As an r50 owner who has tried various suspension (stock struts + lowering springs, lowering springs + koni yellow, Coilovers) I can attest to the fact that lowering springs remove almost ALL travel (even if you run koni yellows). The r56 was given MORE travel than the r50/r53, but it still lacks travel.

Check out this thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ghlight=travel

At the stock ride height, the car is only .2" away from hitting the bumpstops. Clearly, if you install any of these lowering springs (which are usually 1" + shorter) you will be riding directly on the bumpstops. You can cut the bumpstop (as recommended by some spring manufacturers), but notice that there is still only 1.9" of free up travel. If you install a spring that drops the car 1.4" you're only looking at half an inch before you've bottomed out the strut. THIS is what can lead to the stock struts going bad....not mismatched spring rates. If you are continually bottoming out the struts, they will fail.

The car will feel very settled and you may feel that it's handling better on the street because it will be much stiffer due to riding on the bumpstops. The fact of the matter is that you've removed a great deal of the already limited travel and it may feel planted on the streets, but when taking aggressive autocross or track corners bottoming out will mess with your traction and can lead to a spin.

 

I agree that progressive rate springs are not the way to go. They do bottom out due to spring rates, and they tend to sag faster than normal springs. Also, OE sport springs for the mini are linear and slightly more aggressive than the normal OE spring, leaving a better tuned suspension in their wake. I def. have the money to buy whatever, but the cost to performance ratio that the TSW spring brings is incredible! Seriously, I hope the peeps at TSW make some springs for you guys soon.

 

I'm not sure how the linear spring would help with the bottoming out issue though.... If they've lowered the car an inch, you've lost an inch of travel.

 

Great info, sometimes it almost seems vendors here are pushing products like a used car sales person

 

Certainly there are extreme modifications along any number of directions that will bring terrible results. Make the car too low, too stiff, too tall, too fast, or whatever, and you've got a bad situation.

But every part of the car is a compromise. The factory engineers had to choose a point on the compromise line for each part -- stiffness for good handling, softness for comfort; hard tires for gas mileage and good tire wear, soft tires for grip and handling; powerful engine for good response, tiny engine for good gas mileage. The list goes on. But every choice is some kind of compromise. In fact, over the course of the model's life, the factory may tweak some of those parts, changing suspension details, modifying the engine, or whatever.

Moving to a different point on the compromise scale does not necessarily mean the car will be a complete mess. It will mean that you've made some kind of trade-off, and whether or not it's worth it depends on how drastic a move you've made, and what the various axes of the performance envelope mean to you.

If you lower your MINI with mild lowering springs, it will not explode. Nor will your shocks instantly blow out, although in the long term they may wear faster. (They may not; who knows?) The car will handle better, and torque steer will be reduced. In most cases the steady-state ride will feel about the same, but over larger bumps it will be worse, because yes, you've reduced the suspension travel. Your car will have less ground clearance and will scrape the ground at times, when the factory car almost never would.

These are the trade-offs. My advice to those considering this modification or any other: Ignore people who make generalizations about any modification. Find out exactly what the mod changes -- what aspects of the car will improve, what will degrade. Figure out if the cost is worth the benefit, to you.

Remember, too, that some modifications are easier to reverse than others. Live with the mod a while, and see if you like it. If you don't, take the part back off. Most bolt-on mods can be easily reversed.

No car is perfect for every person. Many cars can benefit from some modifications that will improve the car from the point of view their owners.

Considering lowering your R56? Check out your local MINI chapter, find someone with the springs you are considering, and ask for a ride or drive. Don't limit yourself to what you read on these forums. See and feel for yourself how you like it.

--Dan
Mach V

 

I agree. If you lack the knowledge to know what you're getting into, and that includes asking those that do know what they're doing, you're better off leaving your setup stock.

For those with a clue, it's easy to make any car handle better than OEM.

 

Back to the original question; a $200 set of lowering springs will not be worth the tradeoff no matter how brilliant your "tuner skills" are, or how "easy" it is for you. Anything less than a matched spring and damper is a step backwards. Don't kid yourself.

 

LOL! I suppose those lap times were just an illusion too.

It's clear you have strong convictions regarding what you feel are acceptable suspension setup solutions. Try out this question: How is it possible that simply installing a set of lowering springs on a otherwise stock suspension would dramatically improve the lap times of a vehicle?

Your past experience sounds like a Honda-infused disaster using really poor dampers and springs that were horribly mis-matched. The MINI's dampers, while not MOTON-fabulous, are not junk. The lowering springs you're dismissing here [H&R, Eibach, and MachV] are very similar to stock rates. On a suspension that is inherently bumpstop active, this IS a completely acceptable solution for street and track driven MINI's [pass on the Rally-cross].

Regards,
Ryan

 

What he said! lol Seriously, the springs on OEM dampers are not doing a ton of harm without any good effects at all. My car is much more planted and has a better ride. That's enough for me!

 

I do have a strong opinion on the subject, that's why I'm so adamant. about this.

Bear with me for a second here because I believe I did my homework prior to diving in. Using the rear on my previous car as an example; I knew the stock and factory sport package spring rates to be 375 lb./in. and 410 lb./in. respectively. I had installed the shocks (adjustable compression & rebound, Tokico D Specs) when I upgraded to the factory sport springs, already had adjustable sway bars. The shocks were rated for 500 lb/in according to Tokico. I wanted to bump up the spring rates all around, with a rear bias so I could back off a notch on the rear sway bar. I knew where I was and where I wanted to go, just needed to get there with a set of springs. My choices were limited to 600 Lb factory racing springs or go aftermarket. The only 500 Lb springs available were progressive (like most of the stand-alone aftermarket springs), and dropped the car an inch. On paper the thing looked like it would work O.K., in reality it was pretty disappointing.

Back to the Mini. The car is already pretty stiff for the street (I have the sport suspension), I personally wouldn't want it any more so. These things are short on travel already and I'm very skeptical that any stand alone lowering spring "upgrade" won't do more damage than good. So now's your chance to convince me. Since nobody's posted them yet, we could all benefit by your quoting the factory spring rates (standard and sport) for a baseline, and the rates of your preferred replacements. That would be a nice start to moving this discussion forward.

 

Then I assume you will equally chastize John Cooper Works for developing a suspension that changes the front and rear springs and front dampers without changing the rear dampers?

How could you possibly know that the stock sport dampers aren't well suited for a shorter, stiffer spring? Always remember that a stock setup is typically designed for the average, clueless buyer. Even if it says "sport" on it. There is a reason the sport suspension isn't dropped compared to the base suspension, and it isn't performance enhancement. The first time Joe Idiot scraped the front end of his car, MINI would be getting a lawsuit served on them. This is also why the JCW suspension has a negligible drop of about 1 cm. They can say they have "lowered" the car to pull in enthusiasts while still avoiding Joe Idiot's "I scraped my car" lawsuit.

 

JCW offers lowering springs for the stock dampers? Care to post a link on that?

Springs and shocks are engineered to work together as a unit by the factory. Once you get away from the factory spring rates and travel you're outside the design window. With the exception of the Gentleman from Stance Design, who actually had some real data, none of you people have done anything but repeat hearsay and spout brand names.

 

Do a search here. The JCW suspension uses the sport suspension rear dampers, but has different front dampers and springs all around. The springs are also slightly shorter than the sport springs. So, according to your theory, they went outside the design window when they used the sport rear damper with different springs.

I wonder why my Ground Control setup on my old E36 M3 allowed for a hugely wide range of pring rates with the same dampers???

 

I'd like to point out that i only posted information that was gathered by Ryephile....who is posting in this thread as well. I just linked to the thread since it was relevant.

I'd also like to add that my sport shocks (the 02 versions...stiffer than 04+ because they decided to soften them for the general public) were totally shot after 1.5 years of running H&R springs (a 1.2" drop). I know of atleast 4 or 5 other MINI-owning friends who noticed that their stock dampers went bad with lowering springs. They increased the travel on the r56....but not much.

 

My final plug would be this:

Get the spring that was made with OEM hardware in mind (I listed three of them) If OEM shocks wear out faster (which they more than likely will) then replace them with a set of more performance oriented ones like Koni or Bilstein. Either way, you can make it work using both OEM and aftermarket hardware. Rear control arm would be nice, but not necessary.

 

I've talked to Koni about this....they said there is no added travel so the bottoming out of the strut is still a concern when it comes to premature wear. Performance oriented ones like Koni are good about accepting "sportier" spring rates....but if the springs shorten the travel enough that you're bottoming them out, they will not last as long as they should.

I agree that you'll be fine matching aftermarket spring rates to OEM suspension components....but if you're lowering your car 1.2" (for example)...you've only got .7" of travel left. Even with the bumpstop-active suspension, .7" of bumpstop-active travel is not much and can lead to the bottoming out of the suspension which will cause premature wear. I have a feeling that this plays a great deal in why the JCW springs are only .5" shorter. It may be stiffer with and feel sportier ....but limiting your travel to .7" or whatever will not be good for all-out performance at the track or autocross.

 

I'll be putting H&R springs, H-Sport 25.5mm rsb, and H-Sport adjustable lower control arms on my R56 tomorrow; I live in Twisty City.
I'll let y'all know how it works. I'm honest and won't succumb to placebo effect.

 

the JCW argument could also go the other way, why did they change the front dampers if it wasn't necessary. Also i would take a guess that the JCW spring probably doesn't lower the car as much as the aftermarket brand do.

Ground control is a vendor that's there to make money, cheaper to sell a product if you claim you don't need to change the dampers. I had the full ground-control coilover kit in my e46 m3 which spring/spring perch blew a hole in my rear control arm along with a few other owners. They do offer a good system, but it is not without compromises and/or flaws. Also Ground-Control would tell you how they designed their coilover system to increase shock travel and why decreasing the travel distance will have a negative impact on the handling.

I don't think anyone can argue that to get max performance a change in spring rate should be paired with the apporiate damper. I guess it's up to the individual to choose if that matters or not.

 

The aftermarket springs lower anywhere from .8"-1.5" depending on the company. The JCW springs lower the car about half an inch.

 

I actually agree with all of the comments here, to one extent or another. My point is that it isn't necessarily bad to do what many are doing with the R56. I would think we would have a blown shock story or 7 by now if it were a problem.

 

I agree...it's not a BAD thing, but people should be aware of the effects that lowering has on handling and general wear+tear. You probably haven't seen many blown shocks on r56's yet because they've only been available for a little over a year. It took a year and a half (after spring installation) before i even noticed that my shocks had become much bouncier due to wear. It won't just pop up 1,000 miles after you install the springs.

 

Let's face it boys: lowering springs make the car look better, they get rid of the dreaded fender gap. But that's about all they do. The rest of the claims (less torque steer, better turn in, yadayada) are pretty much seat of the pants stuff that you can better fix with aftermarket wheels/tires. But a lowered car looks cool, so why not do it? The heck with the dampers I say, bottoms up!

 

w00t!!!!

 

Well said....and I agree fully. Nothing looks as good as a nicely lowered car with a nice stance

 

I'm glad we can at least agree there!