I just want to pass this along, when I lower my R56 I notice that the camber on the rear need it to be adjust, the way to bring the stance from the squat look to normal is with adjustable camberlinks. I did some shopping around and saw ALTA, HOTCHKINS and a few more out there.

Well I just found out that the difference between the R53 and the R56 is 2mm. which mean that we can use the same camber links as the R53.

TireRack has a set of 4 HOTCHKINS for....are you ready for this?? $305!!!!
mine were $322 to my door. the lowest i found them is $240 for the set. I am doing the buddy system with a fellow R53 owner so I'll end up paying 1/2 of 322.. Not Bad Eh??

They have low stock at that price...

 

I just replaced the rear lower control arms on my R52 with the Hotchkis arms you're getting. The fit/finish is great, the adjustment feels smooth and precise, and the center turnbuckle is large enough to turn by hand once you loosen the locknuts, so they're easy to adjust and you don't have to worry about scarring up the anodized turnbuckles by using a wrench on them.

The zerk fittings for greasing the bushings are nice, too. The only problem I had was that the dust covers for the upper (inboard) zerk fittings are almost impossible to put back on after greasing the bushings, since you hardly have any room to get your fingers in there. I'm hoping that being tucked up that high, the upper zerk fittings would get that much dirt and crud on them.

 

No need to get 4. Replacing the 2 lower arms will let you adjust the camber. Toe can still be adjusted with the trailing arms.

 

The OP and his friend are going in together on a set of four - each one will keep one pair (presumably to replace the lowers, as you suggested).

 

Thanks Diablito - great tip. Probably already well known by the 1st gen crowd, but helpful to some of us 2nd gen guys who haven't learned this stuff yet. Any need to correct front camber in your case?

 

Yes you are right, thats why is such a good deal, if you find a buddy who would like to share a set the price is unbeatable!!!


My Pleasure Karl, Thats what this forums are for to share good ideas tips on such deals... No adjustament on the front at all, but a 4 wheel aligment is definally recommended after the arms are replaced.
The difference between the lower set betwen the R53 and R56 is 2mm...NOTHING that why this set work fantastic.
BTW your mellow yellow with the kit looks fantastic!!!

riquiscott: Thank you for the note, makes me feel much better, my set its on its way already, I am not sure how many they had in stock, I placed this order on line.

 

$305 for a set of four is an amazing price - I paid $239 for a pair just a few weeks ago.

One other note - the locknuts on the control arms are pretty big (1-1/8"). I didn't have an open-end wrench that big, so I used an adjustable wrench for the initial installation until I could get the appropriate-size wrench. If you don't already have the right size wrench, you might want to pick one up while you're waiting for your arms to arrive.

Also, if you don't already have a grease gun and some lithium lube, you might want to pick some up. The arms came with those single-use packets of lube, but it's easier and cleaner to just install the arms with dry bushings and then lube them up with a grease gun after they're installed. Even if you use the included packets for the initial installation, you're going to want to re-lube them someday anyway.

Removing/replacing the upper (inboard) bolts was the only tricky part, just because there's so little room to work. The nuts are 18mm, and you'll also need an 18mm wrench to back up the bolt while you loosen the nuts. My metric wrench set skips from 17mm to 19mm, so I had to stop in the middle of the project to go get an 18mm wrench. I was able to loosen the nuts with a slim-head 3/8" ratchet wrench and a universal-joint socket adaptor, but it would have been easier to use a smaller 1/4" ratchet. Problem was, I didn't have an adapter to use my 3/8" sockets on my 1/4" ratchet wrench.

Note - I just realized that the 18mm size for the nut/bolt and the "hard to reach" part might not still be true for the R56, but I left the above paragraph there just in case.

 

Wow thank you for all the info.... I wish I had a garage, the closest thing in my condo to a tool its my sonicare toothbrush...

 

"My Pleasure Karl, Thats what this forums are for to share good ideas tips on such deals... No adjustament on the front at all, but a 4 wheel aligment is definally recommended after the arms are replaced."

Actually, the R56 now has a small adjustment for front camber. The top mounting holes that hold the strut are slotted (not a lot). I would recommend thay anyone tracking or auto-xing adjust these in towards the center of engine for some negative camber.

 

Do you have an estimate of how much toe is affected by changes in Camber?

-JL

 

I believe adjusting for more negative camber ( you can only get @ -.5) will give you slightly more toe in. How much, I don't know. It would make sense to get an alignment. Here's a link to some the camber adjustment article from GRM: http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/new...hp#commentlist

 

I have seen the grassroots info, but wanted to start gathereing rough guidelines for alignment changes (how much 1/6 turn on a tie rod affects toe for instance). I've got a SmartCamber tool sililar to the one shown in the grassroots article and have been doing my own minor alignment changes on other cars for a couple years.

-JL

 

I got the set of control arms yesterday I had them installed today & they look great!





I also got a four wheel aligment and the little beast corners beautifully, and I do not have the squat look, which I do not like.

 

OK, help me here... what do you mean by the "squat look"?

If the pic abouve is an "after" shot... your car visually has just as much negative camber in the rear as mine (lowered on the same springs without the adjustable arms).

Can you post the "after" alignment measurements? I'm now really curious how the "after" numbers compare (with and without the adjustable arms). I would really appreciate it.

 

Well I should said negative camber, to me after I got the springs in the rear looked like it was squating. and I didn't like it. The picture is in the process, tomorrow I will take a good photo of the rear end and you can compare to yours.

I could not adjust the toe without the new arms, now the car is back to almost factory setting, I do not do track it or super agressive driving but I wanted to wear the tyres evenly.

The numbers I got now are:

Front 0.25
Rear 0.40

Looks the way I like it.

 

Everyone knows that the stock rear lower control arms already have eccentric cam bolts for camber adjustment, right? This has been the case since the '05 model year on the R53.

I had H-Sport arms on my '04 MCS. They're very nice arms, easy to adjust, but take my advice, use anti-sieze! After 2 years the arms rusted into place, and wouldn't come loose. H-Sport actually offered to replace them for free, but I didn't need to adjust my camber anymore either, LOL.

 

Thank you RY... They come with plenty of anti-sized. Thy are all butter up.

 

Nope. I'll admit, I didn't know that at all. I had someone else do the work and I cut the check. They gave me a sheet after alignment with all the measurements. It looked good to me and handled GREAT, so...

One more question maybe someone can answer for me (I'm trying to educate myself as much as possible, here)... the camber measurements... I believe they're in degrees, correct?

I see diablito is reporting a 0.40 negative camber in the rear, where I'm at about a 1.80 (1.4 degrees difference). How much is that, really? Should I look into adjustible arms in the future (right now, I'm leaning towards no).

Just curious...

 

I'm running about 1.0 degrees negative in front and about 1.6 deg. neg. in back. I'm going to pull a bit of camber in back, try to get it to about 1.2 deg. neg.. That will improve chassis rotation in corners and also equalize the rear tire wear. I'd say 1.8 degrees negative in back is a whiff too much. The MINI doesn't have much body roll, so there's no reason to run a ton of camber [think 2 to 3 degrees] like there is on some cars.

I must admit I don't know the limits of the stock rear control arm adjustment, and it'll of course be related to ride height how much delta you can get. If you have an R56 slammed 2.5" then stock arms will probably not be enough to pull the camber back in anywhere near what you want. Stock ride height you should be able to dial in pretty much exactly what you want for the street.

 

Just some updated info:

The .pdf for MINI's R56 JCW Suspension upgrade gives some suggested settings for camber, caster and toe once the install is complete. The swap involves struts, shocks, springs, plus front AND rear swaybars. Final ride height once installed looks like the car might be a bit lower after it's done:

16" rim: Front - 662mm +/- 10mm... Rear - 546mm +/- 10mm
17" rim: Front - 677mm +/- 10mm... Rear - 561mm +/- 10mm
18" rim: Front - 690mm +/- 10mm... Rear - 574mm +/- 10mm

Looks like the their recommedations for factory specs indicate -1.52 degrees in the rear +/- .30 degrees... so I'm not going to sweat it for now. I'm in the ballbark of the JCW specs, at least. If I can get it closer to 1.5 in the rear next week, I'll be happy.

Now if I can just get ahold of that front sway bar...

http://motoringfile.com/files/jcw_suspension.PDF

 

OK, a correctin to my post above... motoringfile had the older JCW .pdf up... the new one is here:

http://motoringfile.com/files/JCW_suspension_R56.PDF

My apologies.

Also note the R56 JCW suspention has even MORE negative camber in the rear: in excess of 2-degrees negative, +/- .16 (or somthing close).

Now I'm REALLY not sweating it!