Looking good man! I got lucky with my press. It's a 20 ton. The guy I got it from bent the bottom so he upgraded to a 50 ton air over hydraulic and gave me the 20 ton for free. They have many uses but I cant say I've ever heard anyone use it on fruit lol

 

Gotta be a first for everything hahahah

Some progress, the new control arms + new inner ball joints are mounted back on the subframe. Subframe will be put back tomorrow and then I can replace the struts with the coilovers. Should be running again on sunday for a shakedown, then after that I can plan a alignment

 

Car is back together again, but I stumbled across a weird problem when I wanted to do a shakedown. No movement in the car whatsoever when I tried to roll out of the garage. I had all these doom scenarios in my head (clutch, axles, sticky brakes, etc etc etc), but in the end the tyres are rubbing against the new struts...

I ordered spacers, so I will have to have a little more patience...

Some more pics:

Nog wat pics

Eccentrische Powerflex PFF5-101G control arm bushing with added caster mounted on the subframe





DTSline vs OEM Delphi (front strut)



New DTSline strut in place

 

Finally some progress, spacer delivery took way more time than expected. Now for the funny stuff, I didnt need them at all HA, jokes on me :P

I had to raise the car and then after refitting, it all seemed to fit a-ok. This is how the Mini was waiting for the spacers



Finally received the spacers (which I didnt need), from SCC Fahrzeug Technik (German made)







And this is how its sitting currently. Looks good, but not practical with the speed humps we have here in the Netherlands. So I will be raising it slightly, also the bumper is scraping with almost every move :P

 

The Mini looks good, but I can' see it being too low for my area as well. The roads here in CA suck so a little more clearance and travel is a good thing

 

100%, thanks man!

 

Did some finetuning to the ride height (raised it a little bit) and removed the airdam on the front bumper. The airdam scraped on almost everything, so that was annoying. Alignment will need to be done as a next step

Still very suprised about the performance of this cheap coilover set (DTSline SX). Still has enough damping without being very harsh. Feels very planted, which was to be expected.

Before



After (slight difference) You can see the wheel point a little bit more forward due to the Powerflex bushes with added caster.



Removed airdam



Some more

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You can see the diffuser vins on the bottom of the car

 

Man I love that color combo!!! It looks just about perfect now, killer stance!

 

Me too haha! Very happy with it

 

Looks great!!

 

Just now finished viewing all 185 prior posts accompanied by your multiple high quality images. Well done! Very interesting to see what component parts are chosen today and why vs the seemingly "no expense spared" build on my R53 by the original owner when new in early 2006. My car has just 4.5k total miles as of today (no typo with related thread topic here), thus needs no service repairs. I replaced the modded track-oriented cat-back exhaust with a resonated Milltek last week, however I'm now awaiting an ordered Milltek non-res front pipe due to slight encroachment between top of res silencer and tunnel above and other adjacent hard parts at certain rpms and resonant frequencies. That being due to angles and fitment resulting from the 4-into-1 tubular headers with flex pipe and hi-flow cat also installed back then. If subsequently too loud, I might need to add a small OD "bullet" silencer on that pipe just behind the cat flange. Hoping not.

Some build aspects mentioned early in your thread prompted questions but I'll have to go back and read those again as a refresher. Since I'm attempting to determine specifically what performance components were used on mine in 2006, I do have a question related to your post #145 this April wherein you show the "M7 Tuning" CF front tower brace and rear boot brace. Those are the exact same items in mine (pics in my own thread), however I find nothing on M7's website or elsewhere confirming those CF bars are their products. Did you buy those new and are you certain produced or marketed by M7?

Like yours shown previously, mine has Team Dynamics wheels as required to clear AP Racing front "big brakes" also installed back then. I like those wheels and would personally rather have a bit more weight with related strength than risking fracture when hitting what we call "pot holes" here. My car also has Eibach coil springs that are much too stiff plus insufficient ground clearance to be practical for streets and highways, IMO. I'm waiting for WMW's TSW linear rate springs to be back in stock and will buy and get those installed ASAP.

 

Mad respect for going through all of the posts!

I checked again and it seems I made a mistake. the carbon fiber braces are made by a company called M2 Motorsport.

Front: https://www.m2motorsport.co.uk/cgi-b...%2Ehtml#SID=49

Rear: https://www.m2motorsport.co.uk/cgi-b...%2Ehtml#SID=49

And you are correct, lightweight doesnt have to mean strong. The Team Dynamics (I will assume you have the Pro Race 1.2) are tried & tested and are a good choice. Regarding the springs, the Mini is already set back by a small travelfor the springs/struts. Lowering it is comprimising the comfortability even more haha, but looks and performance are more important for me. But it needs to stay practical off course, we have quite good quality roads in the Netherlands. But we have a lot of speedbumps in residential areas + in town centers, so that takes a toll on suspension and droplinks/sway bars.

[edit]
If your exhaust is too loud, check post #142. That helped me tremendously! https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4581688

 

^^^ Thanks for corrected product name and links on those CF bars - appreciated! Already updated my own thread on known mods to identify those as M2 Motorsports.

As to the exhaust, I'm familiar with that Hushmat product and might consider using if needed. OTOH, I listened to a bunch of videos with the non-res Milltek on R53 with comments being a bit louder but no droning, so thinking it'll be livable. That, plus this car will never be my daily driver with instead, just fun driving around my small town and the adjacent mountains.

 

Also check plugging the 2 holes in the back, as they let a lot of the exhaust sound/drone into the cabin

 

Went to the alignment shop, but we were halted prematurely by a tie/track rod end being completely seized. I will have to replace them to finish the job. Stuff has already been ordered, so should be fixed soon.

Nevertheless a picture from the shop when the Mini was in the air

 

Received all goodies and the special tool for removing the inner tie rods and got to work. Thankfully not a hard job, so it was smooth sailing so to speak

The new tool





New tie rods



With the airdam removed and some wood, Im able to use the ramps which helps a lot with jacking up the car as it sits quite low off course



New hardware in place is always a good thing!



And on the drivers side, I lubed up the rails (after taking this picture )

 

Looking good!

 

Car has been aligned properly with the front tie rods being replaced. The road home was not a direct path as I needed a proper shakedown :P The Mini feels very planted with the suspension upgrades!

 

Gisteren grote stappen gemaakt, koste ook best wel wat moeite ivm de beperkte ruimte. Nog wat pics tegoed van oa de nieuwe motorsteun.

Renewed passenger engine mount
I noticed that the front engine mount was spewing out dirty hydraulic fluid, so it needed to be changed. I also bought the Powerflex bushing, to complement the new Meyle engine mount.





Dirtyness...





All done!



Renewed oil cooler gasket
Quite a pita as space is tight. I used a 1/4 ratchet with extensions + wobble piece



Renewed chain tensioner
Piece of mind job, its way easier to reach the 19mm bolt with the oil cooler out of the way.





Renewed oil filter housing gasket
Relatively easy, the only hard part is working "blindly" on 3 bolts



Renewed Oil pan gasket
The bottom part of the engine looks a-ok. I found some plastic bits in the oil pand & pickup pipe. It seems the oil drain valves have perished...(what a big design flaw if you ask me). I already ordered a new filter housing for about 300 euros. A second hand one will not provide me with enough trust that the valves will last a long time.

Also, I forgot taking a picture after cleaning the oil pan...









So now the waiting has begun

 

Replaced the new oil filter housing yesterday. I am glad that I bought a new one instead of a 2nd hand. Was quite a puzzle to get the old one out and the new one in. I had to dismantle it completely (remove the oil filter + oil cooler) to be able to shimmy it between the drive shaft and out of the passanger side wheel well. I used plastic clamps for the coolant lines, so no full drain needed.

Engine seems to run way smoother, probably a combination of all the things which were done.





2 of the plastic valves were broken





Like this one

 

I didn't even know there were valves in that filter assembly that could fail. This is good information to post. If anyone pulls their pan and finds bits of plastic they may stumble upon this in a search and know where to look for failed parts. If I found pieces of black plastic in my oil pan I would probably automatically assume it was from a chain guide... Now I know better.

 

[QUOTE=nd-photo.nl;4591769]Mad respect for going through all of the posts!

I checked again and it seems I made a mistake. the carbon fiber braces are made by a company called M2 Motorsport.

Front: https://www.m2motorsport.co.uk/cgi-b...%2Ehtml#SID=49

Rear: https://www.m2motorsport.co.uk/cgi-b...%2Ehtml#SID=49

I purchased these for a 2004 R53 S which I have now given to my son (front and rear). The quality of these is great. My sons R53 has a sunroof and after fitting the braces there was no longer any when driving off the curb onto the road.

I have picked up a 2006 R53 JCW which almost looks identical to yours. Same colour too, I don't have the Xenon headlights though it did come with heated leather Recaros.

I received a set of Cusco carbon fibre braces that I ordered from Lohen (their shipping to Australia was very reasonable). The rear fits perfectly and the rear seats do not have to sit forward like they do on my sons R53. Haven't fitted the front brace yet as it does not mount correctly on the passenger side strut. It is only millimetres out so I will get around to drilling it out a bit soon (this is not a reflection on the quality of the Cusco braces, the strut bolts on my JCW were cross threaded at the top by one of the previous owners making installation difficult).

Your JCW is incredible and the photos and details of what you have done to it have given me some ideas on what to do with mine. Thank you.

 

Much appreciated! I like to learn from cars, and sharing this info might help the next one.

@JerBear
The valves have influence on oil pressure, especially on startup. In US, you can get a hold of the check valves pretty easily, but unortunately not in the Netherlands. For instance: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-dorman-p...e/904-261~dor/

 

Wow, just wow. That is a thorough project and great job!! It looks like you covered everything. I bet it runs and drives amazing. Bravo!

 

Thanks man, much appreciated! There is always stuff to improve on haha, but for me its kinda finished right now. I did a lot of work, which meant that I didnt enjoy it as much as I should. That time is now whilst saving up for a new project for next year. Then the Mini will also search for a new owner. But it wont go cheap

I always wanted to drive something with 8 cilinders (or more), will be a luxury saloon