Today was my first longer drive in my R59s and I'm totally in love. I've owned much more powerful, much faster cars, and thinly veiled race cars with license plates. None have given me the joy of the short wheelbase mini has.

In particular, I love that when driven "race car" hard, at the Limit, you can steer with the throttle by lifting to rotate and pressing to widen the turn, it's amazing fun! I've never had a FWD car that does that so well. This was stock MCS suspension, 17x7s, and Continental Contisportcontact 3 SSRs, stock alignment, 42psi.

Im planning on adding TSW springs, and ultimately setting g alignment to front -1.5 and rear -1.0.

With that setup will the car still steer on throttle and just raise the limit of doing so or am I going to upset the balance I'm loving so much for a higher ultimate limit?

pic from today:

 

Nice shots! You might get a little less throttle steer when you lower it.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...que-steer.html

There was also a flash for this, which should have fixed most of it.

http://www.motoringfile.com/2010/10/...steer-fix-r56/

 

You should be fine with those settings but to get -1.5 up front you'll may have to remove the little white locking pin at the top of the front struts. Super easy to do before the alignment. You can also upgrade the rear sway bar to a Hotchkis 25mm hollow sport bar. It has three adjustment positions that let you dial in how the rear behaves. Adjustments to the bar will not effect the alignment. You can also install adjustable lower link arms in the rear for greater camber adjustability. I'm currently running -2 all around with a Hotchkis at the middle setting on Swift lowering springs. Made for a fantastic improvement over stock.

 

Annnnd.... you guys don't chew rubber like mad with this type of camber?

 

I ran -2 f and -1.5 rear on my last turbo fwd car, had no issues with excessive inner tire wear, even with a firm race suspension.

Different platform but doesn't really matter, as long as tires last 8000 miles that's fine, it equates to one year since I split my time between bike and car. Annual tire changes are pretty much the standard in my house, between trackdays, aggressive driving, and high power I often end up doing two sets a year.

 

Camber wears tires out far less than toe.

 

Welcome to the madness of MINIs
Beautiful pictures
These cars are a blast to drive and you must have some great roads around you if you are able to get the car near its limits

As for mods and what they will do to the car, your plan to increase the front camber is probably one of the best. However, the MINI has no front camber adjustment and the stock front alignment is 0 to -0.3 deg (pulling the white pin from the top of the strut tower will only gain you another -0.3). For a street car the best way to get to -1.5 is with IE fixed camber plates (Waymotors carries them). These are based off stock BMW parts and will stand up to the crap of road use and won't add to noise and vibration.

Replace the shocks when you replace the springs. There are a lot of post about how poor (crappy) the stock MINI shocks are. I always thought mine were fine, until I replaced them. Now I wish I had replaced them the day I bought the car. Also, the stock shocks will likely not be a good match to the springs you plan to put in. The Bilstein B8 sports shock is a great choice.

The rear alignment is adjustable for camber. However, I would suggest staying with the stock camber setting (I think it is -1.5) as the rear of the car loses camber under hard braking, trail braking and similar conditions. These cars can snap-oversteer, especially if you add a big rear swaybar.

Not sure exactly how this will change the throttle steering. My guess is it will dampen it a bit. However, the increase in the the car's responsiveness with these changes will be more of a fun factor than any loss in the throttle steering.

Enjoy and let us know what you decide-and more pictures

 

Thanks for the feedback. I think I miss stated what I meant about steering with the throttle, I don't mean torque steer, I mean snap oversteer. When at the limit you can steer the car by lifting and gently inducing some snap oversteer and then control it by slowly rolling on throttle, back and forth and hold it in an oh so fun 4wheel FWD drift, I love it.

Ive actually changed my modification path, I'll be doing motor/turbo parts first, I really like the way the car handles as it sits, so I'm going to think on what's i want to adjust. Suspension will probably end up being KW V1s pairs with an adjustable 19mm rear sway, but I want to sit in a second gen with KW before making my decision.

Really, I'm not interested in build another race car, so I'm very carefully picking what will improve what's already present without introducing any significant NVH issues.

 

No, you and I are on the same page. I am very familiar with throttle steering. One difference, though, is that when I hear the term "snap" oversteer, I think of Porsches punching holes through hedges backwards. None the less, I understand what you are doing. The interesting thing is you are one of the few people to post on NAM who is able to get their car to do that. You didn't, by chance, happen to learn your driving skills on one of the early model 911s?

As for mods, when you consider suspension mods, I would highly encourage you to look into the IE (Ireland Engineering) fixed camber plates. Because they are based on stock BMW parts, they add little to no NVH.

There is a free mod you can make today that you will love. Pop the bonnet open. Look at the top of each strut tower and you should see a white plastic pin sticking up near one of the nuts holding the strut in place. Take pliers and pull the pins out, then, one side at a time, loosen the 3 strut nuts, jack the car up so that front wheel comes off the ground and push the top of the strut inward. It should move about 1/2" (maybe a little less). Tighten the strut nuts. Repeat on the other side. There you have it; a free camber increase to about -0.6 deg that will give you a noticeable improvement in steering crispness. Note, this will add a bit of toe-in that you can remove by screwing in each tie rod by one flat.

For engine mods, if you haven't already found it, search on NAM here for Manic Tune. They have it all from mild to wild and custom.

Have fun.

 

Eddie,
That's exactly how I picture snap oversteer when I hear the term lol. I can definitely see a stock R59 catching a newbie driver off guard f they were cornering quickly and had to slam on the brakes suddenly mid corner, personally I love the little bit of looseness the rear has, it's how I think all cars should handle.
Thanks for the tip on the white clips, I'll get on it here today and fit that up. I'll hit that company up about the fixed plates as well, using OEM parts is a great way to limit chances of failure!

Today I put in a JB+, P3 OBD gauge, turbo heat shield and open element intake filter. Quite the improvement, boosting up to 17PSI, and holding 12.5-14 all the way to redline now. Tomorrow I'll get my improved intercooler piping installed. Wagner Comp Intercooler and 42mm turbo will be next weekend and then finally I'll get my downpipe and manic tune installed in probably two weeks. Final piece I need to source is a meth kit, I blew up a perfectly good 400whp 2.0L motor because of a bad tank of fuel in AZ, car was fine for 55k miles and one bad tank cost me, not going to let that happen again!

 

Your engine compartment is way too clean.

BTW-that white pin shows up in your picture. In the upper left corner of your picture, it is just to the left of the top strut nut. The tower itself is already slotted to make this camber change.

If you haven't already found it, here is a great Manic thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ally-here.html

The IE camber plates: https://www.waymotorworks.com/irelan...5-r56-r57.html
I have had these in my car for the last 5 year.

Lastly, if you change the rear sway bar, put in adjustable end links. The stock MINI end links are not very strong and can wind up clunking.

 

Snap oversteer is a sudden, unpredictable and uncontrolled full rotation 180 spin mid-corner usually provoked by lifting off the throttle mid-corner.

What you're describing is lift-off oversteer.