I'm confused. The strut bar (m7) went right on with no problems or bulging in my MINI.

I have an 05' MCS. Is there a difference with clearance between the guts under the bonnet of an MC vs. MCS?

Maybe this has been answered but I am too lazy to read through every single post.

 

I don't know. Maybe the '06 JCW hood liner is EXTRA thick. Maybe there is extra thick metal on the strut towers on my car. It was close, very close and if it was up to me, I would've tried to make it work. But this being the wife's car, she had the final say.

 

I had to remove the liner on my 05 MCS for the M7 car to fit nicely and have no gap issues!

Garrett

 

Yes, but that's not the only issue. The bonnet itself is different between the MC and MCS. The MC battery cover sits up high. An Alta CAI intersects this area on an MCS. Some older cars have thicker / thinner padding under the bonnet. Unichips tend to sit up into the path of your average strut brace.
Grrr...

I'm still hoping UmNitza will reply to my previous posts. I'd love to actually be able to fit their bar under my bonnet (seeing as how I went to the trouble to buy it when it was still $200). It is, by far, the single prettiest thing I've ever purchased for the car.

 

My pro mini Tower Strut Bar is due anyday. I'm very curious to see if it fits now.

 

Well, I'll have a MINI-clubsport bar for sale as soon as my black M7 bar arrives It's identical to the JCW one eccept w/o the logo and it fits with only minor touching of the bonnet pad.

 

Strange...mine has the same bonnet bulge that everyone's experienced with the M7 and I have a 05 MCS JCW. I still think it is a good investment and it also seemed to have made the ride a little bit less bumpy.

 

I exchanged e-mails with Umnitza tonight. They are in my local area (SF Bay Area), and I will be going to their shop next week for a fitting on my 2006 MCc. I will report back...

 

I've been driving around for the last 2 weeks with the UmNitza brackets installed (just the lower portions), and today I popped the bonnet. There, to my surprise, were clearly defined impressions of the bracket in the bonnet-liner. Mind you: this does not include the riser portion that actually holds the bar; it's just the base.

These portions have never touched the liner when doing test fittings, but I've been doing some very aggressive driving over the last week or so, and that tells me that the struts are moving a bit with torsion. I don't have any mushrooming, but if you're driving at 10 10ths, the upper portion of the Umnitza mount will impact the bonnet, whether or not you've removed the liner.

 

On my 2006 MCC, I don't even have a strut bar yet and the hood liner has impressions just from the strut tower itself. I'm holding out hope that a strut bar exists for the MC that won't push my hood up, but realistically...

 

I am at home this weekend, but I will be talking to Peter at M7 tomorrow to see what other ideas we can come up with

Jonathan

 

The hood wont close, I am going to try and soak it with water and compress it.
The liner seems thin on the '04 but still issues.
- got the hood to close by wetting down liner, re-tightening the bolts in different pattern (so the inside is lowest point)
-I may have some mushrooming on drivers side making it creep up a little.
-The hood sits up about 1/8" now, I will cut liner after next check up.

I had a 'ebay' special strut bar that left impressions on matt but no buldges.