Does anyone run the Mini Madness FRONT lower control arms in their Mini? I was wondering how they might be on a street car as far as beating ya up, and if they would yield a better response than changing the rear lower control arms?

 

I've been running the Madness front cro-mo tubular control arms for over a year now. They are the single best addition to the car in terms of improving steering precision. The control arms are made from a very thick-wall chrome-moly tubing, and it jigged up quite precisely; I could not detect any significant variation between sides when lining up the mounting points. The bearings used for the rear bushing is a steel spherical bearing pressed into a billet aluminum housing that presses into the factory bushing mounts. They do not add any significant NVH, which was a major surprise to me. They also do not allow for any kingpin angle deviations so common with the sloppy stock rubber bushings. The lighter control arms do help improve suspension resolution; the car simply feels more responsive and agile.

I don't have any good shots of them on the car uploaded right now, but here's a pic of them installed in the front subframe:


Cheers,
Ryan

 

So would I have to pull the whole steering assembly like what is pictured when I do the install? They seem like they might be a tremendous pain in the *** to put in. So if I really don't plan on lowering the car or going with different shocks/struts would this be the next logical step from a rear ant swaybar for improving the suspension?

 

Yes, this might be considered an extreme modification to a Mini. If you haven't done the "regular" suspension mods (shocks, springs, rear sway bar, rear control arms, front camber mounts) then do them before considering this. However, once you get there, it seems like a pretty cool mod!!

 

No, you do not have to pull the subframe to change out the control arms. You just need the factory bushing removal/install tool. I had my subframe out of the car for several other modifications.

Iif you're strictly trying to improve lap times, I'd say go with front camber plates and R56 trailing arms first. The Madness front arms probably won't lower lap times, their main forte' is improving driver satisfaction. That said, a spherical bearing camber plate will add NVH to the car, much more so than these arms with their spherical rear locator bearing. Your goals will dictate which products you buy, of course.

I would not consider the front control arms an extreme mod. The fact that the factory rubber bushings crap out as soon as 30k miles means you have to replace them anyway. Since removing the control arm is part of that replacement, adding the Madness arms with the matching spherical bearing is a shoe-in. They're not cheap pieces, but it's well worth it for the steering precision and gain in confidence. You do not need any other suspension mods to feel the benefit of lighter weight and no bushing slop.

Cheers,
Ryan

 

So what kind of service life would the steel spherical bearings on these arms yeild? Can they be modified to be greasable? Someday I want to do this, and get the R56 rear trailing arms too.