Hey there R56ers!

On Monday I had my first opportunity to bring Astro, my R56 MCS to Gingerman Raceway. I've always liked Gingerman for it's interesting combination of corner styles, lots of run-off area, and beautiful farmland setting in western Michigan. I've had my R53 there several times, in "pretty much stock" trim to "lots of bolt ons" to "turbo-only w/ R-compound tires". This was the first time I've had my R56 on the track, and really the first time I've pushed the car to its limits.

Astro is a February build Cooper S with the following performance items:
*factory LSD
*Hoosier RS304's in 205/45-16 on stock bridge spokes
*custom-fabricated 3" turbo-back exhaust with "race" catalytic converter
*K&N rx-4990 air filter clamped to MAF
*H&R sport springs, with 1 turn cut off the rear dead coils
*Rear seat backs, bottom, and seatbelts removed for weight savings

The track day was sponsored by MichiganMINI.org, and subsequently there were lots of MINI's on the track with me. I was the only R56 on the track, however there were 2 others there to spectate. The R53's that were there ranged from Chad of Detroit Tuned's test mule to Minzila's club-spec racer to MOTORN's GP and many other members with a healthy dose of bolt-on parts like s/c pulleys and CAI's and exhausts.

The first few sessions I was learning the track again. This was the first time I've run the Hoosiers, and while they did take a full 2 laps to get up to temperature, they do offer unbelievable grip!

The first thing I noticed with the R56 was how neutral, balanced, and adjustable it was in the corners. No matter the corner style; sharp 90 degree, full throttle sweeper, off camber double apex, the car was always neutral and very confident feeling. If I came into the corner too hot, a tiny bit of throttle reduction would rotate the car back into the desired line and then it was pedal down to the floor, the LSD would pull the car through the rest of the corner to my exit spot. I'm truly impressed with the balance of the R56. With the standard suspension and the H&R springs, the car has essentially no understeer or oversteer. Of course you can induce either, which makes mid corner correction so easy. Through the corners, it was very easy for me to be quicker than the R53s due to the awesome neutrality and adjustability. All that said, the car has some massive body roll compared to the R53's, WOW! That body roll however is attributed to stock puny swaybars and the H&R springs which are basically the stock rates.

The power band was the next big point; and what a power band it is! With my R53, I used 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears. With the R56, there's no need for 2nd gear, and the massive torque of the turbo engine means I was using only 3rd and 4th gear [and the fact the torque falls off at higher RPM, not to mention the boost controller limits boost when you slam the throttle down at 6k rpm]. Those two gears were perfectly suited for the power and the track. At the back straight [which is the longest of the 2 straights], I was coming very close to reaching redline in 4th. I was reaching higher speeds on the straights than the R53's. Very impressive. All those whiners that are claiming torque doesn't haul the cookies are just BS'ing.

The brakes, ok...the brakes need some work. Yes they are better than the R53's stock brakes. I was taking it easy most of the day in the braking zones; letting off the throttle early, braking early and braking light. I was doing this primarily because my friend in his GP said it's very easy to cook the JCW brakes, which are essentially the R56 MCS's front brakes. The last session of the day however, I drove normally. Full throttle right until the 1st marker, then cram on the brakes, corner after corner, lap after lap. I came in after 15 minutes of our 20 minute sessions because I could feel some fade. As I was parking, all eyes were on my front wheels as the brakes were smoking like a BBQ! They were toast! It took about 45 minutes for them to cool down so I could take off the Hoosiers, and thankfully the pads didn't fuse to the rotors. If there's one performance aspect of the R56 that needs work, it's the brakes! Thumbs down there!

On the inside of the car, things were about as uncomposed as the brakes. I'm not a big guy, and I was holding on for dear life within these vast plains MINI is calling seats. Way too wide, and way too shallow, the sport seats are no good for racetrack work. The R53 has the upper hand here; at least it wasn't madatory to change those sport seats! A few pluses however of the interior. The steering wheel feels good in my hands, and the shifter and pedals have good placement and are very easy to use. I guess the only issue I have in the interior is the seats lack racetrack support. Then again, keep in mind I'm used to Sparco's that are fit to my size.

As for other cars on the track; I had one instructor in a Boxster S comments that he "couldn't keep up with that black MINI!", I passed an Acura NSX, a C5 Corvette, several E36 //M3's, and lots of R53 MINI's. The only guy on track that was giving me a run for my money was an instructor that has a modded R53, and he knows the track way better than I do, it's his job!


My Summary:
*Suspension: Thumbs up, and with firmer everything, could be a serious danger to 911 GT3's out there, seriously. Factory alignment is spot on, IMO
*Powertrain: Wide and massive torque, doesn't give up at the top of the RPM band as much as the supercharged guys want you to believe. Transparent transmission and clutch. Absolutely no turbo lag for track work [over 4k RPM]. Had a few misfires it seemed but cleaned up as the day wore on. Not sure what's going on there.
*Brakes: Marginal when you drive the car hard. I'll be investigating a brake kit like TCE's 13" BBK, which is lighter than stock and will provide a good selection of pad compounds.
*Interior: It'll be tough to replace the seats without having the whole airbag system have a seizure. Between the thorax bags and the occupant detectors, there will be some tricking involved to get race seats in the car and maintain the front and head curtain bags. A harness bar would be good too for some quality 4 point harnesses, as the stock 3 points of course aren't good enough.

If you want to check out my gallery for the track day, it's on MMMC

Cheers,
Ryan

 

Here are a few pictures

 

noticed a gp, how did that do up against the r56?

 

good driver > good car any day of the week.

nice writeup!

 

You have those fancy 17" wheels, but you used 16s for your track tires? I'm curious about that because the comments I always hear are that the shorter side walls of the 17s provide better road feel, and that the taller side walls of the 16s can "roll under" in hard cornering (i'm sure you were running air pressure that would not allow that).

Is somebody finally willing to say the Emperor's got no clothes? Are 17s and 18s primarily for the looks?

 

Great write-up. Gingerman is a fun track. When I was in MI I did Grattan 90% of the time because it was only 15 minutes from me but I always enjoyed Gingerman. Thanks for the info.

 

Nicely done Ryephile.

 

Great info. You are getting this Mini newb excited (mine should be here in a couple weeks).

I've run plenty of laps at Gingerman in my last 3 cars and can't wait to take out the Mini.

Do you by chance have any ballpark lap time estimates? I'm just curious as to what these little guys can do.

Plus, were you on stock/pads and fluid?

I'll have to keep on eye out for Michiganmini events(any Grattan events?)-I'd love to join in the fun

 

--->justintime: The GP didn't seem to have the pace of my R56, especially noticable on the straighaways. That said the GP was running Kumho MX's so I wouldn't expect a fair comparison in cornering.

--->PGT: Agreed!

--->lava: Actually I have 18's for the street. I only ran my 16's because I had a set of 16" Hoosiers laying around and decided to mount them on the stock 16" wheels. There is definitely a benefit to lower profile, but being the Hoosiers were 205/45-16, their profile is already short, and their overall height being 1" shorter than stock helped the gearing and Cg immensely too! You can't get an 18" tire that's only 23.2" tall. With my R53, I ran 225/40-18's on the track, but I had to carve out my wheelwells to do it.

--->velocimini: Yes I was running stock pads and fluid. I can only guess at my laptime. For the last session I reset my average speed and fuel consumption as I was leaving pit lane. After the 15 minutes I was on track, I noted the figures when I was in the pit entrance. 8.9 MPG and 69.0 MPH. For a track of 1.88 miles, that equates into a 1 min 38 sec lap. I haven't converted for tire diameter difference, or the racing line versus measured line, so that estimated lap avg. is very very rough. I'd imagine the racing line would more than account for the 96% difference in tire diamter, so I'd expect actual lap times to be less than the 1:38.

Here's a site I found showing Car & Driver magazines track times, wish a selection at Gingerman. Seems I'm right there with the other cars on the track that I was giving a hard time, so it makes sense to me.

 

Do you think a change in brake pads and fluid would help (IE, Hawk HPS pads) with your cooking problem, or should we plan on upgrading the brakes in the R56 if we plan on some serious track days?

 

thanks for the clarification. Sounds almost autocrossish with the small dia.

 

So Ryan I assume the car handled Gingerman better than the Dragon Nice pics BTW!

 

Great write-up! It sounds like the R56 has a LOT of potential. With a proper suspension setup in there, your car will definitely do DAMAGE!

 

Excellent writeup, Ryephile!

 

1:38s are pretty fast at Gingerman-congratulations-you need a car and a driver to do that

I will definitely report back once I get "mini-mite" (my 7 and 4 year old daughters named him ) to Gingerman, Grattan, and Mid Ohio.

Look forward to hot lapping with other Minis

 

Changing the pads to, for example, a Ferodo 2500 would definitely help, but ultimately a Big-Brake Kit with more stopping power, dedicated pad compounds for track, and better heat dissipation would be the ticket if you plan on tracking your R56 regularly.

--->Klasse Act: Yes, the car handles much better on race tires than on street tires!

I feel after this track session the R56 has lots of track potential; even more than the R53 did, and that's a track terror in itself! I should find a dual-timer stopwatch next time I go to the track so I can get reasonably accurate lap times. Nevertheless, I think that those that track their R56 will not be dissappointed!

 

Ryephile,

big sways next?

Mark

 

Did I miss some account of your experience on the Dragon? Love to read it if there is a link?

 

--->mgibrace: No big sways aren't on the list for a long time. The first thing that needs attention is the brakes.

--->lava: No I didn't write any post about my Dragon/R56 impressions, Klasse Act and I talked about it in person. Basically, the R56 is not confidence inspiring in those dangerous twisty mountain roads. It definitely lacks the on-street communication the R53 has in aces. Where the R56 comes alive is on the racetrack, which is kind of unfortunate for most of us that use our R56's as normal commuter cars. I hope there's an easy way to get that visceral communication of the R53 back.

 

from a $ perspective, wouldn't sways cut down lateral weight transfer, thereby allowing better modulated braking? Probably wouldn't make much diff if you're not a trail braker(don't know if this even works for a FWD car). Clearly you need something for the brakes, but wouldn't it be prudent to at least try pads, fluid and some intense ducting or are you too far over the edge with heat production? You did last 15-20 min without too much fade if I read your account correctly. I haven't been under a mcs yet, but there must be available space/something worked out for ducting.

Love to hear your thoughts.

Mark

 

BTW, fast times with old S04's is rocking......

 

I totally disagree. With the 18" OZs and Kumho I was running at the Dragon was more than enough feedback for me to feel completely comfortable. The R56 lacks a little of the R53's steering feel but not anywhere near enough to cause a lack of confidence when entering a blind corner with a sheer cliff on the other side

Based on my experience at the track in the R56, I would agree that it is easily faster out if the box than the previous MCS.

 

Ryephile .. Thanks! It's really good to see a balanced, un-biased write-up on the performance aspects of the R56. And it's well written .. Clear .. Concise .. and to the point. If everyone could shuck their emotions and write as objectively as you we could probably merge the R53/R56 forums. I'd really like to see that but, unfortunately, the C4s of the world would more than likely rear their ugly heads and ruin it for everyone.

If objective writing such as the following could be discussed without bias on a merged forum, I would imagine we'd see comments that would be useful for us all. I'd love to see comments from both sides on the 1st paragraph below and to hear from people on how they addressed or worked around issues such as is discussed in the 2nd paragraph below.

Here are a couple of examples of what I'm talking about:

"The power band was the next big point; and what a power band it is! With my R53, I used 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears. With the R56, there's no need for 2nd gear, and the massive torque of the turbo engine means I was using only 3rd and 4th gear [and the fact the torque falls off at higher RPM, not to mention the boost controller limits boost when you slam the throttle down at 6k rpm]. Those two gears were perfectly suited for the power and the track. At the back straight [which is the longest of the 2 straights], I was coming very close to reaching redline in 4th. I was reaching higher speeds on the straights than the R53's. Very impressive. All those whiners that are claiming torque doesn't haul the cookies are just BS'ing."

and

"No I didn't write any post about my Dragon/R56 impressions, Klasse Act and I talked about it in person. Basically, the R56 is not confidence inspiring in those dangerous twisty mountain roads. It definitely lacks the on-street communication the R53 has in aces. Where the R56 comes alive is on the racetrack, which is kind of unfortunate for most of us that use our R56's as normal commuter cars. I hope there's an easy way to get that visceral communication of the R53 back."

P.S. Do you write for a living? Are you associated with any of the car magazines. If not, you should.

 

[quote=Gabe;1542899]The R56 lacks a little of the R53's steering feel but not anywhere near enough to cause a lack of confidence when entering a blind corner with a sheer cliff on the other side /quote]

Gabe, you just reinforced my perspective. That little bit of steering feel loss translates into a little bit less confidence. Keep in mind my old R53 was highly modified; and it spoke to me clearly at all times whereas this basically stock R56 only seems to speak clearly during 10/10ths driving. It's good to hear the R56 works for you, but I've been pretty spoiled over the years to know the R56 isn't as good as it could be.


--->Ken: Thank you for the compliments! I don't write professionally, but I do enjoy writing!

Cheers,
Ryan

 

Nice write up and pics Ryan. Gingerman looks like a killer track.

You had run the track in your R53 right? Have you ever logged your lap times? (pardon me if I missed it somewhere in the earier posts). It would be interesting to compare the two cars.