I have a 2006 R50 with sport suspension and an SS+ rear sway from an S. I have the opportunity to get the springs and shocks (low milage) from a 2003 SS+ suspension.

I know at some point the SS+ was softened on the Cooper S due to complaints... what year did this change occur? Is the SS+ from 2003 going to be a marked difference over my suspension? Also, is it going to lower my car any? All the stock Cooper S cars that I park next to seem to be a smidge lower than my car.

Thanks!

 

GB,
The shocks off a 2003 MCS should be the firmer version. If I remember correctly the production change was in 2004 before the facelift. There was a thread about this mentioning the change in response a to Consumer Reports survey. Please search for that thread because I'm going off memory!

The SS+ springs will be about 30 lb/in stiffer than what you've got now. The free lengths of the different OEM springs varies. This was to accommodate the weight differences between the different options & overall wheel/tire diameters. For 03/2002 on Gen-1 R50 & 53 models there are three different SS+ front part numbers & five different rear SS+ part numbers. Rates should be the same for SS+ but the free lengths vary. There is a definite possibility the ride height could go up. I did this same swap on my R50 with 15" rims & the wheel gap was pretty unsightly
If the price is right, it would probably be worth it for the shocks alone. If you do your own work, It might be worth trying the Springs. With your 17's they might be OK.

It could help Mini owners wanting to swap OE springs if a a sticky thread was started where owners could list the build date of their cars, factory options & color of the paint stripes on their OEM springs. We could then cross reference that data to the OE part numbers. There's also a lot of confused info about JCW springs out there. It would help if we included them in this data collection.
It's very easy to check the paint stripe when you take a wheel off & the build date is right there every time you open the door.

 

Thanks for your informative reply! I did a search both here and on the wider interwebs and I couldn't find the date for the change.

 

MiniGB06, this is the Tony you got the head from...

Somewhere here there are indeed some good discussions on the change you reference. It seems to have happened for May 2003 builds and this mentions it for the Cooper, but I seem to recall them all becoming more civlilized or less "sporty":

http://www.motoringfile.com/2003/05/...nlinePetition/

The Cooper SS+ = the MCS base suspension, at least it did...

I have a Sep 2002 build MCS and I'm quite certain the SS+. I did find the box in my storage area... Continue to do your research and if you find that these will suit your needs, let me know...

If I find more info to help you, I'll share here.

EDIT/ADD - I just found this... An old thread, understandably, but you might want to reach-out to one of those guys:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...t-springs.html

 

Thanks for the research, Tony! You found some stuff that I wasn't able to dig up. I think that I will want this suspension so when you're ready let me know and we'll talk.

 

Just want to make sure it's what you want... Sounds like a worthwhile upgrade. If you are not yet aware of the MINI2 forum, here you go: http://www.mini2.com/forum/. If you are in sponge-mode, that international forum is a great resource...

I "grew-up" there then gradually came-over to NAM, which was then called MCO (MINI Cooper Online)...

From my posts on NAM, I removed the stock suspension in the late Summer of 2004, so just under 2 years of use. I do about 8k a year (a little over 50k now), so they saw around 15k miles. Keep-in-touch...

 

Did a search on a related topic, and didn't find anything immediately. So here's my question:
What are the differences, if any, between the stock R50 vs. stock R53 shocks/springs? Will R50 shocks fit an R53?
Thanks.