I am curious what would be the best upgrade to sharpen up my handling? A front strut brace, rear brace, or a rear sway bar?
thx

 

Adjustable rear sway bar.

 

Rear sway bar. Big handling upgrade for a small amount of money.

 

+1 Rear sway bar. I have both a front strut brace as well as a larger rear sway bar. The front strut brace makes a minimal difference in handling while the rear sway bar makes a noticeable difference. The larger rear sway bar decreases understeer and makes lift-off snap-oversteer easier (If you want that. On street driving it is something to be cognisant of.) There are many other threads already available on the subject and I also like Randy Webb's suggestions.

 

of course, ya gotta be emotional about handling for that kind of change to be truly affective....

i guess many of us are huh...

af·fec·tive (ə-fěk'tĭv) adj. Psychology

1. Influenced by or resulting from the emotions.
2. Concerned with or arousing feelings or emotions; emotional.

af·fec'tive·ly adv., af'fec·tiv'i·ty (āf'ěk-tĭv'ĭ-tē) n.

 

I'm a fan of camber plates first, then a mild rear bar.

But I think I'm in the minority here....

Matt

 

Matt I would also say that the front camber plates are great! Only reason I say rear sway bar first is because of the adjustablity, where you can play around with putting in and taking out a little understeer, understanding the effects. You also don't have the increase in tire wear that goes with the camber plates. 2 cents.

 

that the car come with too little front camber and adding a degree or a bit more actually adds to tire life, not reduces.

Also I'm a fan of doing what you can to geometry before you tune the rest. Going to around -2 front camber means you don't need as much rear bar to get a neutral balance as well.

But to each thier own...

Matt

 

Camber plates: Is it generally a good idea to get the adjustable kind or fixed?

 

My customers report the same positive tire wear from camber plates, but only if they are rotated every 3-5K.

 

almost doubled the life of my tires. A lot of this has to do with my driving bias for hills. With stock camber and not the best track technique I killed a set of new tires in a weekend because the outside front tires went to the belts... YMMV....

Matt

 

so what are you saying about camber? the mini comes stock with the top of the tires angled in or out?

 

factory spec is 0 to -.5 deg camber, or near verticle. And the Mac Strut front suspension design doesn't have much camber gain. This might be OK if you mostly do freeway driving, but is way to little if you turn a lot.

Matt

 

FWIW. Texas Speed works now has some adjustables for the R56.

 

So is there any camber adjustment available with the stock parts? If so, how much? I'm guessing from the comments, that to go all the way to -2 would require installation of new camber plates? Preferably the adjustable kind?

I understand that the rear sway bar increases the stiffness and thus moves the car closer toward oversteer. What does the change in camber do?

TIA!

 

Here's a good read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camber_angle

Most street MINI's find a set of fixed plates with -1.25 with OEM springs and up to -1.5 with lowering springs to work very well and not eat tires. Running much more then that may lead to less miles on tires.

 

I found an old pic from when I was running Eibach springs.As you can see there is a bit more negative camber you can get out of the stock struts.Just remove the front wheels,pop out the alignment pin,loosen the three nuts and use your knee to push and hold the strut while you re-tighten the nuts. The rear has a bit of camber adjustment also.

 

Yes, -2 would require adj. camber plates. On the other hand, you may not require -2. Camber does a number of things that makes your car behave in certain ways when it is stressed, such as a hard turn. Remember, the same can be said for different tires. There is no formula. To get it right for you will require some playing around. (This is the fun part!) Simply put, neg camber in the front helps the front keep traction longer in a turn. Less understeer results.
Installing a big bar so you can "rotate" is a crude way to start.

 

+1 on that

 

Camber plates are the prefered first option. Best handling bang for the buck.

 

is keep the contact patch maximized through turns. Because of tire deformation and the like, adding more front negative camber will allow the outer contact patch to be more effective, increasing traction there. This has the same effect as "pushing" harder in the turn from the front outside wheel, which lowers understeer.

The rears aren't as problematic. Because of the geometry of the rear control arms, there is camber gain in the rear. As the car leans over from centripital acceleration, the rear camber increases.

Increased rear roll stiffness (from a rear bar) decreases the amount of rear lean, reducing camber gain, and also moves more weight to the front outside tire, increasing turning force.

But there's a downside here as well. As you increase load on the outside front with close to no negative camber, you increase wear on the outside of the tire!

But what's also true, is that if you drive a lot on flat surfaces with only slight turning forces, larger negative cambers can lead to uneven tire wear.

So what's best? It depends on your mixture of driving. Whatever you do, keep an eye on uniformity of tire wear up front. If you're getting a lot on the outside edge, your particular driving style will benefit from increased negative camber. But becuase it's all coupled together, if you increase your front camber like with the fixed plates, back off your rear bar till you're used to the changes. FWIW, I have -2 front, either -1 or -1.2 rear, but have my rear bar (0nly 19mm) on it's middle position. But I run stiffer springs than stock as well, so this combo may not be correct for you.

Anyway, tuning handling is really an artform (more like black magic) and I'm not that good at it, so I work with my suspension/allignement guy on my set up.

Matt