I'm thinking of installing an M7 Strut tower brace to my '06 MCS. I have an Ultrik / K&N cold air instake. Can anyone tell me if there will be enough clearance?

 

same question here, only if it'll fit the Alta airbox...???

 

It will fit over the Alta.

 

Yes, over the alta, no Mods needed

look.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=69163

 

True, but don't you need to adjust the hinges on your hood and doesn't the hood actually stick up on the rear? The M7 is really nice product design but I am not a fan of the mis-alighned hood.

 

nope, at least not mine. Mine has actaully leveled out throughout the past year.

 

The easiest way to realign the hood is to wet the sound damper under the hood, and close the hood and allow to dry. This will allow the need squeeze for the M7 strut bar.

 

make sure to wrap the bar in some saran wrap first, elst you get discoloration from the water and chemicals in the hoodliner. this happened on both M7 bars I did on our cars.

 

Very clever! great Idea, thank you!

 

Don't know why I'm lucky on this, but my M7 strut doesn't bluge the hood at all. In fact it doesn't even touch the hood insulation as far as I can tell - no marks from it. Guess it all depends on the particular car.

 

Mine bulges. Going to try the cellophane trick this weekend, thanks!

 

Or you can just take the hoodliner out...

 

I goes really smooth. You dont have to change or modify anything unless you have the old shrooming. Then you just kind of go to town for a little bit.

You realy dont have to worry about the bonnet liner... just tell where it hits the bar and then spray a little water on it and close it over night. It will form to your nerw mods.

The pic below will help you.

 

hmmm...
love the bar, hate the fact that it might push up on the hood.

 

MIne really never pushed up on the hood. I'll tell you what.. The Alta air diverter pushes up on the hood more than the STB ever did...
But the push is in front not to the rear. I literally have to set the hood down and manually push down with my hands above the heads lights to lock it down. I kind of like this though because you can feel a super tight seal happening between the Air diverter and bonnet. No gaps!

 

Mine did push up the bonnet at the rear. I marked the bar with some chalk so that when a closed the bonnet I could see where the bar touched the liner.
I then used a box cutter knife to score the area where the bar touched, with my fingers dug out the pading. When I was sure there was enough pading removed, I spray painted the area where I had removed the pading with black enamal paint. Took a couple of coats and you can hardly tell where the pading was removed. That was couple of months ago and no problem with heat or paint sticking to bar.

 

Pushed up the hood on both my cars. I moded it by selling it and buying a JCW bar. It's almost like it was made for the Mini.

 

I started with the water spray trick...that worked fairly well, but not completely. Once the liner was somewhat indented, I removed it and (very carefully with an x-acto knife) scored the back of the liner and removed some material along where the stb hit. After reinstalling the liner, my hood lays perfectly and you can't tell that the liner was screwed with.

I agree, the JCW stb does seem like it was made just for the MINI, it just doesn't play well with some other mods and doesn't do anything to prevent the dreaded mushrooming (unless used with camber plates).

 

who sells the JCW bar?

 

Nice work on the mods . Its's amazing what a little thought can do. I have lived with a " bulge " for a couple of years from my BMP brace and really didn't notice it until we came out with ours and there were some mention online. The Mini's are just a lot more different between cars than people realize and as you can tell from this thread alone some have no issues and others have some minor problems, that with thought ,can be over come. You are also rite in the added protection from the mushrooming issue and our bar will fit most , if not all , aftermarket CAIs with out modification.

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

You can find them online. I got it from my local mechanic well bellow MSRP. I am not really worried about mushrooming as I got camber plates. JCW bar fit right the first time. Unfortunately the M7 bar didn't, even though both cars were stock.

P.S. No additional thought was required.

 

Randy,

The only thing that I've been wondering about (haven't really had a chance to get in there and dig around yet), is the strut bolts. I know about the torque limitations, but I don't have full thread engagement into the nuts once the stp(s) are added. Can these bolts be replaced (i.e. do they slip out of the strut tops) or are they pressed in and I just hope for the best. If they can be replaced, it might be nice if you could add a couple of bucks to your kit and throw in 6 longer bolts. Just a thought.

Thanks,
Rick

 

[quote=MOE4me;1340447]I started with the water spray trick...that worked fairly well, but not completely. Once the liner was somewhat indented, I removed it and (very carefully with an x-acto knife) scored the back of the liner and removed some material along where the stb hit. After reinstalling the liner, my hood lays perfectly and you can't tell that the liner was screwed with.

quote]
x 2 this worked perfectly for me. wet it down and close it. I still had a very slight (but noticable to me) rise in the hood that was quickly fixed with the X-acto

I personally didn't care what the hood liner looked like so cut from the front, but in retrospect would recomend taking from the back to minimize the dust. (it was pretty messy for about 1-2 weeks then stopped)

 

The factory studs are a press in arrangment but once removed longer bolts/ nuts could be used. I stripped one out by accident way back and replaced it with a bolt. I don't know of many that would want to intentionally remove the factory arrangemnt when there have been no issues to date with it. Unless you have your front end in the air for extended period of time the pressure is coming from below pushing the studs up INTO the nut not pulling it down . If someone wanted to they could easily remove them and replace the six studs but we really have not found it to be a problem.

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

can the M7 bar need to be taken off for oil change access to the filter?
looks like it comes apart in the middle...so you don't have to completely take it off

does it come with the strut tower reinforcing plates as well?