Hi all,

I come from the R56 side of NAM because I have fallen in love with the supercharger noise and car culture. My current mini is a 2012 R56 Cooper S Automatic w/paddles with all JCW mods, sway bars, springs, and a downpipe. I recently had my first ever TD in August and my first AutoX event today. I am hooked on the motorsport world but I feel that if I keep this up, it will be very taxing on my current daily driver.

Since I have no knowledge in depth of the R53 world, I was wondering if you guys would recommend it as a track/autoX project...still legal to drive to and from the track and casually on weekends....not putting on 56 miles every day going to work.

The catch is that in order to go for the R53 and mod it, my piggy bank only allows for the R53 (high mileage, good conditions, low price, etc.) and a boring to death daily driver ....which I don't mind because the AutoX and Track Day events are picking up the pace, which would mean more smiles per gallon inside the R53.

So what do you guys think, is the R53 a reliable/cheap track/autoX/weekender car? I say reliable because my mechanical knowledge is very small (I do want to get more into doing things by myself, having a second car would allow me to do so) and I say cheap because we are under a budget here ....or is the R53 going to bring all kinds of problems and get super expensive real quick ? (my pressure pump failed at 18,000miles in my current mini...not fun.)

Thanks in advance!!

 

So I say this with much love of my MINI and with little knowledge of mazda miatas, but I've done a couple of track and auto cross days and the mini is a hoot to drive at them, but it's not the most reliable car, and the front wheel drive is limiting some times (asking the same tires to turn and accelerate is asking alot).

Whereas I feel like miata's are more plentiful and the aftermarket performance options are more plentiful. And there's just something about a rear wheel drive car on the track.

So I think that there are better options out there for a street legal track/race car. The MINI is not a bad one, and there are some awesome track MINI's out there, but I think you'd do better with something like a mazda miata.

 

I have a dedicated track r53 and one that does autocross, the setup is different.

r53 jcw running d-street, bone stock with HP+ pads and a huge rear swaybar, you want lots of bite in pads and ones that work cold, and lots of swaybar so you can get the back end to turn. This makes for a crazy wild ride on the track, I run 16x7 wheels with re71r you need those tires or rivals to be competitive.


R53 S running trackdays, kw v3 coilovers, camber plates, 15" track wheels/tires, JCW brakes, ebc yellow pads, ducting from front foglights. Setup is quite a bit different these mcpherson strut cars need all the camber they can get, so camber plates & offset bushings help. Braking is where we make up a TON of time, so track pads are very important, track pads don't work cold so you have to get them hot first and they are horribly dangerous on the street, you do not want to mix pad material so stick with same brand for street/track if you are gonna be changing out pads, or use a extra set of rotors dedicated to the track pads, they are dirt cheap compared to pads, i get rotors for like 30 $ each from rockauto (premium centric)

 

I forgot to mention, if you are gonna do both you want to find a 2004-2006 JCW engine car.

STX rules allow for jcw supercharger pulley, head, and any tune & intake. the setups for STX are basically the same as you would do with a track car and we are fairly competitive in that class.

If you put a pulley on your mini, you are stuck in a horrible class, SMF where everyone fast drives a 1990ish civic that is no longer anything that resembles a civic, huge fenders, giant tires, full pillowball suspension, solid mount swaybars and giant aero/wings/canards/snowshovels these cars are gocarts and we can not compete with them

 

I'm also interested in your input mega72. I got into autocross about two years ago and still need help sorting out the car to be more competitive in STX. I know I need better breaks (currently running EBC Greens) and I think I may need a bigger rear sway bar (currently running an aftermarket installed at stiffest setting, but I think I need a bigger one).


If you don't mind, can you share what you consider to be a "huge rear swaybar" (brand).


Thanks

 

I forgot. What size tire do you run mega72? Thanks

 

205/50/15 re71r on 949racing wheels, if you do not have re71s or the rivals you are not competitive

I love Hawk HP+ for autocross, huge initial bite, I can hit the brakes and get the abs on really fast, lets me go WOT a little bit longer, and if I get too fast into a slalom and start to push I can stab the brakes to scrub speed and get the front end to turn

I use the hotchkis hollow bar on stiffest setting, there is one better bar mini mania sells that I would like to try..

http://new.minimania.com/part/G2NMS5...56-R57-R58-R59


I ran stx once in my track car, a couple weekends ago, normally I run in d-street there is one guy that beats me there he's the club prez and been doing autocross for a decade or more, I've only been doing it a year

 

Thanks for your speedy reply, Matt.

I'm surprised that 15-inch wheels can clear the JCW front brake calipers . I thought for sure that the wheel balancing weights would have rubbed against the front brake calipers. I'll have to look into the 949 Racing wheels.


Any reason you didn't go with their 15x8 wheel that could have accommodated a 225 width tire?


Oh, and great job of leaving the rest of the STX field waaayyyy behind.

 

I have 15x8 on the STX car, 16x7 on the D-street car sorry for that typo

 

So the 15x8 949 Racing wheels clear the R53 JCW calipers without issue?

 

Yes

 

Thanks for the reference Matt! Congrats on the results.

Jveramini, there are some good articles to browse through here as well regarding autocross and handling packages. Please let us know if we can help.

http://new.minimania.com/Search_Resu...cross/Articles

Drive Hard. Drive Safe. Keep Grinning.