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Do you know about the threads for the shocks in those control arms?
If not, here goes (If you know, then ignore this )
Those are not real threads. Those are cut by the self tapping bolts that they use during assembly. I would get replacement, real, bolts to do the shock assembly. Also the R56 shocks have a conical piece that fits into the trailing arm. If you are going to use your existing shocks you will need to get an adapter piece. I think Way Motors sells them. Only hand thread the bolt in, very carefully so as to not cause any damage to those threads. Even no hand tools until the bolt is well threaded in. A little never seize will help. Also, don’t over torque the bolts. MINI spec is for something like 120 - 130 ft-lbs. I believe that is for initial assembly when the bolt is cutting the treads. Upon reassembly that number should be much lower. I used the wheel bolt torque of 90 ft-lbs as those bolts are about the same size.
Do you know about the threads for the shocks in those control arms?
If not, here goes (If you know, then ignore this )
Those are not real threads. Those are cut by the self tapping bolts that they use during assembly. I would get replacement, real, bolts to do the shock assembly. Also the R56 shocks have a conical piece that fits into the trailing arm. If you are going to use your existing shocks you will need to get an adapter piece. I think Way Motors sells them. Only hand thread the bolt in, very carefully so as to not cause any damage to those threads. Even no hand tools until the bolt is well threaded in. A little never seize will help. Also, don’t over torque the bolts. MINI spec is for something like 120 - 130 ft-lbs. I believe that is for initial assembly when the bolt is cutting the treads. Upon reassembly that number should be much lower. I used the wheel bolt torque of 90 ft-lbs as those bolts are about the same size.
Interesting, I was not aware of that. A self tapping bolt is certainly an interesting choice by BMW, I can't say I'm a huge fan of that lol. When I pulled it off the junkyard car I didn't pay much attention, I just whizzed the bolt out and yanked it out of the car. Is there any reason not to run a tap through it to try and clean it up before re-assembly?
I was able to find the adapters at WMW, so thank you for that recommendation
Interesting, I was not aware of that. A self tapping bolt is certainly an interesting choice by BMW, I can't say I'm a huge fan of that lol. When I pulled it off the junkyard car I didn't pay much attention, I just whizzed the bolt out and yanked it out of the car. Is there any reason not to run a tap through it to try and clean it up before re-assembly?
I was able to find the adapters at WMW, so thank you for that recommendation
Nope, I’m not a huge fan, either. Especially after having a friend dropped the rear of his MINI on the ground when, after changing the shocks, one of the MINI bolts tore out when he was on the highway…
With these the operative general instruction is to do nothing that could potentially cause damage or weaken the treads.
So, no, do not run a tap through. The threads that are there will be fine for threading a new bolt into. But like I said, hand thread a new bolt in, with a little lubricant (suggest: never seize). The lubricant will keep the aluminum from wearing and potentially galling with the bolt.
Last edited by Eddie07S; Jul 16, 2025 at 05:14 AM.
Reason: edit
I only noticed this because i started scraping the lip on my garage again. I had lost nearly an inch of front clearance. I'm not sure if this will fix it permanently, if it happens again I'll probably get camber plates to stop it completely. Interestingly, this was actually the cause of my false knock, since replacing these mounts my EMU Black picks up no knock events at all any more. Very cool!
I bought Sachs, and only realized after they arrived that they and Lemforder are both owned by ZF, this is likely the exact same part with a different brand on it. Oh well. New sachs vs 5k mile lamforder Old drivers side mount Old passenger side mount
You could try the IE Fixed camberplates. Way Motors carries them. These will provide a bit of much needed camber for your car. Perfect for the street. They have greatly upgraded rubber from the stock, but not so much that any change in ride, noise and vibration will be noticeable. More traditional camberplates can be “uncomfortable”. I used these for years on my R56 which included a lot of track time.
You could try the IE Fixed camberplates. Way Motors carries them. These will provide a bit of much needed camber for your car. Perfect for the street. They have greatly upgraded rubber from the stock, but not so much that any change in ride, noise and vibration will be noticeable. More traditional camberplates can be “uncomfortable”. I used these for years on my R56 which included a lot of track time.
I'll keep that in mind in case these fail. I think it wont agree with my lowering springs but its certainly a good option to have.
I'll keep that in mind in case these fail. I think it wont agree with my lowering springs but its certainly a good option to have.
Why do you think the IE plates might not agree with your springs?
You could check with Way Motors. But from my experience, the IE camber plates should not care about whether the springs are lowering or not. It is basically the same bearing and mounting design as you currently have, only stronger. The camber is only -1.2 to -1.5 deg and everything will fit in the wheel well.
Why do you think the IE plates might not agree with your springs?
You could check with Way Motors. But from my experience, the IE camber plates should not care about whether the springs are lowering or not. It is basically the same bearing and mounting design as you currently have, only stronger. The camber is only -1.2 to -1.5 deg and everything will fit in the wheel well.
I think they state in the description that the fixed camber plate "isn't intended for lowering springs" because the camber will end up more than -1.5 degrees. It may not be that much more camber, I just assumed it would be too much.
I mean I've kind of wanted to go back to stock springs anyway, maybe it would be the right thing to do.
I think they state in the description that the fixed camber plate "isn't intended for lowering springs" because the camber will end up more than -1.5 degrees. It may not be that much more camber, I just assumed it would be too much.
I mean I've kind of wanted to go back to stock springs anyway, maybe it would be the right thing to do.
I guess I never thought of more camber as being anything less than a good thing.
The Way post states that these will provide -1.25 deg of camber and that they are not intended for lowering springs as it will result in more than -1.25 deg of camber.
Not sure why Way included this caution. There is nothing magical about -1.25 deg of camber and lower the car will only result in 10ths of a deg of camber changes as long as the car isn’t slammed. The only thing that I can think of is that with increased camber tire wear goes up. In this case ever so slightly. So, maybe they are concerned that someone will be upset that their tires wore more quickly than expected and with these and lowering resulted in -1.4 deg of camber and that they will claim that they were not told that the camber would be more with the springs, and then try to claim the tire wear is the fault of IE. Blah, Blah, Blah. Really I don’t know.
I ran the R56 version of these on my Cooper S. Like the ones for the R53 these are design to increase camber to -1.25 deg. The R56 has a small camber adjustment capability of -0.3 deg built into the suspension. With that adjustment maxed out, I was running -1.5 deg. I saw no uneven tire wear or any increased wear. Also note that the rear tire camber factory setting is something like -2.0 deg and that produces no notable tire wear beyond expectations. I will note that increasing the camber will change (increase) the toe-in. This will need to be reset as too much toe will increase tire wear. I found that the IE plates worked will with the factory toe settings.
So, if you decide on using these, change the springs if you want. But I would not worry about keeping the lowering spring, either.
Last edited by Eddie07S; Aug 11, 2025 at 06:04 AM.
Reason: add clarification
I guess I never thought of more camber as being anything less than a good thing.
The Way post states that these will provide -1.25 deg of camber and that they are not intended for lowering springs as it will result in more than -1.25 deg of camber.
Not sure why Way included this caution. There is nothing magical about -1.25 deg of camber and lower the car will only result in 10ths of a deg of camber changes as long as the car isn’t slammed. The only thing that I can think of is that with increased camber tire wear goes up. In this case ever so slightly. So, maybe they are concerned that someone will be upset that their tires wore more quickly than expected and with these and lowering resulted in -1.4 deg of camber and that they will claim that they were not told that the camber would be more with the springs, and then try to claim the tire wear is the fault of IE. Blah, Blah, Blah. Really I don’t know.
I ran the R56 version of these on my Cooper S. Like the ones for the R53 these are design to increase camber to -1.25 deg. The R56 has a small camber adjustment capability of -0.3 deg built into the suspension. With that adjustment maxed out, I was running -1.5 deg. I saw no uneven tire wear or any increased wear. Also note that the rear tire camber factory setting is something like -2.0 deg and that produces no notable tire wear beyond expectations. I will note that increasing the camber will change (increase) the toe-in. This will need to be reset as too much toe will increase tire wear. I found that the IE plates worked will with the factory toe settings.
So, if you decide on using these, change the springs if you want. But I would not worry about keeping the lowering spring, either.
youre probably right, I just didn’t want to take the chance with a part that could be wrong.
i bought this low cost coolant expansion tank from Amazon. $85 shipped, but it uses a very cheap plastic sight glass with a rubber seal. I replaced the sight glass with a better quality glass one for $14 and used a copper crush washer to seal it.
Ok so time for the reveal! The wideband O2 sensor shown in a previous post was a teaser for this:
This is an EMU Black standalone plug-n-play ECU from ECUMaster made directly for the R53 mini. I'm sure anyone reading this is aware of this product. I've been eyeing this for a long time now, pretty much since I got the car. I was considering the Bytetronik flash tune kit but at the end of the day the prospect of tuning this car without a dedicated closed-loop wideband seemed like hell on Earth. I was considering the MiniLink as well, I spent time with both software packages and the Link is definitely more mature, feature rich, and offers better control, but the EMU Black offers a more simplified environment for me to learn in at a lower cost. Both options still offer significant upgrades over the stock DME.
This will be the first standalone ECU I've personally worked with, I tuned my '19 Mustang with it's Gen 3 Coyote, and in comparison to that this is really easy. The complexity is low, the control scheme is fully documented and easy to understand.
So far I have the car idling and the wideband installed and working. However last night I realized the firmware on the EMU was severely out of date, so I updated that which gives me some new features. I was also severely sleep deprived and excited to get my new standalone ECU installed, so I likely made some mistakes. Today I'll be approaching this a bit more carefully to get the idle dialed in and the fueling dead nuts on target
Bosch LSU 4.9 harness made with PTFE insulated high heat wire. ECU installed, will need to find a way to run this USB cable into the cabin. Narrowband removed, wideband installed.
The downstream O2 is no longer needed, the ECM doesn't even have it connected up as far as I'm aware. Eventually I'll take it out and put a plug in its place, but for now it will stay as a very expensive plug
Moving from Bytetronik to this due to Bytetronik screwing up and writing junk to my ECU this past Saturday. Can't get it to load any more, because it somehow wiped the SW ID and CAL ID values that the software looks for to make sure you aren't trying to flash a tune on some other car.
Will be starting with Wideband O2 for closed-loop WOT, as you did, and will post a thread documenting my process for others to hopefully draw from....
Moving from Bytetronik to this due to Bytetronik screwing up and writing junk to my ECU this past Saturday. Can't get it to load any more, because it somehow wiped the SW ID and CAL ID values that the software looks for to make sure you aren't trying to flash a tune on some other car.
Will be starting with Wideband O2 for closed-loop WOT, as you did, and will post a thread documenting my process for others to hopefully draw from....
I actually am the person who responded to you on FB about this issue
Eagerly await seeing your thread! I fumbled my way through tuning the feedback loop on that and i probably have lots of room for improvement.
I actually am the person who responded to you on FB about this issue
Eagerly await seeing your thread! I fumbled my way through tuning the feedback loop on that and i probably have lots of room for improvement.
Lima Oscar Lima. The world gets really small really quickly with the right filters. I wondered, given the similar timeline, if that was you....
If they can force reload my base ROM onto my ECU, it'll make a fine backup and/or inspection day substitute. The ECU still has my VIN, so it's not likely to be viewed as a fraud attempt. It just garbled the other data and won't let me load my tune on my own ECU. :/
The nice thing about closed loop is it will do its best to fix the data you entered. "Log, log - big, heavy, wood", and all of that, you know. The corrections in the log will point you at the proper values....
Lima Oscar Lima. The world gets really small really quickly with the right filters. I wondered, given the similar timeline, if that was you....
If they can force reload my base ROM onto my ECU, it'll make a fine backup and/or inspection day substitute. The ECU still has my VIN, so it's not likely to be viewed as a fraud attempt. It just garbled the other data and won't let me load my tune on my own ECU. :/
The nice thing about closed loop is it will do its best to fix the data you entered. "Log, log - big, heavy, wood", and all of that, you know. The corrections in the log will point you at the proper values....
The tune I was loading when it all went kerblooie was iteration #26 overall of tuning to my new engine, and about #4 of tuning back out the adjustments made compensating for a then-unknown new crack in the ProAlloyUK intercooler's outlet pipe. The thing worked great, but the build quality could have considered that it was not an FMIC connected to the engine by nice rubber hoses, but bolted directly to a rather NVH-prone 4-banger. The pipe was 2mm aluminium, when it shouldhave been 3 or even 4 to be strong enough....
Rocking Way's GP clone from Niemanns in Norway now. Refactored my Shaker style scoop to work with the new setup....
Well I sure feel like a novice on this platform lol. Using a standalone makes things much easier, since its the same interface, it means that solutions that someone else has implemented on say a Toyota can be leveraged on my Mini. However there are a few hangups, the biggest one is finding the right timing for the car. I'm actively on the hunt for a Stock JCW tune file in some form of human readable format so I can know what the stock fuel and timing are set to.
I can manually tune those things, but without any starting point it will be a very long and difficult process.
I have a GP 1 tune for the later Siemens ECU which may help, in Bytetronik format. Another "burned by Bytetronik" guy shared a decent pile of info, and I glommed onto it to see if it made any sense for updating settings on the older ECU's tables, before running into the bricked-ECU wall. I could dig through the settings and screenshot the ignition timing tables if you think it'd be a help....
I have a GP 1 tune for the later Siemens ECU which may help, in Bytetronik format. Another "burned by Bytetronik" guy shared a decent pile of info, and I glommed onto it to see if it made any sense for updating settings on the older ECU's tables, before running into the bricked-ECU wall. I could dig through the settings and screenshot the ignition timing tables if you think it'd be a help....
ECU is unbricked. Can take my time with the ECU Master switch-over....
I have a GP 1 tune for the later Siemens ECU which may help, in Bytetronik format. Another "burned by Bytetronik" guy shared a decent pile of info, and I glommed onto it to see if it made any sense for updating settings on the older ECU's tables, before running into the bricked-ECU wall. I could dig through the settings and screenshot the ignition timing tables if you think it'd be a help....
I actually do think that would help alot. I've been at a standstill with dialing the timing in because i dont even know what a safe timing range is for this car. Seeing what was done on the GP1 would be really helpful.
Honestly any info you have is useful, i'll send you a DM.
I actually do think that would help alot. I've been at a standstill with dialing the timing in because i dont even know what a safe timing range is for this car. Seeing what was done on the GP1 would be really helpful.
Cool, will get those together asap. I am running the old original JCW dealer kit tune, scaled for 550s. Have modified fuel tables so it plays nicer with the TVS900,and it is working decently. Need to recalibrate my O2 so I can dial it in better now that the intercooler with the crack is out of the picture.
Originally Posted by junits15
Honestly any info you have is useful, i'll send you a DM.
You got it, as soon as I can sneak away from work to do the screenshots.
Originally Posted by junits15
Also good to hear you got your ECU unbricked!
Thanks! Bytetronik came through and solved it with a nice restore file to flash that fixed my screwed up data, and after that, a tune flash, and a quick immo re-sync, it was back up and running....
Last edited by joe_bfstplk; Sep 12, 2025 at 03:43 PM.
Haven't updated this thread in a while:
Not a whole ton going on really though, I've got the tune pretty well dialed in, still have trouble with hot starts but that's next on my list of things to get to. I ended up turning up the timing a little bit, I'm running 20 degrees from about 3k-4.5k then ramping up to 24 degrees by redline. Car pulls pretty nicely without knock, I don't know if its MBT or not but it feels good and from what my research suggests its not anywhere near the maximum timing people run on these cars. I think for now, its a safe and good timing curve. Adding the WMI spray in keeps the IAT nice and cool and definitely makes the car pull harder.
The next step would be to find a dyno and spend some time dialing in the timing correctly for both93 and 93+WMI. Thats definitely a low priority item.
What I'm going to do next is try and get the hot start working better, the car will crank right up from cold but when its hot it turns over a lot before it finally kind of sputters to life. Tells me it isn't a hardware issue or else it would be happening all the time. Other than that the car's been really nice lately. Very well sorted, driving nicely, good handling, brakes feel good, no new coolant leaks. I'm very happy with it!
I did make this rear seat delete which is where i mounted the WMI tank and filter:
You can see I also added a vent line on the top, this keeps the harmful methanol fumes outside of the car. Especially on warm days there's no fumes at all in the cabin, methanol is easily detectable even in small quantities.
The rear seat delete is just a piece of plywood, cut into the right shape and covered in carpet. Its wedged under the factory seat hold-downs and then affixed to the front edge with M10 bolts and rivserts. Its completely removeable and rear seats can be re-installed if I ever desire. Its really nice, lets me really haul alot around in this tiny car. I recently used it to move a 15 gallon air compressor.
I can easily put 8’ 2x4s in our R50… For track events I have put 4 tires/wheels in the back of my R56. Ya, great little haulers.
Your hot start problem is interesting. I have the same symptoms on our R50, but only when it is cold after having sat over night. Doubt it is the same issue, but still curious what you find out.
Back in the old carburetor days, your issue might have been caused by flooding out… Just a wild pluck from nowhere.
The Mini went out for an unexpected 180 mile stress test!
My two brothers and I like to a do a little western MA scenic drive around this time every year. Typically I take my S550 mustang, my brother takes his B8 A5, and my other brother takes hisF87 M2. Well as luck would have it, on his way to my house (our meet spot) my brothers charge pipe shattered in the M2. So in a very last minute decision, he took the Mini on the trip. This is 180 miles round trip with a good mix of high speed highway and curvy mountain roads. My brother was not easy on the car either, he was really enjoying the flat foot shift for most of the ride haha.
I'm happy to report the car did great! Pulled the plugs the next day and found they look really good too! No signs of spark knock, looks to be running a touch rich but nothing crazy at all. The WMI was on for the whole ride, he did report some stuttering/misfiring in low RPM high load scenarios. So the spray needs to be reduced in those areas as its obviously injecting too much water there.
Last edited by junits15; Oct 13, 2025 at 08:15 AM.
The Mini went out for an unexpected 180 mile stress test!
My two brothers and I like to a do a little western MA scenic drive around this time every year. Typically I take my S550 mustang, my brother takes his B8 A5, and my other brother takes hisF87 M2. Well as luck would have it, on his way to my house (our meet spot) my brothers charge pipe shattered in the M2. So in a very last minute decision, he took the Mini on the trip. This is 180 miles round trip with a good mix of high speed highway and curvy mountain roads. My brother was not easy on the car either, he was really enjoying the flat foot shift for most of the ride haha.
I'm happy to report the car did great! Pulled the plugs the next day and found they look really good too! No signs of spark knock, looks to be running a touch rich but nothing crazy at all. The WMI was on for the whole ride, he did report some stuttering/misfiring in low RPM high load scenarios. So the spray needs to be reduced in those areas as its obviously injecting too much water there.
Is this setup using the info from the GP spark tables to guide your tune's timing strategy? 🤔
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