'm wondering if 36mm offset in the front and 40mm offset in the rear wouldn't be a better setup?
I bought an extra 40mm wheel just in case I destroy a wheel. Getting a replacement from Emilio may be difficult, as he's close to selling out in some colors/offsets. I've also thought about buying another 40mm wheel and two more 36mm wheels and mounting them on my MCS.

 

Nope that would be opposite of what you would want.

+40mm offset places the wheel further inside toward the center of the car. Since the trailing arm is part of the fixed suspension and cannot move then less offset is better about +33 to +34mm would do it for me.

In the front 949 has already checked and both +40 and +36mm offsets will fit OK no rubbing. I checked and +36mm is fine no problems.

I bought six wheels all +36mm offset for 2 extras. +40 is limited and fits only fronts. +36 wheels will fit front and rear and if needed with spacers in the rear if there is any rubbing.

 

The +40 offest would tuck the wheel in closer to the rear suspension, on my car there is no way it would fit.

Jason

 

BTW.....

I was out doing a little bit of test fitting tonight, I snapped a couple shots with the camera phone. Pay no attention to the road salt covered MINI, it's my daily driver :-D

At least the wheels look good

 

+40 closer to body.....I should know this
I see Emilio's sold out. He still has some polished wheels left...that's it.

 

I finally was able to take some good pics of the 6ul's on the car. I made up a set of 1/4" spacers with centering rings to get the clearance I wanted on the rear trailing arm. I only need spacers on the rear, but I am running them both front and rear, just to keep track width equal. You can see from the picture of the spacer, I went ahead and drilled a second set of holes for 14mm studs....Just in case.

 

Just a note to let you know I used the 949.racing 6UL rims with 225/45-15 Hoosier A6 tires for autocross today.

We had only three runs for our championship in autocross.
Got off to a good start with rain looming overhead. On cold tires I got 1-1.5 seconds faster than the fastest competitor in SM class. I was able to do two more times even faster than my first run. I ran with about 36 psi in front and 33 in the rear and could have droped another 1-2 psi.

I use 3mm custom spacers only in the rear. Fronts work great no rubbing. With the spacers the rears work great.

Front track is not as wide as rear track and with spacers rear is much wider but still fine. I have been using Kumho V710s the last two years and the Hoosiers were just fine but I think I can do better with more practice.

 

Those wheels look pretty sick, this coming from someone that isn't a 15" wheel fan lol. Now just drop the car like its hot and it'll be complete.

 

I had a feeling that this comment was going to be made
My car is a northern Ohio daily driver, at stock height I am hitting chunks of snow/ice that have fallen off of other cars, so there is no lowering in my immediate future.

Jason

 

Haha sorry dood. Coilovers in the summer months?? lolol, I'll do a photoshop later to entice you a bit...

 

Good idea about doing a double drilling for older and newer bolts.

For your daily driving your set up is fine. You might even try not using front spacers. See if you can tell any difference, if youcan't then leave the spacers off.

Now go find a track or two to have some test runs and some fun.

 

The car maybe a daily driver, but these wheels are strictly track wheels w/r-compounds (I autox in SM, and do a handful of trackdays), which is precisely why I care about the small influence front/rear spacers have on handling. If I had my choice and was going to tune with spacers I'd go spacers up front and no spacers in the rear given the MINI's understeering nature. (looking at it strictly from a weight transfer point of view). Seeing as how I MUST run spacers at the rear to avoid interference, my theory was to keep the f/r track width differential the same as stock.

The autocross season doesn't start up here till mid April, track days shortly after that....so sitting around looking at the pretty new wheels is all I get for now

Jason

 

Some pics from my recent autocross in 6UL 15x8 +36 offset and Hoosier A6 tires in 225/45-15.





Worked pretty well. 3mm spacers on the rear only.
I need to figure out how to drive on the Hoosiers better, only my first outing.