Just wondering if anyone has the lower brace. If so, how does it mount?
http://www.ompracing.it/barre/barree...imitsubnis.pdf


Jim Williams

 

never seen one of those before. Probably just ties the control arms together. I might look into that part.

 

I can't believe it took someone this long to develop this particular part... I'm not sure how much the MINI would benefit from it, though?

 

i can't figure out where it goes!

 

This sort of device is popular for the unibody Honda/Acuras as their stamped supports have questionable strength. On mine, I only had the rear bar but it's similar to the front. The lower pivot bolt is removed and a longer one is threaded through both the brace and the lower control arm. If the mounting location weren't on the lower subframe, it may be worth it. But the subframe is thick steel and bolted in 14 locations to the chassis by 16x100 mm bolts. The bolts are high-grade steel. The control arm forward pivot isn't going anywhere. I'd replace the aft bushing and few other components before I would consider the control arm forward pivot as the weak point.

This is just my opinion and I'm not positive the forward pivot is on the subframe. Still, changes in alignment under racing conditions has yet to be mentioned as a concern on these forums. Spend your money on something else.

 

Better yet - try one. My experience is that the OMP frame brace makes the front end of the car feel substantially more solid and better carving, and reduces road noise slightly as a side benefit. It's well worth the moderate price.

 

Car feels slightly more solid and connected in mid-corner with the OMP front brace than it did without
(yeah, I know that sounds very subjective, so how about this) :

In California we have grooved highways to reduce hydroplaning, but with new tires, the MINI used to "jiggle" slightly (disconcertingly) left & right while traveling straight down these grooved roads (as if "catching an edge" to use a skiing metaphor). After OMP bar install, the jiggle pretty much went away.

The M7 understrut system would probably do the same thing or better, but the OMP costs a lot less (RallyNuts was my source) and it is a 10 minute driveway install.

 

RallyNuts was also where I got my OMP lower brace, and they have a great price. I bought it for only $75 shipped (from the UK!) in 2005. The exchange rate is worse now and probably closer to $90 shipped, but still a good price.

I had the OMP for about 6 months, then swapped it out for an M7 understrut system. The M7 USS was a very dramatic change (improvement) over the OMP. I have a cabrio, and there may be less effect on a hardtop.

 

Hey guys,

I have only seen pics of this doo-hickey in a limey magazine (modern mini).

It looks like it may have issues with ground clearance???

I'm guessing I am no lower than most of you guys - also I suspect that alot of Aussie roads are none too smooth in places.

Cheers guys.

 

Here's a pic from this thread on MINI2.

 

After seeing it on the car, it would be difficult to imagine clearance issues, as the bar rides 1/4" higher than the plastic lip just in front of it. If the plastic lip is intact on your car, clearance for the lower brace should not be a problem.

 

Where is it for sale at?

 

Got the OMP brace on my car - it can and WILL smack stuff like speed bumps on a lowered car if you don't take it VERY easy over them. My car is lowered 1.5" or so...

Also, we'll soon be releasing an upgraded, beefier x-brace for the front! Pics to come when we get the prototypes in... Dr. Mike used his race car fab skills to engineer it up - it's NICE!

 

Good Morning MINI Motor Heads!
It's funny that this thread just popped up again because Mini-Madness just became an official OMP Parts Dealer about 3 weeks ago.
We have had the OMP Strut Brace installed on our Madness MCS for a year or 2 and are completely satisfied with it.
We just installed the Lower Stress Bar and "pre-load adjustable Strut Brace on a LY MCS about a week ago. Within 1 hour of driving the Portland hwys and city streets the owner was back with nothing but praise about the bars. He said basically the same thing as others have "that the road movement is pretty much gone."
Everyone who has left a comment on the bar is right. It does sit low and could possibly scrape, but if you are a careful driver as I know we all are, there should not be any major issues. But, if by chance you do catch it on something, the bar is designed to take the force and brake away.

Here is a link to our site:
http://www.mini-madness.com/index.as...ROD&ProdID=290

We are in the process of adding products to our site (only 1 so far) so if you find that there is an OMP product that you would like to satisfy your Mod'itis' feel free to look the OMP site over and then send us an e-mail or give us a call with the product #/description and we will do our best to get it ordered up for you. (for those interested, we plan to carry some of the functional pedals, shifter *****, and stress braces. Let us know if you see anything else that you think we should carry?)
Here is a link to the OMP product site:
http://www.ompamerica.com/

If you have any questions feel free to give us a call.
1-888-783-6294
(We will be out of the office Friday May 18th but we will be back on Monday.)

 

Once again, if anyone is interested in any of the OMP parts, check out the OMP American website and give us the product number. We will be more than happy to get the pieces to you.

http://www.ompamerica.com/

 

Posted my nickels worth on the MINI2 thread almost 2 years ago.
In brief, get it. Best bang for the buck mod after the rear sway.
As noted do not reuse the bolts. Buy new ones.
A clever vendor <ahem/> would bundle these with the bar.

 

really? I take your advice to heart as you've pushed your mini a lot harder then I will ever push mine.

Just buy looks I would think that it would almost need to be triangulated or rectangle to do any good. I however, am no engineer and I haven't stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately.

thanks for the advice obehave.

 

It will make a difference in torsional loading but none or very little in longitudinal flex. Making that go away isn't cheap.

I was very surprised how effective this little thing was.
If you didn't read the MINI 2 thread I'll add that it does introduce a tiny bit of understeer. At the time meb explained it very well and I believe him.

In autocross my car is pretty neutral the way I drive it.
Other opinions will inevitably vary.

 

The bar prevents flexing in the lower part of the suspension during hard cornering, hence maintaining the tire's contact patch with the road. The improved grip at the front tires w/o a corresponding change at the rear wheels leads to understeer...correct?

 

It, in essence, ties the rear of the front control arms together.
What you say makes sense but I'm not chassis guy enough to know.
ANother "I just remembered" bit.
It also seems to help the dampers engage the load and reduce the chassis being involved. Just plain driving down the road improved.
My wife, not knowing at all what I had done, remarked that the car felt smoother. Quite noticeable over a very familiar, much repaired spot near our house.
Once I found the new rear tire pressure for auto-x my car just felt better than ever.

I'm definitely no authority on this stuff but I'm quite a fan.

 

Me too.

It really makes my `05 MCS feel more solid and precise during hard cornering, reduces the amount of steering corrections from small irregularities while just driving down the road, and quiets and smooths out the ride.

It's not the degree of change you get from a rear sway bar or from wheels and tires, but it's definitely a great improvement for the price, and it takes about 5 minutes to remove it if you don't like it. It works well, even without an upper strut brace, but works with one to give even more improvement.

Well worth the price, IMHO.

 

What's the ETA on the x-brace?

 

We're a couple weeks away from having prototypes in hand for fitment checks on a bunch of different cars... And then, it's off to production!

 

Any update on your lower brace?

 

Yes, there is... We're NOW a few weeks away from having a hard prototype in our hands. You can't imagine how hard it has been to find someone that wanted to make these things... At the end of May, we were confident that a couple of local fab shops would make them for us, but alas...

The comments varied from, "Oh, those will be way expensive" to "Would you build us the fixture?" to "If you'll order 500 of them... (not!)" to "The tolerances are too tight - we can't hit those". None of these inspired much confidence...

In any event, we finally found someone willing to make them for us at a decent price. They are hand-fabbing the prototype up now, test fitting it on a MINI for us, then shipping it to us to fit up to several test cars to check the tolerances...