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Found out today that the AST coilovers shipped out so they are headed to the US. With it being the holidays and shipping issues everyone, I figure it will take a couple of weeks to make it here minimum. Still good news as I hope to attend an AutoX event in February if the upgrades are done.
I also grabbed a set of 550cc injectors off the marketplace. With all my previous mods my duty cycle on the stock 330cc is high and it appears I'm going lean at high rpm's. Those are a little big for now, but they will allow me to grow if I go further with a cam or whatever.
Well, the fun continues .. lol
I got the injectors along with the cables needs to assist with tuning. I'll get them going in a week or so because I had had my first breakdown in the Roach
Headed down to Palm Springs, and around 90min from home the car didn't want to speed up to pass. Around a mile or so later the sputtering started and I started making my way to the shoulder. Got pulled over and the Roach died. It was restart, cough while idling rough and then die again.
I read the codes on the dash, and it was showing lean misfire. I didn't find any leaks or anything troubling. I did a bit more troubleshooting, and it appears the fuel pump went into retirement.
I had to call a tow truck and then a Uber to get me to a hotel. I picked up another car, and I'll let it sit until I'm headed back home. No one had a pump so no way to fix it immediately so I'll worry about it I'm a few days.
The Roach has been great, and I just hate I had a problem when the wife and I were headed out. Unfortunately, it happens so I'll get him fixed and roll again. A new pump might be good anyway with new injectors going in.
On a positive note, my coilovers have shipped so I should have them in a couple weeks. I'll install those after the pump and injectors are fixed.
Fuel pumps on these have been a bit problematic on MINIs. I had one fail when I was out on a test drive with the dealer’s SA to show them another problem. Had to drive back to the shop in limp mode. Fortunately for me it was still under warranty. One thing that supposedly helps the longevity of them is to not let the gas tank get too low (not less than ~1/4?) so it gets the cooling it needs.
Fuel pumps on these have been a bit problematic on MINIs. I had one fail when I was out on a test drive with the dealer’s SA to show them another problem. Had to drive back to the shop in limp mode. Fortunately for me it was still under warranty. One thing that supposedly helps the longevity of them is to not let the gas tank get too low (not less than ~1/4?) so it gets the cooling it needs.
New coilovers...
The pump was most likely on borrowed time, just never got a symptom or anything leading up to failure. It just bogged and then started shutting down.....lol
After sitting 20min or so, it would start and idle fine for maybe 10 sec and then die again. So possibly still functioned, just not able to supply enough pressure to keep it running. Turning the key now, I don't even her the pump come on....
I got a Delphi pump on the way that should deliver tomorrow. At least the Mini pumps aren't hard to change!
A couple of quick things to get ready for the subframe swap and coil-over install.
I dropped by the local Pick-N-Pull yesterday to grab a couple of steering knuckles to swap out with the subframe. The bolts on mine are froze so rather than deal with potential broken bolts, I just decided to swap them out. It will actually make the swap easier as I can just drop the struts and all with the subframe and just pull the control arms after the fact. Plus I got newer hardware that almost perfect out in here in CA
I wasn't there for it, but I also grabbed a facelift rear console with armrest. It was almost perfect now I have some to keep my spare change and such.
I'll finish cleaning and paint the sub and steering knuckles next weekend. Once dry, I'll start assembling with new ball joints, tie rods, and assorted parts. Maybe I'll go back and grab a couple of control arms so those are cleaned up, painted, and ready to go as well...hmmm
I forget... Do you have some poly bushings for the control arms? If not, this would be the time to get some and put them in...
Indeed, poly bushing already pressed in so they are ready to go as well. That's why I'm thinking I should grab a couple of control arms so I don't have to deal with removing them from the old bushing. That said, the old bushings are junk so they rght pull out easily.
By luck I came across a good deal on an H-sport 19mm rear bar. I didn't want a larger rear bar due to using camber plates up front and driving style so this fits the bill!
I'm going to have to make time to install this stuff soon, I've got quite a pile of parts now....
That will be a great addition, especially with the AST coilovers.
Now, if you could get a JCW or a JCW Sports suspension front bar (that would be the one that came with the optional red spring JCW suspension). Either is larger than what you have. While conventional wisdom would say that a larger front bar is the wrong way to go, experience says it is absolutely worth it. With the subframe already out, it would be easy to change.
That will be a great addition, especially with the AST coilovers.
Now, if you could get a JCW or a JCW Sports suspension front bar (that would be the one that came with the optional red spring JCW suspension). Either is larger than what you have. While conventional wisdom would say that a larger front bar is the wrong way to go, experience says it is absolutely worth it. With the subframe already out, it would be easy to change.
I'm looking for the camber plates and rear bar to help rotation so I don't understeer, but you're saying a bigger front bar helped you? Interesting...
I'm looking for the camber plates and rear bar to help rotation so I don't understeer, but you're saying a bigger front bar helped you? Interesting...
A bigger front bar does not cause understeer when paired with the appropriate RSB. The 2 in combination will flatten the car in corners. Reducing body roll reduces the amount the outside front corner tucks under. If the front tucks under, the outside front wheel will loose camber, which causes the car to understeer. The larger front bar helps to reduce that loss of camber...
I know the conventional wisdom is to put a 22mm bar in the rear and put the smallest bar possible in the front to get the car to “rotate”. But the front wil still have a lot of roll and loss of front camber. The 22mm bar in the rear will only help until the car starts to 3-wheel. It works by “pulling” weight off the outside front wheel by lifting the inside rear wheel. No more weight can be pulled off that front wheel once that rear wheel comes off the ground. But in doing so, this also reduces traction in the rear, whereas the whole idea of setting up a suspension is to maximize traction. The only way to do that is to keep all 4 wheels on the ground. Unfortunately the “rotation” a car gets with just a larger RSB is the back end sliding and the pivoting around the front end. Not a well balanced car. Worse yet, the backend wants to swap ends, which, if it happens, usually doesn’t end well.
I have personal experience with these various setups. I started doing track days with a R56 S which wasn’t very good. It would plow like crazy. I added a 20mm bar which helped, but not a lot. It still wanted to plow. It also caused the car to want to swap ends, which it did a few times. My second MINI is the R56 S in my signature. It start life with the optional Sports Suspension, which was the base suspension for the JCW at the time. As compared to the base S suspension, this had 1mm larger sway bars front and rear, stiffer shocks and springs. Driving it off the dealers lot when new it was clear this was going to be a far better performing car than the base S with the 20mm bar and it was. I did several years of track days with this car with the factory sports suspension and IE Fixed camber plates, before I upgraded to the 27mm FSB and the 25mm hollow RSB and an LSD. The only thing I changed after that was the Bilstein B8 shocks.
How the car is driven also helps a lot. With just a really large RSB it is almost necessary to over brake going into a corner and having to get on the gas before the apex. This causes the car to want to understeer. The large RSB is added in an effort to mitigate that understeer. With a larger front and rear sway bar, the car is rotated by late braking and trailbraking into the corner. This loads weight on the front wheels, which adds traction, compresses the front suspension in the turn, which increases camber which increase traction, and the back end gets lighter which helps rotation. Much fast through a corner. If you try heavy trail braking in a car with just the large RSB it will want to swap ends, which makes it very hard to keep on the track.
Don’t get me wrong. The 19mm RSB is a good pairing with the stock S front sway bar. It is not so big as to cause issues. It is, however, 1mm larger than the RSB that came with my R56 with the sports (JCW) suspension. Given how good that sports suspension was, pairing its front bar with a slightly larger (ie 19mm) RSB would have been a really good move for me. That was a consideration before I went with the really big bars front and rear. That was an easy decision as I was already tearing apart the front end for an LSD.
Eddie, good points all around. Thanks for sharing your experience!
I've done track days for years in my Chevelle and the Z06, but this is my first shot at a FWD car so that in itself will probably take some getting used to. The Chevelle would lift the inside rear tire slightly when autocrossing, but moving to stiffer rear springs helped get that under control. No doubt being on 4 wheels is faster than 3....
It may be beneficial to add a larger FSB, but I think I want to hold off for now just to get a feel for the driving dynamics with new bushings, ball joints, front camber plates, rear adj control arms, larger RSB, and coilovers. The front sub isn't that hard to pull so it could be done later when I decide on a LSD.
FWD and RWD cars have a lot of similarities to their responses to setup. Changes to spring rates, swaybars, shock settings all cause the same responses in either type of car. It is the response to throttle inputs that are different. To a point, increasing throttle will cause either car type to understeer (push wide). Getting off the throttle will cause the cars to tend to oversteer (or tighten up a turn). The difference is that with RWD, you can get power-on oversteer and, if the backend starts to come around, this may be corrected by getting off the throttle. With FWD there is no power on oversteer and there is no “pull you through the turn”. More throttle, more understeer. If the rear starts to come around, getting off the gas will only make it worse. You can only get on the throttle, straighten the steering and hope for the best. Getting on the throttle transfers weight to the rear which adds traction to the rear, which should correct the slide. If your foot is already to the floor when the rear starts to come around, I don’t know what to do... This is why I have a conservative setup. I already know what happens when I can’t catch a rear slide...
I do think you will like the way you are going. At some point, though, try a slightly stiffer front bar. You’ll be like Mikey (you know... “let Mikey try it. He doesn’t like anything. ... He likes it. He likes it.”)...
Last edited by Eddie07S; Jan 20, 2022 at 12:14 PM.
Reason: Fix typo
I do think you will like the way you are going. At some point, though, try a slightly stiffer front bar. You’ll be like Mikey (you know... “let Mikey try it. He doesn’t like anything. ... He likes it. He likes it.”)...
I laughed hard at that, damn I remember those commercials...lol
I've got all the parts together, and they will be installed by the end of the week. Due to work demands I'm getting some help to swap the subframe and coilovers to speed things up. I do like working on my own stuff, but I've sit on the parts long enough.
I'm ready to start doing track days so this will save a lot of time, and then I can focus on swapping the injectors. A little tuning work form Adrian and I'll be ready!
The suspension upgrades have begun! The car was dropped off at German Auto Service for the work as he's a member of the local Mini club and he does great work!
The Roach was put on the lift, and things started coming off. The subframe is out so we'll get the replacement fitted with new bushings and hard parts. We did discover that both hoses to/from the power steering reservoir were leaking so we'll replace them while we're here.
After rebuilding the subframe, the coilovers will be installed before the reinstall.
I'm picking up the Roach this morning. The new and rebuilt subframe is installed so that should tighten things up. Poly control arm bushings are definitely welcome!
The coilovers, sways bars, and rear control arms didn't get installed due to a mix up. I'll add more detail on that once things get sorted, and then the car will go back to finish up.
Sub before reinstalled. Also new hoses for the p/s reservoir will clean things up.
Next project will be for me to swap the injectors and get the tune cleaned up so it doesn't run lean.
AST is sending new top camber plates since they shipped me the wrong pair before. Paperwork said R53, but they sent me R56 camber plates that wasn't noticed until it was at the shop. So I'm out some funds removing/replacing the stock suspension which sucks.
My rear subframe had quite a bit of surface corrosion on it so I'm going to swap it out for a CA part that looks like new. It wouldn't have been seen, but I'm going this far why not do it right!
I hit the Pick-N-Pull this morning and pulled a cherry red subframe out. I'll clean it up and add it to the pile of parts to swap out.
Now just more hurry up and wait. I hope to hit an autoX in May or June to try out the new parts.
Whew, the car has been sidelined the last couple of weeks as I dealt with some family issues. Now that the worst is behind me, it was time to get back to the build. Summer track days are just around the corner.
Appointments are setup to get the rest of the suspension upgrades completed, and to also swap out the rear subframe. All including a performance alignment will be completed over the next couple of weeks.
I got with Adrian today to get the the laptop setup and check the health of the engine prior to swapping out the larger injectors. All looks good, but it seems my pre-cat O2 is acting up so I ordered a replacement prior to the big change.
Adrian did upload a temporary tune that accounts for the existing mods since the idle was terrible and acceleration just wasn't clean. I took it for a drive afterwards, and it's already running much better. It's still lean, but the idle is perfect now and the power delivery is very linear. It just needs the bigger injectors since the stock 330s just can't hang in there as the revs increase.
As part of my of continued push to so some track days, I determined I really needed a set of wheels for track duty only. The roads here in CA suck, and I don't want to kill tires trying to do double duty.
I found a set of CCW classics locally that could fit the bill. The R56 JCW brakes have turned out to be troublesome regarding wheels so I first needed a test fit. I met up with him on Saturday morning to do the deed
I'm currently running R105s using a 8mm spacer for caliper clearance. After seeing the CCW wheels, I expected the same with them. The wheels, based on my measurements, are 17x8.5 with~ 32mm offset or just over 6 inches of backspace. Surprisingly, my R105 are just over 6 inches of backapace as well so that was promising. The CCW wheels are running 245/40/17 tires so there is some pinch compared to the 225/40/18s I'm currently using.
The wheels fit wheel with the 8mm spacer, and I have around 3/4 clearance between the tire and strut body. That said, they are 3 piece wheels so I got contact with the wheel hardware on the caliper. I had to bump out another 5mm in order to get the caliper clearance needed. I've ordered in some 12mm spacers to see if that does the trick.
As you can see the top of the tire appears to be leaning out, but that will be addressed once the ASTs are installed along with an alignment. There is also a big gap between the fender and the top of the tire so I definitely have some room for a slight drop.
The rears fit without an issue so I ended up making the deal on them. I may drop the tire size down to 225/45/17 so it will match my current tire setup in height plus it should provide more sharpness at turn in while avoiding the bulge look of the current tires. Time will tell.
I loaded up the new purchase and headed home. I'll leave one in the car for a test fit after the new suspension is installed. I may look at getting the black removed at some point to freshen up the wheels as another color. I'll think on that awhile....
