I'm contemplating on a set of sport springs and would like to know the pros and cons. Following list is what I've gather so far.

Pros:
- the car is lowered for a sportier look
- understeering is corrected for better cornering

Cons:
- possible rubbing issue (especially when the car is loaded)
- stiffer ride
- unpredictable on wet road (?)
- the car might be too low to go over some bumps

Since I haven't done it yet, I'm not sure if above information is correct. Please share your experience! Thank you! :smile:



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*yes, the car is lowered.
*understeer is only adjusted slightly with the H-Sport springs, the rest keep similar to the stock balance
*No, if you've got stock wheels/tires, there will be no rubbing
*depends on the spring; all progressive rate models will ride less harsh, but more firm on large bumps.
*I'd say more predictable, not bouncy-snappy like stock SS+ springs
*Snow-Plow MINI in the winter - watch out for steep driveways.

 

'sport' springs compared to standard:

Better cornering performance on dry, smooth roads.
Worse cornering performance on wet, snowy, or bumpy roads.

stiffer springs (if significantly stiffer) require revised shock valving for optimum performance.

Progressive spring rates, if you get those, are considered to be harder to control when driving all-out compared to linear rate springs, but may be more comfortable.

Cornering balance - depends on tuner.

Cheers

 

Here're some aftermarket springs:

H&R: front -1.2", rear -1.3"
H-sport: front -1", rear -1"
Alta: front -.95", rear -.75"
Eibach: front -1", rear -1.2"

Alta apears to lower the car the least. Does anyone have Alta springs installed?

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dave- Aaron at http://www.outmotoring.com has them installed on his mcs and he says
he is very happy with them. :smile: I think its worth a try especially for only $179!!!

Here is my experience with H-Sports:

Pros:

1. True = the car is lowered for a sportier look

2. True, but would recommend swaybar = understeering is corrected for better cornering


Cons:

1. False, if you use the right wheel offset and tire width =possible rubbing issue (especially when the car is loaded)

2. False, the ride is more comfortable and rides flat = stiffer ride

3. False, the car dynamics did not change that much = unpredictable on wet road (?)

4. False, ive yet to scrape anything! = - the car might be too low to go over some bumps

 

>>
OK so I have the H&R ones with Konis
>>Pros:
>>- My car looks better than the Doug's Bollocks!
>>- understeering? Springs have nothing to do with this. Well, almost nothing. I could tell you how to take out understeer but I'd either have to kill you or charge you......
>>
>>Cons:
>>-No rubbing with 17" Run flats, 18" 35 aspect ECSTAS (Both loaded condition) or 15" Victoracers
A tad stiffer......more a function of the shocks have yet to run full soft on them will report back on that sometime this century....maybe....
Not have experienced any evil habits on wet roads at all....
You could go over the top with lowering....the H&R's I have are pretty sensible.....don't get inot chase scenes in alleyways in Chicago though.....

 

Excellent thread :smile: My New JCW wheels on runflats should arrive tomorrow and I see new H-sport springs in my future. Have been wanting to lower my ride since last summer but could not because my 17 x 7.5 Antera 309's had an offset of 35 thus rubbing. But.... with Greta's new shoes .....

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Greta...DS "S", premium, cold, 17 inch Antera 309s, DSC, fogs, lapis blue leather, chrome mirrors, chrome interior trim rings, UUC Shift ****, Alpine 7998 Head-unit, Lightning Audio Storm 5.25 Components, 10" sub & 500 Watt amp, Rouge Cold Air Intak

 

are new end links required for the swaybars due to the lowering? or am I thinking of something else? although it's metaphysically impossible for you to know what I'm thinking...you know what I mean

 

yeah, I've got the Altas and love them. The car looks mean, handles great and I have no rubbing issues even with 215-45-17's, on OHIO roads!! Steering is a bit more responsive and road feedback is better but not annoying. I drive about 60 miles a day on the freeway and still have a comfortable ride.

I think the Alta spring is a great product and would recommend them to anyone. I also like supporting companies that have a MINI specific brand and support the car with some of the best products on the market. While there are many other brands out there, Alta has great pricing, matched with a great product. Also, the difference between the .95" and the 1.2" claimed drop between Alta and H&R is realisticly .2", which is about the between 1/8" and 1/4", which is not really noticable when there are so many other variables like tire size, offset and actuall tire design that effect the actual appearance of the gap in the wheel well.

Just my 2 cents...

 

I guess I need to follow that up with saying that the front setup is fine without doing Camber plates, while the rear really need adjustable control arms to get the camber right. If you do lowering springs without rear arms your car will look like a low budget homemade lowering job. Caster being out of whack is not really an issue in either the front or rear with the Alta springs.

BMP/Hsport arms are top notch as are the Alta units. I have the Hsports.

 

ZAKdog - you don't need to shorten your swaybar drop links when you install lowering springs, though to do so would be to maintain the same mechanical advantage curve of stock, versus a more progressive curve with stock links on a lowered car.

 

yep, i did not realize this when i initially made my order for the h-sports, but i needed to also get some rear lower control arms to adjust the alignment back to stock specs. i believe the lowering itself throws off the alignment. in fact, after having the springs installed the negative camber? is quite noticeable, ie. the top of the rear wheels especially were tilting inward when looking from the rear.

ended up ordering the h-sport lower rear control arms, which i believe they call control links. took my mini to a specialty alignment shop and they adjusted to stock specs for ~$80. they also said that if i plan to switch to larger or smaller wheels, that by itself could throw off the alignment.

recently, my mini was inspected on a lift for the upcoming driver's school and the bushings on the passenger side of the rear lower control arms were noted to be cracked and dangling. called up randy and eric and they both said that that is pretty rare to occur. in fact, they never saw one ever. only way it coulda possibly happened is perhaps if the installer had forgtten to lube the bushings. called up h-sport today and they too said it's very rare for the bushings to fail as they're made of polyurethane?, which is pretty sturdy material.

anyways, h-sport was very cool about it and sent out a pair along with the lube for free. i should be getting it by this weekend. much thanks to h-sport.

 

imho, the rear camber is not that bad at -1in lowering on H-sports.
at least not enough to for me to start looking into buying a rear
camber correction kit. :smile:

 

I have to agree with Aaron. I have H-Sport springs and fr and rr sway bars with 17" run flats. Car handles beautifully. No problems at all. Wheels do have a 42mm off set if that helps.

As for problems in the rain - none, but then again you need to use your head and not your feet when driving in the rain.

 

i have the h-sports and the rear camber is definitely noticeable.
however it only changed .4deg, not worth a 500 dollar camber kit.

each car is going to settle differently depending on your setup so your just gonna have to measure the camber, i would think anything 2 on up would require help. :smile:

 

This might be a dumb question, but how is camber measured? :smile:
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Dave,
Camber is the angle relationship between the plane in which the wheel rotates and the ground. when the wheel is perpendicular to the ground, that is having zero camber. When the tops of the tires are tilted inward, such that the distance between the tops of the tires is less than the bottoms of the tires, this is called negative camber. The opposite, where the tops of the tires are tilted outwards, is called positive camber. Generally speaking, positive camber is not recommended for performance automobiles.
The amount of camber you have determines tire wear, and the shape of the tire patch in cornering. Ideally (and generally), your tires would be perpendicular to the road at all times regardless of body motion, however modern suspension design does not allow this to occur. Therefore a compromise must be implemented to get the most traction possible.
Long story short, to maximize the traction you have, there is an envelope of recommended camber for the front and back of the MINI. Since lowering the car (with different springs) puts the suspension in a different position, the camber will subsequently be different (at steady state). Examples:

Due to the suspension design of the MINI, the only major concern with a street-driven MINI is the rear camber settings.

H-Sport springs with stock control arms = about -2.4 degrees. This is actually acceptable, despite being rather extreme looking. You may experience conical tire wear if you do not drive you MINI aggressive enough. If this is the case, one pair of adjustable rear control arms are recommended to reduce the negative camber to around -1.4 degrees ( which is stock MINI camber specification)

H-Sport springs with stiffer swaybar(s); you want about -0.75 to -1.5 degrees of camber, depending on your level of aggressiveness. The only way to obtain these camber settings is with adjustable aftermarket rear control arms (only one pair needed). A very passive driver would dial in -0.75 degrees, whereas I run -1.5 degrees (I corner aggressively)

NO, you do NOT need an alignment after installing lowering springs! There are no adjustments on the MINI's suspension (except front toe), therefore there is no reason for an alignment other than wasting money.

I hope that helps,
Ryan

 

Great thread! I wish there were some way to mark "keeper" threads, or to subscribe to an individual thread (as opposed to a forum).

 

>>I have to agree with Aaron. I have H-Sport springs and fr and rr sway bars with 17" run flats. Car handles beautifully. No problems at all. Wheels do have a 42mm off set if that helps.
>>
>>As for problems in the rain - none, but then again you need to use your head and not your feet when driving in the rain.

I had H-sport springs/lower adjustable rear control arms added to my MCS with madness rear sway bar. The car handled poorly, was very rough and jarring and rattled my entire dash on rough roads. Straight line braking was hard to control, squirmy.

I took it for alignment and the rear camber as is was negative 2.4 degrees. It looked very severe. The rear control arms were supposed to be put in at stock control arm length so unless they goofed it should have been in the ball park.
The alignment shop specs show that the rear camber stock range is -1 to -2 degrees for an MCS with 17" wheels.

After the alignment, I had negative 0.5 degrees camber in the front and negative 0.7 degrees in the rear, the car handled much better and was very smooth. Cornering was good with near neutral handling with rear bar on stiffest setting. My swaybar links are all stock. The adjustable rear control arms allowed quite a bit of adjustment for the rear camber.

I think the best approach is to do the spring upgrade and see how your MINI handles. If it is doing OK then leave it alone. If it doesn't drive well then do an alignment. In my case the negative 2.4 degrees rear camber was out of the range for stock settings.


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Aloha Hawaii

 

I also had to get rear adjustable control arms (H-sport) to get acceptable camber with H & R Springs.

 

I have the H&Rs on my car and although I'm very content with them if I were to do it all over again I'd probably go for the H-sport springs. The H&Rs while great, have a few cons; the rear camber is pretty much unacceptable at -3 degrees or so, the ride with stock S-lites and runflats was unbearable IMHO.....since I got my new wheels/tires it's perfect though, going over bumps and into steep driveways I always scrape that little apron that hangs down at the rear of the front fascia. The best thing about the springs is the look though (and I got them used but never installed shipped for a lot cheaper than H-sport), they dump the car to the perfect stance IMHO.


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'04 BRG/B S, stockified

 

Zamirz, I like the lower stance of your MINI! Thank you for all the great infos! I'll try the lower springs without control arms first to see how severe the camber is first.

What's considered acceptable for the rear camber?

 

dave- up to about -2.5 is acceptable. But it's up to your taste whether
the look is acceptable or not. I personally don't think the rear -2 plus
camber on my MCS is bad at all...i like the agressive stance.

I'd recommend the Alta springs since you're a little sensitive (?) :smile: Are you going
to do the install yourself?


ZAMIRZ - i like your ride. Those 15's look great with your green and
the chrome trims, etc. :smile: very well balanced and looks complete.

 

>>I'd recommend the Alta springs since you're a little sensitive (?) :smile: I'm leaning towards Alta because of the 18" wheels and possible rubbing of the tires. I had to trim the arch of the body kit on my other car due to rubbing. :smile: Are you going
>>to do the install yourself?

So far, I've managed to do everything myself, except X-pel, painting the aero kit, and balancing the wheels. I've modded on my other cars before, but mostly electronics and stereo equipments. As far as DIY performance upgrades, this MINI is by far the most extensive of all. I actually find it enjoyable and relaxing, though can be challenging at times!

 

Because of my "****" nature :smile:

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