In my years of experience... I have found lube to be a big and exciting part of my proffesional and personal life.

 

...well...hum...okay then.

 

So while we drive on the temporary fix with the springs...is there any ideas brewing to fix the problem?

 

Here's the problems we're having. We can't shorten the shock body length because we'll have to shorten the piston length and therefore affect travel.

We can't thread the lower bracket further because the part that slides into the Knuckle is too thin.


So I'm at a tossup...

Take away .25" of Travel and Shock length to gain .5" lower stance? That seems to be the only thing really feasable at this point. Opinions?

 

What is the exact effects of losing travel? And by lower stance do you mean ride height?

 

Pedros Ice Wax is good. The absolute best is Pro Link Chain Lube. That's all I will use on my mountain bike chains. It will actually clean instead of making a chain dirty. It should work good on the Megan threads.

 

A 7kg/mm spring should drop the front an additional ~0.3", and might stay off the bumpstops.

BTW, does any know what size the OEM bumpstops are. I was looking at the Powerflex web page, tring to figure if they offer a shorter relpacement that would fit.

 

Suspension travel is a big issue, fact that's how this whole thing got started... the shock would constantly become fully compressed and would run out of travel till it was simply the top of the shock body smacking the bottom of the Bump Stop. Thus transfering all of that energy into the chassis.

Lower Stance - Ride Height... yes.

 

I'm using 160/8kg and I still tag the bump stops every once in a while. So a 7kg will tag them even more often. And an OEM sized Bump stop will tag them constantly. Sooooo... yah. I'm more concerned about Bottoming out than being low at this point.

 

The springs I'm experimenting with are 375lb/in (~6.7kg/mm) - haven't finished the retrofit yet (I'm going slow and methodical as it's my first time.....and I have other things to do) but I'll report back here after I finally finish up and try them out.

My stock front bumpstops are ~50mm.

If anyone's interested, the original bumpstops on my Megans were 33mm and the new ones are about 20mm.

 

Rats, I didn't know you were still bumpstoppin' with the 160/8kg. Oh well, I'm gonna finish up my experiment anyway.

 

BACK TO THE LABORATORY!!!

 

it must be possible to maintain the ride height possibilities that the coilovers had originally, use springs that dont make it unstable, and maintain proper travel....look how many other companies have done it.

So where are the conflicts popping up? (I'm really just inquiring so that i can help you with your "tossup").

 

You're right, other companies do it. But there are differences between our designs and theirs.

If they do use a design similar to ours where the Pre-Load and Ride height is seperate, then they use high spring rates like 9kg/mm Front AND Rear.

The others use a design where the lower your car goes, the less suspension travel you have. Those also don't incorporate Camber Plates.

So there's gonna be a sacrifice somewhere.

Reduce Suspension Travel and Allow the shock to be shorter to lower the car more.. and the spring rates will have to increase even more than 8kg.

I know there's just GOTTA be something somewhere that I'm missing.

I'm contimplating taking 1/4" from the suspension travel and from shock length which would allow it to be .5" lower than what it's at right now. That'll mean a little more bumpstoppin than what's goin on right now... but is it worth it?

 

I think the problem with the Mini is the fact that the car is #1 really short and #2 there is so little suspension travel up front to begin with. Also it doesn't help that the Mini is heavy (for its size) and the front end is driving and steering the car at the same time. Because of these things the setup has to be perfect in order to work properly. Kinda like an F1 setup as far as the short travel goes, and if an F1 car is not set up right it does't work at all. And in F1, they use small wheels and high profile tires, which is also better for the Mini because of #1 and #2. And because of the previously discussed #1 and #2 everyone is making progressive springs and rebound adjustable shocks in order to control bottoming.

What about using a much more progressive compression damping curve?? I think if the damping curve is too linear a stiffer spring will keep the shock up in the softer part of the curve and allow the shock to gain momentum through the rest of the travel and bottom out easier. When I raced the 500 cc moto-X class I would at times use a stiffer spring to make the rear suspension softer because a stiffer spring keeps the shock in the softer part of the travel. But, if the compression curve is to linear you can have problems.

What the Mini really needs is a Curnutt or Progressive Suspension 5th Element type system to keep the weight transfer consistant between the front and rear wheels. This system was developed for long travel (3 feet) off-road racing trucks to keep them from swaying from side to side. This Stable Platform system is also used in mountain bike forks and shocks to keep the bike from bobbing up and down while pedeling while at the same time allowing the suspension to absorbe bumps.

 

Okay, in the spirit of trying to help with the "there's just GOTTA be something somewhere that I'm missing" thought, I guess I'm willing to go out on a limb and ask dumb questions.

Look at the shape of the swaybar endlink bracket on Eibach's coilovers.....looks like they gain about 20mm.....any help there?


Also these, and all the others I've looked at including the stockers, extend well below the knuckle that fixes the bottom end of the strut body.

 

right...and i would be totally fine running the stiffer springs if they didnt raise the car so much. It looked like in the pic that you posted, installing the springs would raise my car a little over 2 inches.

The tein's use the same design I'm pretty sure...and like you said, they run super stiff springs 8 or 9 kg....but they ALSO allow you to lower you car more than .5 inches. So is there a way for us to keep the current travel and ride height possibilities and cure the problem with the spring rates? Maybe that is the best path to look down right now?

 

With a certain... competitors... dampers. The suspension travel is altered with the Ride height and also... where do the sway bar links connect in the front?!

Right now, I really don't want to go passed the 8kg/mm mark. So I'm contimplating going 8/8 front and rear and perhaps taking some off the piston and some off the shock length.

The thing is.. take off 10mm or 0.25"? Basically go straight for 20mm lower or 12.5mm lower to play it safe?

Decisions... Decisions...

 

Yah, I looked at the sway bar thing and it's actually not an issue at this point because the shock body bottoms out on the bracket before the sway bar linkage even comes into interference.

If you look at the bracket on the bottom of our system that goes into the knuckle, it is too small to fit our cylinder into the bracket and that's why we can't thread anymore into that lower bracket. The damper body itself would have to be shortened, but I can't shorten it without shortening the piston length as well.. cause the last thing we want is the piston to shoot out the bottom of the shock body.

 

you mean 20mm lower than that pic you posted of your car? 20mm=.787 inches

 

I'm using 160-8kg springs.. so it would be a little lower than that.

 

Feel free to add your opinions and/or comments!!

 

The took the time to do the revalving on my dampers for a higher rate and it didn't make much of a difference as I'd of hoped.

The only time it did, it was way too over-dampened and inconsistent.

 

So do most of the "other" coilovers for the MINI limit travel?

If yes, doesnt that seem like it would be an okay thing since most of them have proven to be great on the track etc?

 

What's the spring rate on those Eibach's? We went with 5kg/6kg because it worked well on the track, so I'd like to stick with that, but I'm worried about the spring rate again being too soft.