does your car feel like it is pivoting around the front or the back? When I move the steering wheel back and forth my car feels like it is pivoting around the back. Once I dig into a turn it seems to feel normal, but under normal tracking and accellerating the car feels "loose" and I don't meen in the nascar way. Also, when taking curves at normal speeds my car seems to cut across rather than go around them. I've checked everthing and it all looks good.

Does anyone else's car have this characteristic?

I have hsport springs and rspeed bar on middle setting. I tried the stiffest setting today and it just got worse, although the balance does feel a little better in hard cornering.

I'm thinking that the hsport spings are too soft up front or that I may need stiffer bushings or even a bigger front bar.

Long post, but I would like to hear how your car feels with similar mods.

 

Is this a new setup for you or have you been using it for a while and are now noticing this issue?
I ask because just before I found that my front struts were shot I think I felt the same weirdness going on. Car just didn't feel as crisp as it used to.
I run the H-sport springs also and now feel that the lowering ended up destroying my struts.
This also sounds like it could easily be a tire issue. In fact it would be my first thing to eliminate.

 

I just got new tires and thought the old ones might me the problem, so it's not that. I also think it might be the shocks going, but wanted to see how other cars were reacting.

I have had the springs for 4 months and the bar for 3. I noticed it right away with the springs and even more with the bar. Even worse with the bar on stiffer settings.

My girlfriends stock mcs has always seemed to have firmer dampining than mine, so perhaps that is the problem.

 

Try the bar at the softest setting and see how that feels.


I changed to coil overs when I switched the sway bar. In all honesty I felt little difference in the handling in every day driving but when I start to get spirited the car litterly digs in and corners.

 

That's kinda the point. I want a little more rotation, but when I stiffen the bar the car acts goofy even though the balance is better when I dig into it. If I have to soften the bar, there isn't really a reason to have the bigger bar. I'm pretty sure its shocks or bushings, but like I said, I wanted to get a better idea of how other cars are behaving. Thanks though.

 

onasled

Have you replaced your shocks yet? If so did it make a difference?

 

I hope to have them in this weekend. Still waiting for them to arrive from Turner Motorsport. They offer the PSS9 for about the best price I have seen.
Will let ya know when I try'm out.

 

cool, I'm thinking of bilstein sports, but that will be a while.

 

Do you guys have adjustable struts, or the stock ones still?

I just got the tein s tech springs and love them...but with my last car, eclipse gst, the springs lead to destroying the struts, and i assume its the same with this application. I put 5way adjustables on it and it made a world of difference. That is what i plan on doing once i feel my current ones are shot.

If you haven't already, i would consider that to fix your problem mostly because of half the cost, and since you already have springs....but coil overs, if you have the money, is the way to go.

 

How are springs going to destroy the struts?!?!? The H-Sports even come with new bumpstops, and that would be the only real problem with damage. Plus the H-Sports are the least-agressive drop of any spring availble for the MINI. Wouldn't the H&R or M7 springs destroy the shocks faster then? Wouldn't anyone else talk about this if it was the case?

 

I don't mean to be offensive (it looked kind of mean when I looked at it posted) But I'll be using the same setup, and I did a load of research before I bought everything and I never came across anyone saying this. Especially not a vendor. And most vendors around here are pretty straight shooting guys.

Do you both have 2002 MINIs? Because I think they changed struts since the earliest builds.

 

Both of mine are 03's a couple months apart. The one that acts funny does have some of the newer features... the clutch is different and has the brake sensor light, so maybe it has softer shocks too.

BTW I really wanted to see how other cars handle with these mods, not what may be wrong with mine. I don't think anything is broken, it never really felt as solid as the earlier one we have.

sandtoast500,
I have had stiffer springs wear out shocks on another car, but the stock mini shocks are pretty stiff and I haven't heard of any failing.

 

IIRC, MINI changed shocks sometime in the latter portion of the 1st Quarter of 2003.

 

My MCS is a 7/02 one with the stiffer shocks. It's been on M7 springs for maybe 20,000 miles or more and still rides great. Only thing I want now is to add Konis to stiffen the damping more, it's a little soft at high speeds.
I also have a UUC 19mm bar on soft setting.
I tend to work the throttle thru fast turns, off throttle for rotation, on throttle to get the rear to hook up again.

 

All I can say is that my H-Sports did not last. When they were first installed I had two coils resting on each other in the rears. A while later I noticed what looked like close to 3. Then it was a definite 3 and finally 4!

I tracked the car a few time and then on my warm-up lap on my lat track day I noticed something was quite wrong in the front

Listen to this short video of that incident. http://members.tripod.com/ghmyc_1m/NHIS_struts.wmv

We pitted right after that and found no other problems. When I got home I disassemble the front end to find that one bump stop was now missing and that the struts were shot. I also noticed that the paint was missing on the H-Sport spring where the top 2.5 coil have been making a whole lot'a contact. Maybe the struts failed when the springs sagged? The roads can be rough here in the northeast, even on the tracks.

By the way, I have an '03

 

dominic, I think that's why mine is so different from my girlfriend's, thanks.

onasled, I think the resting coils are there to set ride hight and keep the springs in place when the car is jacked up. I'm pretty sure that is a characteristic of progressive springs. Thanks for the vid clip and I will keep an eye on the ride hight.

I will try sport shocks first and then stiffer front springs if that doesn't work.

 

In general, if a shock/damper is designed for one application, read ride height, it will fail prematurely at a lower ride height. H-Sports do not lower the Mini as much as other springs. However, H-Sports front spring rate is less than than the stock spring rate on an MCS. These two factors may cause a damper to wear very quickly if the car is driven aggressively. I drive aggressively.

How are springs going to destroy the struts?!?!? The H-Sports even come with new bumpstops, and that would be the only real problem with damage. Plus the H-Sports are the least-agressive drop of any spring availble for the MINI. Wouldn't the H&R or M7 springs destroy the shocks faster then? Wouldn't anyone else talk about this if it was the case?


The question about rotation is very very difficult to answer...or even to place one's arms around. The feel portion of the equation is a subjective. That being said, pure cornering power can be measured fairly accurately. Having a pure G number along with a subjective characterization are at least two helpful ways of describing handling traits.

A car should exhibit slow speed oversteer - when asked, not by surprise - and high speed understeer - to a point. This makes a car very responsive at slow speeds and very stable at high speeds. Achieving these traits or the degree of either is hard; driver preferences - feel - can limit development without the aid of special equipment. So feel alone is not a good way to judge how your car is handling - although that's how most of us do this sort of thing.

If you want, PM me I'll give you a couple of things to try. Remember, what works as an autoX set-up will likely be way too nervous for the street. An awsome street set-up will not work very well at an autoX meet. You must decide where you want to spend the bulk of your time and tune the MAJOR components for that venue with some adjustability for weekend whatevers.

Michael

 

I haven't had my springs on very long, but the ride is fantastic... alittle stiff, but thats a good thing in my eyes. It has been my experience in the past, with my eclipse, and all of my friends, that lowering the car with springs indeed does ruin STOCK struts because thats not what they were meant to work with. I'm not aware of the quality of the minis struts, or if there is a difference between the MC, MCS and JCW struts. I would, based of that, not be surprised if they went bad faster. Also, most of the springs do not offer that significant of a drop like most other cars, and other cars tend to be heavier. Regardless of that, adjustable stuts will still be able to improve handling characteristics and supplement the springs.

Also...what size sway bars do you guys recommend for mostly street, slight track use? What are the characteristics of the different sizes?

 

Yes, I agree here, but the fact is that mine were becoming more and more compressed as the miles went on the car. This would also mean, to me, that if this is happening then the rest of the spring is also compressing easier.

 

Most leave the stock front while replacing the rear with the more popular 22mm.
Some like jlm and spiderX have replaced the front also. I'd like to here from them if this is working for them on the track and if now they use the rear on the stiffer hole.

 

Actually, those "resting Coils" are acting as tender springs. If the spring is not progressively wound or pitched thru out its entire length, it is not progressive. It is either a liner rate spring with a tender spring or a dual rate spring.

Regarding damper failure:

Lets look at the car and the springs as a system for a moment without the dampers. When an outside energy source is introduced into the car and spring system, the car and springs will vibrate, move with a natural frequency. Add weight to the system, and the frequency is reduced. Remove weight from this system and frequency is increased. Add spring rate to this system and frequency is increased. Remove spring rate from this system and frequency is reduced. You can dampen these frequencies with shocks - that's why they should be called dampers. Dampers must be designed with natural frequncies in mind. The Mini was designed (hopefully)with dampers that are capable of working with or cycling with its natural frequencies - defined by its front to rear wieght bias, and, spring rates. The H-Sports changed this...in addition to ride height.

 

After comparing spring rates of other brands I have discovered how soft the hsports are. Even the stiffest part of the front spring is significantly softer than the tein sport spring, 195 vs 224. The softest part of the hsport is 175, that would explain why the car feels so unstable until I corner hard.

 

It's not so much that the front rates are soft, rather, that the rears are so much stiffer. A 105lb/in bias to the rear is a lot in my opinion for the street. AutoXing is different...you might want a 200lb/in difference - with a car with 63% of its weight over its nose.

Based upon my experience, an equal spring rate front to rear, say 300lb/in front and 300lb/in rear, (300lb/in for the Mini in particular) in most front drivers driven on the street is plenty! fine tuning geometry, dampers, sway bar size and setting and perhaps bushings well help to dial in the degree of rotation desired for the street. I also believe that a 19mm rear bar is plenty for the street, but that's my opinion; when I'm racing thru unfamilar back counrty roads in Connecticut and New York, I don't want a surprise high speed closing radius turn to end up in a tail spin. A little understeer is actually a great thing sometimes...too much however, and you're likely to hit what you are pointed at. Large rear bars can make high speed transitions a white knuckled drive...and usually a slower drive at that.

Oversteer works in slow speed turns. We can only get so much balance from the Mini...more and more rear bar - for the street - is not really the answer.

 

Yes, but I like the increased rear rate. The front just needs a little bit more. I hated the soft rear, it felt like a honda.

 

Oh yeah, I'll point out again that my problem is not when cornering hard, but when cruising and making mild steering inputs the car feels very unstable when on the stiffest sway setting. And again not unstable meaning the rear is going to step out, but that the front acts funny like I have bad ball joints or bushings, shocks, etc...

Thanks for the input, but I just wanted to know if anyone else experienced this with the same set up. hsports and firm rear swaybar.