Are the bumpstops on the shocks really necessary on the MINI, or are they there for added "piece-of-mind"?

 

Yes, they are very necessary to prevent the shocks from bending their shaft when metal meets metal at the end of their travel...not good when you bottom out:smile:

 

So this is the reason why when putting lowering springs on the car, people cut their bumpstops in half rather than removing them outright, correct?

 

I don't know about other springs but HSport provides short hard rubber bump stops. I don't know of any circumstances when you could use shocks/spring of any type without bump stops.

 

So if I got lowering springs that didn't come with bumpstops, and I decided to cut the factory ones in half to retain the suspension travel, I should keep the harder of the two halfs or the softer?

 

Definitely the harder. The bump stop is your last protection when the suspension reaches their limit. A lowered spring provides less travel to reach that point:smile:

 

To make sure you don't bottom more, you have to have the same amount of energy in the springs for the deflection (less with lowering springs) that it takes to bottom the suspension. So a lowing spring that is soft will need a harder bumpstop, but a much stiffer spring aready limits travel more, and the softer one will be fine.

But really, without all that mumbo jumbo, without bumpstops, when you bottom your suspension, all those metal on metal parts act like ball-peen hammers on each other. Something is going to give, and it won't be pretty! Think of the bumpstop as a reusable crumple zone in the suspension. It should reqire lots of energy to deform (be very stiff) so that it lessens the metal on metal impact.

Matt