Does anyone have experience with these on your lowered mini? I’m trying to kill bump steer in high speed corners and hopefully lose a little body roll while I’m at it.

 

THE best roll control is a stiffer adjustable RSB bar none. If you are experiencing understeer this will greatly improve that.

 

You haven't said how many miles you have on this beast. Are you autocrossing, out on the track or just mountain running? What have you done to it already? What shocks and springs do you have that lowered it? What are your alignment numbers front and rear? What tires and wheels are you running (size and offset). Details; we need details in order to help you.

I have no bump steer at high speed (well up to 105 mph). Power flex front bushings. If you don't want body roll, go for my setup with the 27mm front sway bar and the 25mm hollow rear sway bar. Flatter than a go kart. And no, it doesn't understeer like a beast...

 

 

 

 

not sure why people are talking about roll control when you are talking about roll correction they have nothing to do with each other.

Can you fit them? with 15" wheels on my track car they move the ball joint closer to the wheel, it wont clear...

I choose to lower the suspension less and run smaller wheels/tires, helps roll center and avoids all those axle problems, it also changes the final drive ratio quite a bit so that's a win too. Only time I do not like it is freeway driving, the high rpm gets old

 

 

I love the stiff swaybar for autocross, but for high speed & track I absolutely hate them, fia curbing will upset the car due to the way the torque transfers to the outside spring. Sure you could avoid the curbs but you will be slower.

I went with stiff springs, the little tiny road imperfections will make fillings in your teeth lose but the big hits are much more controlled, basically springs instead of sway bars to keep things stable

at high speed the steering angles are going to be low enough I do not see how roll center adjusters will help much

 

You pretty much have done all that I would have suggested. Your alignment looks good, except for the front toe. Zero front toe is something that you would do for autocross because it allows for a quicker turn-in, but it also reduces stability. I run stock toe for the track because of the stability. Other than that, I am at a bit of a loss here. I kept the stock ride height, so I don't have that lowered issue.

mega72 and I have gone in totally different directions here and I think that there are pros and cons with each. And surely there is personal preference here. I believe neither is "right" or "wrong", just different and that works to support different driving styles. It is good to hear different point to make an informed decision.

I understand his point about the two sides of the car being more and more connected with larger and larger sway bars. For me that works well and I don't find any particular issue with curbing. But I stayed with the softer MINI sports suspension springs and added Bilstien B8 shocks (which are fantastic IMHO). I originally started with the stock S suspension and added a 20mm RSB. I still had too much front end dive to the outside of turns for my liking. And I didn't like the twitch it induced on long, fast turns. On my second S I ordered the optional sports suspension (stiffer front and rear sway bars, springs and shocks). Wow what a difference. Much flatter and responsive. I liked it enough that I patterned my sway bar change to match the front to rear sway bar stiffness ratio to that of the sports suspension. I have the RSB on the softest setting and the handling is basically neutral with a little understeer at the limit ( have drifted it nicely, though). I get a little throttle steering, but not much. Surely that would all change if I stiffened the RSB. But I like being a bit conservative in my setup for the track as I never know when I might need to rely on it, like in the middle of a 105 mph sweeper and hit antifreeze (guess how I know).

You say that "I’m feeling some instability around 100-120 on long curves". This strikes me as being the inside rear wheel coming off the ground. I noticed this when I had softer shocks in my car. The BCs are adjustable, right? Have you tried stiffening them a little?

 

Hope you don't mind, but here is a short video of me at WGI. The car is flat, stable, and not overly affect by the curbs (I don't hit them very hard, though):


The Dunlop ZIIs squeal. That is just the way they are. Other than that, I have a lot of fun with this car and its setup.

 

eddie I started out the way you have your car setup, and I keep my jcw setup pretty much that way, but with jcw springs and koni yellow, hotchkis rear sway

 

Ok, we are not totally different.

 

well, one car is close but my track car is a different animal, 7kg/mm front 8kg/mm rear kw v3 with stock swaybars it's all spring I do not recall what I have the dampers set to now I probably should baseline them

 

Well done, like the video.

 

Ah ha... I knew it. A ringer!

It would be fun to get out on the same track together and see how the two cars compare.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

I've been on the same track saturday with the jcw and sunday with the track car. The track car is much more planted and the oversteer is much easier to control, the swaybar car does not break away smoothly once it starts to oversteer it's pretty sudden but the track car I can "dance" between under/over with the throttle. The track (NCCAR) has a giant turn where you can really dial in suspension for sweepers.. There is a big difference in how the car handles curbing too.

if you watch my steering input here you can see me correcting over/understeer, if you listen closely every time I lift off throttle the back tires start to squeal and step out

 

I had a MINI that was setup to do what yours does and that didn’t end well for it.

On my current car I will admit that I have pretty well dialed out that kind of throttle steering. You have another YouTube post about not touching a cold curb and shows your car doing a spin as a result. My car won’t do that. Our tracks around here are very unforgiving and a mistake like that will likely total the car. If you go back to my video and watch me go though the esses you will see why; that blue guard rail is ever present.

So my setup is a bit of a compromise, but it works well for me and it does well at handling the “unplanned” things that I have come access while out on the track.

 

yeah that cold curb was brutal, 3 cars spun out on the first double yellow lap, I was the 2nd car to spin

that video is at 10/10ths, the absolute limit of the tires

 

I was thinking about this on the way in to work today, I have my car setup very neutral so there is no oversteer or understeer it's always right in the sweet spot between it unless I purposely push one way or the other with throttle or brake

Do you setup your car to understeer terminally without ever oversteering, even on lift/brake?

 

Mine is also very neutral. However, because of how stiff the sway bars are, there is very little weight transfer from inside to outside of the car in a turn if I lift off the throttle. As a result there is very little throttle steering available in my car. On the flip side of that is that the car will understeer if I over brake and have to get on the gas before an apex. My best is to trailbrake into a turn which also maximizes my camber in front and apply throttle while straightening out after the apex (classic driving).

My video starts out with me heading into turn 7 (the Toe) at Watkins Glen. T7 is a horrible uphill corkscrew of a turn. I trailbrake about a third of the way up, but then have to get on the gas to even make it to the apex. The car pushes as soon as I hit the gas.

Following that is a right hander, then two lefts. The second left shows how neutral the car is. I take that turn with only a slight lift of the throttle and the car drifts nicely to the trackout.

That all said, it will understeer in a tight turn, like autocross courses tend to have and there is not much I can do about it. Some day I’ll have to set the rear sway bar to full stiff and see how it does.