I come and lurk around these parts every now and again. I just finished looking at about 50 pages from the lowered mini gallery and I noticed something a little odd. It looked like a lot of cars gained forward rake. I saw very few that looked balanced. Are you guys just getting rid of wheel gap or are you trying to balance the car. Being FWD and everything it is already front heavy. By lowering the front more then the back it is becoming even more front heavy. Correct me if I am thinking improperly here but wouldn't lowering the front more then the rear negatively effect handling?

 

I don't think that all of us who are lowered specifically lowered the front more. In my case, the front is about 1 - 2mm lower than the back, but it is because of how the springs have settled, not because I lowered the front more than the rear. As far as handling is concerned, the dampening from my C/O and the increase in sway bar thickness have increased my handling. Could it be better if the rear were lower than the front? Perhaps, but at this point it is so much better than stock, I'm not really concerned about it.

 

I wasn't trying to implying that anyone was intentionally lowering the front more. Your answer makes sense.

 

Hi,

I race and rally minis, and have spent a lot of time tuning suspension setup. This includes a lot of testing with ride height, varying the front and rear heights and the rake.

Both of my cars are lowered, and both I run rake to the rear. On both cars I run the rear around 5mm lower than the front. I am talking about absolute ride height, not the amount I have lowered, ie the measurement from lower aspect of the guard to the middle of the wheel (or to the lower aspect of the rim) is 5mm lower on the rear than the front. I find this works well in both circuit racing and tarmac rally setups.

This is significantly less than the stock rake, where the rear is around 16mm lower than the front (this varies a little depending on wheel size and suspension variant).

In other words, although I am running the rear lower than the front, the degree of rake is less than stock. Hope that makes sense

Robbo

 

Could you explain how you are measuring that in more detail. When you said the back is 15mm lower then the front I got confused. It's obvious that the back is hight then the front.

 

Hi,

This is a bad scan from the Bentley manual that explains the methodology for measuring, and gives the stock values for various wheel sizes and suspension variants. The column that you can't read at the left is rim size.



As you can see the rear ride height is LOWER for all wheel sizes and variants in stock setup. For the 17 inch rims in JCW model front is 588mm and rear 572mm, ie rear is lower than front by 16mm.

Robbo

 

I installed TSW springs for pure aesthetics, not for an improvement in handling. As installed, the wheel gap on the front wheels was greater than the rear. This looked goofy to me, so I trimmed a 1/4 coil from the front springs to get the car to sit level.

If you had coil overs you could always corner weight the car and try and shift weight from front to rear, but I don't know how effective that would be, or what the changes to ride height would be. In other words, if you raised the front 1/4", how much weight would be shifted to the rear?

Mike

 

The R56 has more rake because of how the spring perches are designed into the body. The R53 is designed to be more flat. When comparing the two side by side you can see the difference on the R56. But doesn't rake look faster I've seen some R56 lowered without rake but the front is barely lowered and the rear has to be tucked a lot. It looks kind of silly.

 

That is an interesting way to measure ride height. Off of a plastic piece that probably isn't the exact same on all corners. I thought you would measure from some solid part of the car to the ground.

 

I think the reason for that is if you tried to measure off the rocker panels, you have variation with the JCW body kit or 'normal' body. Its actually not a bad way to measure, and their way of using the wheel flange eliminates the variation in tire diameter (but limits your comparisons to one wheel diameter). Most people measure from the wheel arch to the ground for comparison.

Its interesting because your eyes play games. You could run a taller tire (205/50/17), and actually have the car look lower because of reducing the wheel gap, yet a significantly shorter tire (205/40/17) ends up dropping the car a bit, but looks odd because of the wheel gap.

Its all what you want. You seem interested in max performance, so the corner weight concept would be interesting. A day of adjusting coil overs and shifting weight around would be enlightening.

Have fun,
Mike

 

If I can get my hands on some scales I plan to. I was more thinking of right hight as the bottom of the cars distance from the ground. Thinking about it from and aerodynamic aspect. to create a low pressure under the car to help traction.

 

Back in a past life working on racing 911's, rake had a pretty dramatic affect on aero, and stability at speed. It was easy to get out of hand (it seems more natural to lower the front rather than raise the rear), because you are giving up suspension travel.

If you are looking at some high speed track days, that could be a big deal for you. I don't know if anyone has done formal aero testing with a MINI, and how ride height/stance affects the car at speed. Its interesting to think about, you are good at getting my mind going........

Mike

 

The Mini is a flying brick anyway, before I lowered it, it was not as stable as it is now. Theoretically if the bottom of the car was totally smooth you would want the air speed under the car traveling faster then the air speed over the top of the car to prevent lift. Since the back is lighter then the front you would want the air speed under the rear equal to or greater then the speed under the front. Im am just thinking of this from a physics standpoint not so much cars.

 

I was looking through this thread and was wondering if it would be beneficial to add some weight to the rear of the car to help with bringing the rear of the car down something like a roll bar with an extra 60 of so pounds on the back half of the car or would it not have the same effect?

 

I wouldn't do it. Excess weight is what you don't want for a track car. Lighter is faster. Setting the ride height at each corner so there is no rub on the track for each wheel and then corner balancing is the key to success.

 

Country, thanks for that i already got the roll bar because fromtime to time i scare myself on the track lol iv been looking at places to cut weight but there is not much to so it seams like on the car especially not for cheap

 

The interior and move the battery to the rear. then lower the rear so it has more suction to the ground, and balance the corners.

 

There is no benefit to adding weight to the rear. The car is so heavily biassed to the front anyway. The mini is basically what racers call a bum dragger! The rear end of the car is a passenger which gets dragged around by the front and just bounces around. With soft track tyres the rears wear at around 20% the rate of the front.

If you want to try it for yourself drive the car with an empty fuel tank and then with a full tank. That is effectively adding 35kg (75lbs) to the rear.

If you want more rear grip then dialing in more negative camber and a small amount of toe-in in the rear will help.

Robbo

 

When I had my coilovers installed they corner balanced the car and measured 24" ground to fender on all four corners... it sits nice and level.

I dont autoX/track/race my car though, just wanted a lower ride height and less body roll for spirited canyon carving.

 

I'm on coilovers with a little rake .. 4" from jcw body to ground in front and 4 3/4 in the rear.. Because when and If I scrape on a speed bump at least I won't drag the whole underside of body over the obstacle. I think the front arches are an inch or 2 higher in front on r56 causing the rear to looked tucked to much. If I drop the car more the rear tires will disappear and the front will still show looking uneven.

Sent from my iPhone using NAMotoring

 

Just out of curiosity, what makes you think that a few mm of rake one way or the other would make a measurable difference to the weight distribution?

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Well a few mm may or may not, a mm is barley noticeable. The rake won't really change the weight distribution. You will be able to adjust road pressure and under body air flow characteristics. This will help create downforce and cornering balance under breaking and acceleration since the force will be applied more latterly then at an angle.