So, on April 29th I went to Watkins Glen for a HPDE put on by the Genesee Valley BMW club. I did a one day Novice class, and had 3 sessions on track with an instructor on board. Total track time was about 70 minutes, not counting the instructor taking me around in his M3.

Here are some of the things that I learned:

1. The MINI is at home on the track. The car handled all the stupid things that I did and didn't bite me or allow me to get in trouble. The car is quick and it felt pretty good not waving anyone by until about 5 minutes left in the last session.

2. Brakes that are awesome on the street aren't good enough for the track. I had a fresh set of EBC reds and new (smooth) rotors. I drove them about 400 miles, then bedded them, then had another 200 miles before I made it to the track. After the first session, I boiled the fluid (fresh wilwood 600 degree), and burnt the paint off the back of the front pads. The front calipers had a new heat treating color pattern to them (old corroded stock MCS calipers) My pedal was really long but consistent. Unfortunately my braking points weren't..... Kinda wish I had slotted or dimpled rotors.

3. The BMW club is really good at putting this on. The instructor was calm and helpful, and we had a communication headset. If you are near The Glen, check them out at

http://www.gvc-bmwcca.org/Whats_New_...DrivingSchools

They also are doing events at Mosport if you are closer to Toronto.

4. Aftermarket parts aren't bulletproof. Leave plenty of time to repair stuff on your car. Here is what I found:
- I wanted to install new bump stops (mine got damaged). I found that my strut mounts were trashed and the left front was loose. The bearings in the strut mounts were very sloppy and rough.
- When I installed new strut mounts, I had the car aligned and had to put the old bump stops on. The fat cat motorsports mounts were fully bottomed on the TSW springs that I had.
- At the track, before the first session, there was oil behind the left front wheel. The adjuster on top of the koni was gone, and the strut mount was filled with oil. No significant damping on the left front (tested via the bounce test).
- When I got home I pulled off the Koni to put the stock shocks and springs back on, and found that the left front strut mount got trashed. The rubber was torn.
All told, 10 days wasn't enough to check the car, get replacement parts, and get it all back together.
BTW, plugs looked OK, and the carbon buildup was almost non-existent in the ports.

5. I now fully understand what an Italian Tune Up is. And it works on the MINI. The first session I was getting a high RPM miss occasionally, which was accompanied by a puff of smoke. After this happened about 5 or 6 times, the car ran flawless.

6. Dont be afraid to take an automatic to the track. I just left it in drive and sport mode. It sounds really uncomfortable to have the car downshift when you come out of a corner at 4500 rpm, but the car did great.

I'm sure that I have more things that I'll add later. For me this was a bucket list item, not something that I have to do on a regular basis. It is nice not having timing on the track, so that I didn't focus on anything but listening and learning. It was pretty cool getting a wave by from an ATS V-sport, A6, and an M3. Go MINI, Go.

Have fun,
Mike

 

Sounds like you had fun and more importantly, got to bond with the car a little more. I'm not sure if I'll track my R53 yet or not. I do like hearing that auto x and HPDE can help you generally drive better but I'm still tossing the idea around in the noggin.

 

Nice feedback. Thanks.

 

Awesome, Mike! Looks like you had fun out there and learned a lot. HPDE events are really great and I think everyone should experience it at least once. For brake fluid suggestion, I run Ate Typ200 (I track often) and highly recommend it. Brakes are important as depending on your set up it really determines where you have to put your braking points. I remember being out at ACS here in CA and coming off the bank at 145MPH and not having enough pad to stop me at the point at which I wanted to brake. Had to push it back a bit because I didn't have the bite I needed. Anyways, glad you got to experience this and maybe you'll do it again one day.

http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/...er=706232-GOLD

 

nice review! usually I take my evo out for track days, but hearing that makes me wish I had an S! The base Cooper I think would just be way, way too slow.

 

Sounds like you had a great time. Cool! I just wanted to make some comments about the brakes.

Those pads are more street than track pads (I am sure you know that.) I've never heard of waiting to bed in brakes. Was there a reason for not bedding them as soon as they were installed? I wonder if delaying the bed in process had anything to do with their performance.

I am surprised the fluid boiled. Did you have any aids on that use the brakes such as stability control? Those would tax the brakes even more.

 

^ good point about the brakes, that's odd for fresh fluid, etc. wonder if the pads were dragging or something

 

Mike,
Glad to hear that you had a good time at WGI

That is an event that I usually do but missed it this year. GVC is a great group to learn from.

Yes, the MINI is a great track car, especially for a beginner. But I also know of a person who runs very quick times around WGI in a stock base Cooper in the advance group.

As for the brakes, did the brake pedal go to the floor? Or did it just get soft and go down further than you expected? The Wilwood brake fluid is really good and I have never had problems with it. The problem that I have had with the stock brakes is that the calipers heat soak over time and they they go soft.

Better brake pads are also needed. If you are going to do this in the future you need a full race pad. Not a street-track pad. WGI toast a set of those in no time. My favorite for the MINI is the Carbotech XP10s. Hawk DTC30 might also work.

 

Nice write-up Mike. Thanks!

 

EBC recommended running the pads for a few hundred miles before bedding.

The pedal didn't go to the floor, but did drop an inch to two. The pedal remained consistent for the last two sessions. When bleeding I got a few significant bubbles from each front.

I did keep DSC on throughout the day.

I didn't want to run track pads or alignment, since this is my daily driver.

But I did want to post this so that others may want to think about their brakes if going out.

Have fun,
Mike

 

Not sure what there is about EBC brake pads that is different from others, but generally you bed pads in when you put them in. Do they have some sort of coating on them that is supposed to help bed them in?

Have you pulled the dust shields from the back of your brakes? That can help with cooling the brakes and may cut down some of your soft pedal issues. Getting air out could be from multiple causes. It is good you checked and that it improved things. Nice catch there.

As for pads, I look at them as a safety issue. The stock pads are likely fine for anyone's first, second and maybe third event, but after that I would consider the track pads a a priority. It takes me less than 30 minutes to change the front pads on the stock MINI brakes. When I had the stock brakes I would put the track pads the day before an event or at the event and take them out the day after. There is a "cheat" method that I use to change the pads. Please consider this. Also, you will learn better with the right equipment and you won't have to worry about brakes fading out when you need them the most.

As for alignment, unless you plan to make some radical suspension mods, the stock settings are fine.

DSC - on - check
This may be the difference in being able to drive your car home and it going to the junkyard. Leave it on. If you are driving right it won't be coming on.

Are you thinking of doing the GVC June event? It would be great to meet up

 

Yeah, the EBC pads have a coating on them to scrub the rotors clean.

Dust shields are removed.

I'm not planning on doing any more track days. My ability to focus for several laps does not exist. I'd be happy to meet up some time.

I agree that changing pads is easy, but I'm just trying to document what I experienced.

Have fun,
Mike

 

Mike,
You seemed to have had a grand time at your first track event and it is great post of a group that I think does fantastic job of putting on these events. Your observations from your experience as new student and car prep are valuable to any other new student.

Glad it all went well for you.

And to steal from your first post:
Go MINI, Go.

Have fun

 

Great information, thanks for sharing. Please post some pix of your car

 

One more thing that was interesting was that I got about 3 ounces of liquid from my catch can. It was mostly oil (usually it is only about 20% oil). It was about 55 degrees that day. I haven't been getting much out of the occ since I removed the plug from the passenger side port.

And somehow I only got about 10 mpg on that tank.......

Have fun,
Mike

 

Better than most.

 

I don't think that dimpled or slotted rotors would help the brakes much. Those don't actually have a lot of effect on cooling, in fact. The major things to improve your brakes would be:
- Getting air to them. Anything from scoops on the suspension arms that divert air toward the rotor, to actual brake ducting kits, will help a lot.
- Fresh brake fluid, as in no more than a week or two out of a factory sealed container.
- Fresh thick brake pads. More pad material serves as a bit of insulation.

And finally: Learn to brake less. Usually braking harder for a shorter distance, and slowing down less, will help keep the brakes from getting too hot.

I boiled the **** out of my brakes (in my "other car") my first track day by basically violating all of the above.

DSC is nice, but it can help you to learn bad habits. It is generally better to turn it off, and learn to approach the limits gradually. With the DSC on, it is a lot easier to go pst your limits and then count on the car to save you...

 

still very strange to me how you could boil fresh wildwood brake fluid. my pedal on the evo got a little soft one run on 3 year old fluid but never got worse than that.

 

First I should say that WGI is a killer of brakes. Almost all of the braking zones are down hill. The heat generated is tremendous and there is little time to get rid of that heat

There are various things that could have happened to the OP. I take what he said as his pedal got soft. This can be caused by boiling- I recently learned from a track instructor that this can happen without the pedal going to the floor. The MINI calipers will absorb a lot of heat and they do have steel pistons that will suck heat into the fluid. Could it get to ~600 deg that the Wilwood boils at? Possibly. The other thing that could happen is the flexible rubber brake lines can become soft with the heat and/or there could have been some residual moisture in the fluid after bleeding.

I will say that I have had similar issues with the stock S brakes. Can't say that I could trace the cause to anything specific. I always bleed the brakes within a week of an event with fluid from a fresh can. I agree with Slave to Felines and will add that increased rotor mass to help with this too, if you can.

I believe the OP did well to bring this issue up.

 

When bleeding after the event, I got three pea sized bubbles out of the left front and one out of the right front. The brakes came back to normal after bleeding. I've got SS brake hoses also. The pedal was very soft until about 1/2 travel, then felt rock hard and braking was moderate. not confidence inspiring, but stayed consistent for the last two sessions. Both fronts got hot enough to burn all red paint off the backing plate on the pads, and the left front calipet got hot enough that it is now rusting.

Again, not trying to stir up people or say there was (or wasn't) a problem with my car. I'm just trying to let others know what I found.

If I was doing it again, I would probably pick a higher temp pad and maybe think of a duct.

Have fun
Mike

 

Mike,
It is good to point out things for people to watch for at an event like this.

You also make a good point by noting that if this does happen (pedal get soft), it is simple to bleed the brakes at the event and see how things work. It is one of those things you need to bring to an event - brake fluid and a piece of hose. The great thing about these events is there are always people willing to help.