Could this be a helpful thread for those who are replacing the stock struts for the first time with Coilovers?

if my new BR coilovers include camber plates and adjustable end links, what other stock suspension parts also MUST be replaced?

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i know a lot about engine stuff but hardly anything about suspension. Y’all wanna put this list together for the newbs?

 

"MUST" be replaced? Nothing. "Nice to have" with coil overs? That's a different story...

For the front, replace the front control arm rear bushing with poly. These will keep the control arm in the correct position and give better steering and suspension control. If you are willing to drop the subframe to make the control arm bushing upgrade, also add a bigger front sway bar. Seems counterintuitive, but a bigger front bar will actually make the handling sharper. Since Mini uses a MacPherson front strut design, controlling body roll in the front will help keep camber in check. Speaking of camber, with adjustable front camber plates, get the front alignment down to -2° camber. Then, match the rear camber to the front. A front strut bar might help with feedback, too.

Moving to the rear, Bigger rear sway bar, lower adjustable camber arms, and trailing arm front bushing inserts. The bigger sway bar will help the car stay flat. I believe H&R and WhiteLine are the only makers that offer a bigger front sway bar. If you can swing it, get the matched set of front and rear from the same manufacturer. The lower camber arms will help bring camber back into spec from lowering, and allow you to dial in to match the front numbers. The trailing arm bushings will keep rear toe alignment from moving around when hard cornering. This will make the car more predicable.

Don't get fooled into thinking you need adjustable end links. OEM links will be just fine, and are less expensive and quieter.

 

This is gold!!!! Many thanks!
these are the links that come with the coilovers

 

Those end links will probably be fine to use, but if your OEM ones come off easily, just reuse them. Compare the lengths against the OEM ones that come off the car. My Bilsteins came with new end links too, but were exactly the same size as OEM.

 

drop the subframe? I’ve got a golden opportunity to take advantage??

My engine is out right now

 

Contributing more knowledge for the community…. Here is advice from
a very trusted vendor that was just shared with me via email. i have bought many parts from him great guy!!!

Btw I will be lowering just a smidge to fill in some wheel gap. A tiny smidge lol. No track for me ever. Lowering will be purely aesthetic.

“If you lower a MINI without replacing the fixed stock upper strut mounts AND rear lower fixed control arms you will end up with too much negative camber which means the tires will tilt inward at the top and you will prematurely wear out the tires due to too much inner tire wear. Some negative camber is good - around negative .7-1.2 or so but the lower the car goes the more aggressive that becomes and could go up to negative 2.5 degrees or more- and that can be a good thing for specific types of track racing and canyon driving as it offsets the natural flex of tires as you go into a turn very agressively. For canyon carving you could just leave it as is and enjoy the added camber as the car twists and pushes the weight to the outer tires.Having CONTROL over exactly what that camber setting ends up at is a much better solution than just taking the gamble- especially if your MINI is tuned to specific types of driving.

So, honestly you can go either way but there will be more tire wear on the inner edge the higher the negative camber.

Adjustable Rear Control Arms


Adjustable Rear Control Arms

“need swaybar bushings OR the rear control arm bushings (those are pressed into the upper and lower control arms and DO stretch over time?? but if you are doing coilovers you would want to replace the fixed rear lower arms with adjustable arms anyways so at that point you could replace the UPPER arms too as they are the same part number just used in different applications.And we don't come across used adjustable control arms very often but they may show up on ebay, etc”

 

The front will not gain camber as much as the rear when lowering. And, any amount of camber you gain in the front will be welcome. ALWAYS get an alignment when performing suspension work, as TOE values will change significantly with any amount of suspension changes. TOE will wear out tires much faster than CAMBER. Also, for whatever its worth, the GP2 factory settings are for -2° front camber, and -2.25° rear camber. If you can hit those numbers with your alignment, the car will feel amazing and hold corners like the best of them.

Here is my suggestion for sway bars:
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-h-and-r-...it/72452-3~hr/

Take note of the H&R part number for the kit. You might be able to find them less expensive if you search.

 

This Mini community is some kind of awesome! Thanks y’all and hope to see more folks chime in with their experience on coilovers. Can’t wait to get them going!