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SuspensionSprings, struts, coilovers, sway-bars, camber plates, and all other modifications to suspension components for Cooper (R50), Cabrio (R52), and Cooper S (R53) MINIs.
Hey all! I am looking at all of the various underbody chassis brace options for the R53 and am having difficulty deciding. Below are a few of the options I have found. I would love to hear who has what and your impressions/opinions. Cheers!
Edit: Current suspension mods include WMW front strut, WMW rear sway (medium setting), and Hsport front sway (softest setting), cabrio braces.
I’d recommend just the X-Brace.
I have the Ultra Racing braces that
go under the front subframe and they
are fine as well. Looks like the
middle one from your links plus a
smaller one that goes just behind
that one.
The X-brace for my 2nd gen R55 was
on extended back order when I got
the UR braces.
I would have bought the X-brace if I
had a choice, but don’t regret getting
the UR braces.
I had the X shaped Wiechers brace first,
but returned it without even installing
it because of poor design in terms of
attachment point location and fasteners.
I don’t like the M7 design - it’s not
really built to brace against movement
effectively where it should.
I have the M7 USS and it seems nice. I would.like to try the OMP one. I do also have the Ultra rear brace that seems to firm things up. Lastly I have the DNA bar that should be delivered very soon. Ill let you know when I get it.
Edit: I would like to try the Cusco mid and rear power brace if I can find them or at least get peoples opinion on them.
I have the M7 USS and it seems nice. I would.like to try the OMP one. I do also have the Ultra rear brace that seems to firm things up. Lastly I have the DNA bar that should be delivered very soon. Ill let you know when I get it.
Edit: I would like to try the Cusco mid and rear power brace if I can find them or at least get peoples opinion on them.
I can tell you from experience with each of these and even a few others not mentioned that most of these will make very little or no difference at all, or worse cause more issues.
Look at the designs of each and really simplify it. Where is the body the weakest? What parts of the car can actually flex? Do you think the subframe is flexing?
Doesn't take an engineer to see the middle part of the car is going to be the weekest, heck even looking at the cabrio MINI engineers figured out the rear bracing system.
That is why we make the TSW X brace as it is designed to go across the open area of the middle of the car and attach to solid points on the subframe. The X crosses the area and will actually show improvement, and don't take my word ask someone that has and X brace.
The M7 brace 3 out of 4 bars follow the subframe (no strength is needed there) and one bar crosses the body at the rear of the subframe. That is the only one that does anything but attaches to the sheet metal of the body, so there is still flex there. We have actually removed more of these than we can count due to them pulling out of the body, or bending and rattling.
The bars like the OMP and other that just connect the control arm brackets together? Again that is the thickest and strongest part of the subframe right there, Not where you need more strenght or are feeling flex
The Ultra set, now they are for sure trying as they do cross the open area of the car, but it's just straight across so not as strong as and X or triangle. Also these go all the way up on the front under the strong part of the subframe again, so that part not really doing much.
Also remember with ALL of them you will loose ground clearance no way around it.
I hope this gives food for thought rather than trying to make a crazy engineering break down.
Have had this one for last 12yrs or so....along a with full powerflex steering / suspension bushings F&R....and Hotchkis 25.5 hollow rear competition bar....JCW springs and Bilstein Sport Struts....I quite like it but that X-Brace has my attention....
Last edited by Eurothrasher; Jun 6, 2020 at 10:45 PM.
I like the X-Brace. But first I started with the OMP bar, and if it was doing anything positive, it was subtle. Next came added cabrio-braces, and some dash rattles disappeared. But there was still tramlining on grooved highways (AKA "Groove wander"). This may have been partly due to running the alignment at "zero toe", or a hint of toe-out for handling reasons. I replaced OMP with the X-Brace when it first came out, and the tramlining on grooved roads instantly disappeared! So it certainly reinforces the lower a-arm mounting points. (I lined-up for mine back when TSW did a limited run of normalized 4130 X-braces.)
There are people who swear by their M7 under-braces, but from an engineering perspective, there are a lot of bolted joints that are designed to allow movement, with oversize holes. And like Way, I have seen one with the nutsert mountings pulled right out of the car's sheet metal (leaving a nasty hole).
The Mini was designed with quite rigid strut towers, unlike many other FWD cars. Way-back on NAM someone who was designing race bits (I forget his name) reported setting up a recording dial indicator between the strut towers, did some hot laps, and measured only .010 to .015" of resulting movement between the strut towers. That's less than 1/64th of an inch. This would seem to indicate that unless you are running sticky-slicks on the track, there is unlikely to be a measurable benefit to adding a strut brace on a R53. That was a surprise, considering how many are offered for sale.
(I do use IE's fixed camber plates, which add support to the underside of the shock tower, with the sheet metal sandwiched between those and M7 strut tower reinforcement plates to prevent mushrooming.)
I have been waiting to find a "deal" on a WMW X-Brace to try against everything else that I have done. The cabrio braces did very little, the M7 USS I feel because of the way it connects did very little, I have the Ultra Racing rear subframe connector that did very little. The 22mm NM rear sway did a bit. The M7 upper was for mushrooming only before I had the PSS10'S and Vorshlag camber plates. The powerflex steering bushing was done with the rebuilt motor and my powerflex LCA bushings were done when I refreshed the front suspension when installing the coilovers. Needless to say the car handles very well as it is a sum of its entire parts. I have yet to find the one item that just blows me away though.
With that said the Ultra brace that is to be installed in the cabin seems like a great solution for the R53. The Cusco mid, and rear power bars are just to expensive for me to "try" in the name of science. At the end of the day I would say it is about the car and it's intended use and most importantly the drivers feel.
My DNA bar will arrive tomorrow and I'll update everyone when I install it. (Low/medium expectations)
Did you have a chance to install and test out the X-Brace? Thoughts?
no, my wife and I ended up doing a trip this past weekend to Oregon wine country and up the 101 coast highway. We ended up right at 702 miles and averaged 30.5 mpg.
