Hello Everyone!

We picked up our new mini earlier this week and have been busy working on it ever since! Man, I love this car!! It is just SO fun to drive as well as personalize!

We changed to wheels a couple of days ago and I think the Oz Ultraleggeras that we decided to go with look great on the car! We added the Alta intake yesterday and just finished lowering the car as well. I have the sport suspension so we ended up going with the H&R springs.

I got 18" wheels and I thought the ride was pretty good to begin with. However, with the H&R springs on the sport suspension, it's SO smooth! I can't believe that the ride is even BETTER now! I'm really glad we decided to go this route.

While we were lowering the car, we also put in the new rear sway bar (19mm). I think the next step is going to be the Alta catback exhaust and I would love to put a big brake kit on it as well. It's going to get tinted on Monday so I'll take some new photos after a while

Here are some photos of the car before we lowered it...




And here are a few photos of it from today after it was lowered and had a fresh wash too!








Thanks,
Celia

 

Sweet looking cooper. Did you get runflats or regular tires? I have heard you need to have a mild lower with ultraleggras due to the back spacing causing issues with rubbing...

What is your take?

 

Well, that didn't take long to get started!

Looks great! The Ultraleggeras are one of my favorites.

 

going4speed - I read the same thing about the Ultraleggeras. We lowered the car 1.5" which I believe is considered a mild drop on a R56 so I can't really tell you. I haven't experienced any problems with rubbing so far and we drove it around quite a bit today. We went with regular tires on the Ultraleggeras since the runflats are so expensive, not to mention the rougher ride. I just carry a can of Fix-a-Flat in the car.

nicknbecka - My Mini came pretty quickly (4.5 weeks!) but that still gave me that much time to plan what I wanted to do to the car once we got our hands on it! And trust me, we did a LOT of planning LOL. I started ordering stuff about 1 to 2 weeks before the car arrived. I'm still waiting on a few parts to come in so I guess I really could have ordered them when we put in the order for the car! I am an extremely impatient individual LOL

 

very VERY nice looking cooper. my hypersport DS/B is on its way and now that ive seen yours lowered that is defn on my list now!
I also see in your signature that you have painted arches. I would love to see pics of that

 

Interesting. Lowered it appears to sit at nearly the stock height of an R53.

 

Now you just need to paint those arches

 

If that is actually Fix-a-Flat brand, what do you think of the claims that it ruins the tire and is difficult to clean off the wheel? There have been posts here claiming that some tire shops wont repair a tire that has had Fix-a-Flat used in it. They recommend Slime instead.

 

VERY nice looking MCS!

I just put my Alta intake and turbo inlet hose (pipe, whatever) on today (absolutely LOVE the wooshing noise of the turbo that you hear now BTW), the Alta catback is going on tomorrow, and my H&Rs are going in on Monday!

Interesting to hear that your ride is actually BETTER with the H&Rs and 18s than it was stock. That's good to know!

 

Very nice!

 

Looks good. Does your flat tire indication stay on all the time or did you put the TPMS sensors and valve stems in?

 

Thanks for the comments everyone!

I can't wait to get my painted fenders in. We ordered them from Way Motorworks. We talked to him a few days ago and he said that he has all the fenders in and will be painting them soon. I'm hoping to get them in at the end of this coming week or beginning of the following week.


I actually couldn't find Slime at our local autoparts store so we went ahead and just bought Fix-a-Flat brand stuff for now. I'd rather be carrying around something temporarily until I'm able to get ahold of some Slime (I'll probably get some tomorrow).


I agree - I LOVE the whooshing noise! I would say that the ride is definitely, without a doubt, better with on the 18s with the H&Rs. I had the 18s on for a short while before we put on the H&Rs so I did ride around on the larger wheels with the factory suspension. I wouldn't say that the ride was bad at all with the factory suspension on the 18s. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't much rougher than on the 16 bridgespokes that came standard. However, the H&R just made it so much smoother - I love it!


We didn't bother with the sensors so the light stays on. It's really not a big deal. When you first start the car up, it does alert you about the sensor and flashes but after you've had the car on for a few minutes, the light stops flashing and it just stays on.

 

There's a lot of confusion about the difference in height between the R53 and the R56. Although it LOOKS higher because of the height of the windows, overall it is:

1st Gen:
Overall Length: 3626mm
Overall Width: 1925mm (across mirrors) 1688mm (across body shell)
Overall Height: 1413mm

2nd Gen:
Overall Length: 3699mm
Overall Width: 1912mm (across mirrors) 1683mm (across body shell)
Overall Height: 1407mm

Overall dimensions are actually very similar.

 

I think the reference was to the fact that even after adding lowering springs to the R56, the wheelwell gap is still pretty close to how R53s are stock. Those 18s are probably a tad smaller than stock O.D., but yeah, the car does not appear slammed. Which, IMO, is a good thing; that's perfect stance is you ask me....

 

I agree...I really like the wheel gap distance it's at right now. I wouldn't want a slammed Mini with the way the roads are around here! I would easily completely rip up the underside of my Mini that way...

 

Beautiful car and great job making it even nicer...

Makes me wish I'd gone 18" with my OZ ULs...

Maybe I'll rethink the springs...

Best of luck with it.

 

Celia, looks very nice.

What size tyres are you running?

 

Well, you could always sell the 17" and get the 18"s


Thank you! The tires are 205/40/18 Yokohama S drive XL

 

Wow! I love those black rims. Your car better not be parked outside at night! =)

 

Thanks for the compliment! Being that your in California and I'm in Louisiana, gives me a little bit of comfort so that I can sleep at night. BUT, I think I might still set my two dobermans on "guard mode" and have them sleep next to the Mini anyways

 

If I'm not mistaken, you got the pacific blue color line inside the mini?

Would you mind taking a picture of that (or several) and posting them?

Much appreciated .. and congrats (I love blue/black contrast!).

~jproz

 

Your gallery has em .. thanks.

 

I snapped a couple of new photos for you anyways. I took these tonight so they are kind of dark but you can see how it looks during the day vs. at night.