saifa, put them on and enjoy the ride, it will be a little firmer, but considering your car with 02 suspension, it is already stiff, i am not very knowledgable about how much ride height you can adjust on those, however s far as my tire advise is 215/35/18 since those wheels have 43mm offset no problemos

 

 

sorry if it seems like my dragging my backside on this one guys...I have just moved around 700 miles to a new city....and starting a new job on Monday...

If I didn't make it clear earlier, the 18's have been sold. I'm looking at those enkei wheels that I posted earlier - a freind of mine here owns a wheel distribution business - so hopefully we'll see some new additions to the mini sooner rather than later...

saifa - I hope your new setup works out - remember, it has a lot to do with personal preference...what I think is a rough ride may be fine for you...

 

Good luck with everything

 

Stick with your standard offset,I have tsw 18 with 215-35-18 not lowered but looking at clearances as is could not see a problem.Saifa are you still in Barrie?

 

any more 18's?

 

you are one step ahead, i was going to ask the same question? i like 17s, but nothing like 18s, man.... missing mine

 

ScuderiaMini, I will be ordering your WRC rims soon... going to run it on eibach springs. Maybe the dimensions will be 215/40/18 ET 42. That shouldn't be a problem right?

I understand it's a real pain to clean, but how MUCH pain?!

 

are you in US, man sorry for the late response, well, they get dirty easily but clean up pretty quick, not on my car anymore tho. By far the best rims i had, made a mistake letting them go, might go back to them on 17s in the future

 

No worries dude, not in the states. Our roads here are pretty alright, not exactly smooth but at least there isn't much potholes.

I'm waiting for my current non-flat tyres to wear off first before change the whole set.

I can't decide 17" or 18" but it'd have to be those rims... very TRICK! 17" for slightly better performance and fuel economy, or 18" for pure asthethics. I guess thats what the extra 1% in the M7 16% is for! hahahaha Than again, there's the mushrooming problem as i have front and rear strut bars and front and rear swaybars. Oh well, I still have a while to think about it.

My ride is a HB/W and 6" wide bonnet stripes(awaiting installation) so the white rims will look very WRC!

But i'd definately have to use different brake pads that produces less dust. Our stock pads are terrible.

 

weezer, I owe you a big thank you from this post back in December. I started thinking about the bumpstops after you asked me if I swapped them out. When I first had the springs installed, I was not feeling too good and a couple of my friends basically told me just sit down and they would put the springs on for me. I obviously should have paid a bit more attention while the spring swap was going on, but we have all worked on each others cars for years and I was pretty unconcerned.

I finally got some time this past weekend to take the suspension out of my car and check the bumpstop situation. I found that the H-Sport springs were installed with the factory bumpstops still in place. Not only that, but the fronts actually had the BOTH the factory stops AND the H-Sport stops together. Luckliy, I still had the uninstalled rear H-Sport bumpstops in my parts bag with the factory springs. I took out the factory stops and put in the H-Sports which returned all of the missing suspesion travel. Sheesh. It feels like a new car again. I now realize that I was basically riding on the bumpstops the whole time. When I drove the car for the first time with the correct bumpstops, I was amazed that the MINI actually has a bit of dive and squat under acceleration and braking. This was non-existant in the previous setup. The most ironic thing about this is that I've always told my gearhead friends that like to slam their cars "Don't underestimate the value of suspension travel."

Thanks again, weezer! I'm going to look you up at the next Hill Country Rendezevous, 'cause I owe you a couple of beers.

John

 

ok, i want a beer to since i am Greg's motoring buddy, here

 

Okay, but just one for you.

 

I'm going to be getting the ASA AR1's soon in 18x7.5. The offset is ET +38. I know the recommended tire size is 215/35/18 but I want a bit more of a comfortable ride. I was thinking 215/40/18 as 205/40/18 isn't a common tire size. Note: I will be on stock suspension for a couple of months and will then go to H-Sports or m7's... I know that for now those tires will not rub, will they rub with the springs? I'm thinking yes, but, is it something that I can easily fix with some trimming of the fender?

 

yes, and yes

 

Thank you, I will be getting 215/40/18... how do you like your AR1's??

 

i like the way they look, that is pretty much it, getting ready to go back to 18s. Oh one thing, like every mesh wheel, it is a beeyach to clean them.

 

What tires do you recommend? Are the Toyo Proxes FZ4 good (I can get them for ~$90/tire)? Other then that, Pirelli PZero Nero M+S, Toyo Proxes 4 or BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW 2... Which is better?

 

depends on the purpose, i had FZ4s, was happy with them, real quite and the reason they are cheap, they are being discontinued. I would be prefer Pirelli P Zero Neros. BFG KDW2s have excellent grip, but comfort is questionable.

 

John, that's not a cool story!

I was wondering about the bump-stops the other day. As I have the Alta springs, they didn't come with replacement bump-stops, and the stock ones are un-changed. I'm not quite clear on how the bump-stops need to be modified - could someone please post a diagram or photo (I hear you can cut the stock ones??) with an explaination. This also makes me wonder how that has affected the ride of the alta springs.....

Apologies for letting this thread slide - I moved cities three months ago, and we're having trouble getting DSL setup at home (our telco here is GARBAGE). So I only get to post about once a week....

As an update, I've purchased a set of eibach springs. I drove a friends car a few weeks back that had the eibachs with stock shocks, (with 18's on the car!) and the ride quality was infinately better than mine. I decided to go with them, and they are getting installed on Tuesday (finally!!).

If the ride quality is improved, I'll have a few wheel options on my plate. I went and visited that friend of mine that has the wheel distribution business, and had a close look at his HT3's. They were different than mine (which I sold for almost no loss of $$). The ones he had were et45 and felt quite a bit lighter. Plus, they are a silver colour, not the darker colour like I had on the car before - so if the springs work out, I'll be looking at those again (or the enkeis I posted).

This also means I'll be running on new tires - so that will be another area to potentially improve....

 

Tit,

Trust me, I know just how "not cool" that was. Like the saying goes, "if you want something done right, do it yourself."

I don't have any photos of the factory bumpstops, but they are made of an odd material that seems like a cross between styrofoam and rubber. It's easy enough to cut with a knife or saw. I tried cutting mine a bit to see if there was any advantage to keeping the front bumpstop. If you decide to cut the factory bumpstops, you may want to keep enough of the front intact so that it will support the dust cover for the struts. The dust covers are supported by the cone shaped part of the front bumpstop so if you cut too much, the dust cover will just slip off of the bumpstop. The rear is shaped like three donuts that increase in size. It's up to you how many donuts to cut, but I'd probably cut the two small ones off.

Keep us posted on your wheel purchase.

BTW, I know a guy in Adelaide that organizes "cruise nights" during the summer months. I'm not sure if you've heard of the Zippel cruise events or not.

John

 

I've not heard of the 'Zippel' cruise - what kind of cruise is it? Modern cars?

As for my situation, I picked up my car yesterday with the eibachs (pro-kit) now fitted. The bump-stops had about an inch cut off them (I didn't not see the work happening myself) - the guy that did it has done about 20 mini's and is a well known local eibach distributor, so I trusted he knew what he was doing.

Anyway....what a change!!!

My car has gone from a jackhammer to a sofa on wheels! I can go over bumps in the road without fear!!!!!

HURRAAH!!!!!!!

Now, the next question is one of wheels - this problem won't be solved for a little while due to $$$$. Never-the-less, I feel my poor ride quality issues are fixed!!!!