Thanks! Glad to hear the felt lasts so long. I hadn't thought of it before, and then I was looking at a felt coaster we have and had an "a ha!" moment. Not sure why car manufacturers use the foam-backed junk.

 

man that looks excellent. never thought of using felt

curious, did you consider alcatera? How does the felt compare to alcatera?

 

Thanks! I did consider alcantara and I like how it looks, but most of what I saw out there was foam backed. The felt is definitely thicker (the stuff I bought is 1.5mm), but it adheres really well and provides some extra sound absorption in the cabin. I also put deadener on the roof side to hopefully quiet some noise at highway speed. The felt does have a bit of a fuzzy look to it, but I kind of like it. Hopefully it will stand up forever, and, judging by what @JerBear says, I think it will.

 

did not realize that alcantara was foam backed. seems like the felt would be lighter and more stretchy. both good for adherence id guess

 

The stuff I saw that was marketed for headliner use was, at least. Alcantara by itself is pretty thin though. Another benefit of the felt is that it doesn't show creases and covers up imperfections nicely.

 

interesting. now i cant understand why more folks dont use felt. seems like its great for this application

 

@ATK666 - Looks fantastic!!
I continue find it ironic how we do think alike! I also chose to recover my headliner in felt about 3 years ago. Found an almost perfect color match to the OEM light grey, purchased from (of all places) Jo Ann fabrics. About as thick as the original foam backed headliner material but stretched and wrapped like a glove. Mine has held up exceptionally well over the years. Even in a hot humid climate of the SE (FL & GA).
I know it's not OEM auto grade but I also didn't care for the look and feel of some of the auto headliner fabrics samples I looked at especially @$35 - $50/yd.
Your Mini continues to look amazing from all the choices you've made and work you've done

 

good to hear feedback on this. I'm seriously considering felt for the headliner now

 

Not intending to divert or hijack -
There are various grades of felt (from a fabric/craft store), which some have a lower "pyle" / fuzzyness. What I later discovered was; soaking a scrap piece and laying it out flat to dry reduced the fuzzyness and still retained it's "elasticity"...
Scrap pieces of felt mist with water make for a pretty good dust cloth as well!

 

These are my favorite wheel design from mini off the r50! I wish I can find a set and have em on mine. They look so cool and would look even better on an offroad build MINI.

 

yes im thinking less fuzzy is better. i guess thick with less fuzzy would be the best. not even sure thats available

 

One last note from me on fuzzy felt -
I did find some perfect, low pyle/less fuzzy felt at a fabric store called Boca Bragoons in Winter Park Fl. That felt was very much like what you'd see on a pool table. Super durable, yet a little thinner - They just didn't have the color I was hoping to match to Mini light grey (OEM).

 

I'm curious as to why you put the sound deadening material on the headliner and not on the underside of the roof? Seems like you want stop the vibration in the sheet metal and therefore the deadening material wouldn't do its job on the headliner. It must have made the headliner much heavier?

Also, I've watched videos of felt hats, including cowboy hats, being constructed and saw them us a torch (propane?) to get rid of the fuzziness in the felt that happens from manipulating the material. Just a quick sweep over the surface to burn off the stray strand.

 

say here2go, excellent thought, pool table felt!

rudejoe, might be on to something with the torch idea. worth testing

 

Thanks!

 

There's not a lot of room to put sound deadening on the roof due to the sunroof cassette. An adhesive-backed foam may have been better in this application (like a Noico product) because it's lighter, but I had plenty of the deadening mat left over and my calculation is that anything would be better than nothing. Yes, it makes the headliner a bit heavier, but this doesn't affect the way it installs or fits. It's hard to gauge because I've added a lot of sound deadening elsewhere recently, but overall the car is much quieter and feels more civilized. I use it mainly as a GT-type car for road tripping. I was very envious of how stone quiet my wife's G21 BMW is and wanted to make the MINI more livable. I figure I've added maybe 30 lbs of weight back into the car, but I'd also reduced much more than that by removing the rear seats, lighter wheels, aluminum trailing arms, carbon-fiber hood, etc.

 

Yeah, I'm kicking myself now that I actually gave those wheels away for free.

 

That’s a bummer. I kept mine and mounted my winter tires on them. The only problem with the R81 holies is that they’re really narrow.

 

Almost as interesting; as I have come across those wheels ("holies") a couple of times during my salvage yard excursions while in GA. ' never gave them much thought or even a second look... which seems too bad - having now read how much they are liked by some Mini enthusiasts.

 

they'd be bad *** in 17in / wider (holies)

 

Did a bit of work this weekend. I've been going between Phoenix and LA a lot and the car droned like hell cruising at ~85 mph/4K rpm. I've got the Borla cat-back bolted to the Milltek 4-2-1 headers. On YouTube I saw a video about a baffle system from a company called Car Chemistry. Intended to be a substitute for mufflers on hot rods where there's no room for a muffler, or a muffler would look ugly, this baffle slips inside the exhaust and is basically a perforated tube held in place with three perforated discs. It works. I pulled the exhaust and inserted the baffle after the resonator but before the muffler, and if I want to remove it, all I have to do is undo a clamp. I cleaned everything up and re-wrapped the exhaust while it was out of the car.

I also replaced the rear subframe. The original subframe was 20 years old and very corroded from Canadian winters earlier in its life. While I had everything out I sanded and repainted the upper control arms (stock), readjusted my rear camber, and applied soundproofing in areas that were previously inaccessible.

And lastly, I installed the M7 under strut system. After years of pulling into a driveway with a rolled curb, I think my car's torsional rigidity has taken a bit of a hit (my sunroof has been making an odd creaking noise, and I think it's related). We'll see. Installation went smoothly except for installation of two M10 rivet nuts. The M7 instructions say to place a washer over the nut, so there will be a washer between the body of the car and the lip of the nut, but this prevents the nut from biting into the body. After wrecking two nuts attempting installation with the tool M7 provides, I bought a nut installer off Amazon for $40 (the "hedge trimmer" style) and, without the washers, the nuts installed smoothly and are holding nice and tight.

Oh, and I changed the oil.

Some random shots below.

That's all for now. 😄

 

This is how the car sits on the new coilovers. I think it looks pretty good. No rubbing, but I did have to remove the rear 10mm wheel spacers. I kept the front 10mm spacers and, surprisingly, the front and rear track widths are now identical.

 

looking sharp Sir. I like that ride height. Are those rims 17 inch?

 

Thanks! Yes, they're 17" OZ Alleggeritas. They're light as heck!

 

Looking good man. I run a 20mm spacer on the front and a 15mm on the rear. The rear sticks out just a bit more than the front on mine but not enough for me to buy more spacers. It did rub but a pair of adjustable lower control arms fixed that.