Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that if you lower your car and are in need of an alignment, you can safely head to ETD in Wayne NJ for an alignment.

A lot of shops tend to shy away from aligning modified suspensions since it takes more time.

They just ask you what alignment mods you have so they know what they need to adjust. In my case I had front camber plates and adjustable lower rear control arms.

One other thing to mention, if you buy a camber plate with markings, it should make your alignment go faster since the technician will know roughly how much he is adjusting it.

 

Do you know if the R56 Sport Suspension will fit an R52? or just the springs?

Thanks,
Lorin

 

I honestly don't know. I looked at some part #s on Real OEM, but they don't seem to line up, so they're different parts for sure, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't work.

I do recall some people who were selling coilover setups for an R56 saying it would work for an R53 or vice versa. R53 JCWs/R56's do use an adapter for R53 suspension due to the difference in the steel trailing arm and aluminum trailing arm.

Another thing to mention are spring rates. Mini's JCW suspension for the R53 came with different springs. There was one set if you had a solid roof vs. having a sunroof since there was a weight difference. I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make in an R53 with or without a sunroof, but the R56's were a bit heavier than their 1st gen counterparts, so I would imagine the ride could be off.

Having gone through it and reading enough, I wouldn't go with just a strut/spring combo. Being able to dial in your ride height, especially with the bumps/potholes we have in NJ, is clutch. You have control over your ride height, where as you're limited to the static drop of the spring.

Hope that all made sense as I'm exhausted.