OK. I've always appreciated well-handling cars. Only problem is, I don't have a clue what to do to get there. My question(s) are:

Springs, shocks, sway bars. If I start to make modifications myself, what do I do first? I don't think that I will be doing it all in one shot so in what order should I attack this?

When installing sway bars, fronts only or both front/back?

Thanks.

 

I highly recommend you start the process by calling the guys at Texas Speedwerks. They know what they're doing, they can help you figure out what you need and sell it to you.

I have the TSW Sport suspension. I love it...far superior to the stock system and pretty much a very complete package for me.

 

The order I went through:

1. Rear sway, springs and a great alignment
Handled great, adjustable rear sway let me add in more oversteer than most probably like. I liked the slightly lowered look (<1"). Very stiff ride.

2. Lighter wheels and non-runflat tires.
Slightly improved ride, much better grip especially on the track even better look

What I would do this time around:
1. Rear sway, Koni FSD struts (stock springs) and a great alignment
I have heard / read great things about these struts, I may be old but I would give up the slight drop for improved ride if it didn't hurt the handling. An to me since you'll need an alignment after the strut (or spring) install you might as well do these at one time.

2. Even lighter wheels and non-runflat tires.

 

get to know the car as it comes from the factory. Get on top of your tire pressures. Without keeping them where they should be, it's impossible to know how to interpret anything! Once you choose a pressure to keep at, stay on top of it. You can do a lot of biasing with just tire pressures, so then you can get a hint of the direction you want to go. That said.....

You'll get better traction with new rubber.
Lighter wheels can help. And you don't have to spend big $ to save weight.
The two suspension design flaws are understeer and front camber gain.
Front camber plates will help with the camber in corners, and reduce understeer as well.
A rear bar will allow you to dial out the rest of the understeer if you still want to go that way.
I"m not a big fan of lowering too much, as the limits on suspension travel and geometry make it a change for cosmetics, not handling. Going there is fine, just go there for the right reasons.
Now the rest gets really subjective. Want softer ride? Progressive springs or FSDs will help. Want firmer ride? Stiffer springs and struts are your buddy. But if you do the tires, wheels, camber plates and rear bar, you will have addressed pretty much all the big problems from the factory.

Matt

 

#1 Rear sway bar...

 

Good feedback. Thanks all.

The rear sway bar makes sense. I knew the car was going to understeer when I bought it so that would really help.

I have 18" JCW wheels ordered (for mainly aesthetic reasons) which will have new non-run flat tires so I'm hoping these two things will have a big affect on the car. I still want the thing to be unwavering in the corners however so maybe I'll start with the rear sway and go from there.

Thanks. If you guys have experience with certain brands that you'd recommend, I'd appreciate that too. I'll look into Texas Speedwerks.

 

for the suspension, it wouldn't be the rear bar. It would be camber plates.

But that's just me....

Matt

 

...and rear sway bar install is EZ. U can do.

 

but if you think about it, sure you can dial out all the understeer with a rear bar. But there are two drawbacks to this approach:

1) The tires are still near verticle, and will scrub on the outside front edge under "spriited" cornering.
2) Elimination of all understeer on a street car is a risky endevor. Fact is, you can get surprised a lot more easily on the street than on a track, and a bit of understeer isn't a bad idea (even for skilled drivers.)

Adding fixed front camber plates, like from Ireland Engineering or Dinan, will tilt the tire more inward at the top. This will give you two benefits:
1) Improved contact patch management during cornering that, at least for me, has led to greatly increased tire life.
2) Reduced understeer.

As far as difficulty of install, I"d say the two jobs are about the same difficulty, maybe the plates are easier. But they do require an alignment, and the rear bar doesn't really.

Matt

 

Matt,

You forgot one more thing that camber plates will do: eat tires. Maybe it's the degree of camber I run. I corded the inside of a pair of Yokohama Prada's while the outside looked almost new.

My problem with camber plates just for the occasional spirited run on the twisties is that they're always on, even when cruising on a 55 mph freeway. The more sporty the tire, the more quickly you'll cone them out.

Sway bars can usually be adjusted to a nice neutral feel without snap oversteer.

JMHO

Gene

 

Your experience is almost the exact opposite of mine. Without camber plates, I'd wear out the outside of my tires well before the rest. With camber plates (-2.0°), the wear is pretty much even across the tire, so the tires are usable for a longer time.

 

The MINI inherently understeers because it is front driven. Wouldn't it be good to dial out as much of this understeer as possible so?

 

I think the Mini tends to understeer because people inherently drive it sloppily

Listen to Dr. O... There's nothing wrong with starting at the basics like tire pressure.

Honestly, I've been there. I've had a lot of "enthusiast" cars, and the first one I started tinkering with ended up way more tailhappy than it should have been, because I was just starting to autocross and thought that the car was understeering too much and kept throwing parts at it in an effort to make it rotate - when in fact, it was my own sloppy driving causing the understeer.

So, all I would say is that there probably isn't a single FWD car on earth that understeers as much as conventional-internet-wisdom says it does

 

Actually, it's not that it's front driven - it's that most manufacturers build in understeer because it's a safer condition for the extreme majority of drivers. You can make a FWD car as tail happy as a big HP rear-wheel drive car, or make a RWD car understeer like a pig, too. Also, people tend to push it way, WAY too hard into corners at first, without being smooth, and this results in a lot of understeer, too.

I am still a fan of the "standard" progression, taking your time between mods to learn what you've just done to the car and being conservative between changes. First, seat time... Then a rear swaybar (19mm H&R is my fave), lots of driving, AX, track days, then deciding what you want to do next... Personally, I'd then go with camber plates and rear arms and a good alignment. Then, I'd drive the snot out of it again. And, at that point, I'd determine what I wanted to do next - springs, springs and struts/shocks, or coilovers (a lot of which is dependent on what you want to achieve).

 

with stock camber and living in hills I was getting about 13k a set of tires. Now, with -2 degrees front camber, I"m getting almost twice that.

Also, a lot who lower the car get very high rear camber and THAT can eat tires.

Matt

ps here's a thread from a while ago that goes into the camber plate/rear bar debate.... https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=30594

 

My own experience is as follows:

1. three years with car, no suspension mods. 2.5 years completely stock.
2. 22mm rear sway
3. camber plates and 4 rear control arms.

lots of time in between to learn the new dynamics.

 

Number one plan. I've got the H-Sport 19mm rear sway bar...

 

It doesn't help sell parts, but we're straight shooters and tell it like it is (or should be, in our NOT so humble opinions). I'd rather see people learning to drive their car very well first, and then spend their money wisely as they determine what they want to change about their car's behavior - and to make changes in conservative increments!

I've instructed in a LOT of highly modded MINIs that I found had really crap suspension setups - which led to a LOT of bad driver habits (or at least contributed to them), like tossing it in really hot and losing a lot of time (or worse, putting it off course). Likewise, power mods are great - after you've learned to drive the car, otherwise, it leads to a LOT of point-and-shoot driving and contributes to driver error - certainly not the fastest way around a course (or in the twisties, not that we recom).

For those with big rear swaybars set on full stiff - have a very experienced AX'er run you through a slalom at speed, or a track instructor toss it through a fast transition and see what happens. In almost all cases, you'll be in the pits changing the stiffness!

Being that both MINI models are really momentum cars, you need to be very smooth and learn how to drive the car really well before you go mucking about with mods. I know that's a downer, but it's the makes it easier to find the fastest way around an AX course or track.

 

I like straight shooters, in the end you will be the winner because of customer confidence...Now if you could just make me a set of your springs with the same drop front to rear.....

 

Actually, based on our track testing with coilovers, the rear being a bit lower helps the car's dynamics - that's why we spec'd what we did to our spring manufacturer! And, I don't like all the factory rake from an asthetics perspective.

 

X2

 

Hey guys...hope you can tell me this. I had Rear control arms and when I went to put them on the guy in a GREAT alignment and race suspension shop told me he could adjust my stock arms to give me the camber I was trying to achieve. I let him do that and returned the arms.

A LOT of you recommend the rear arms - why so if it is not just for camber adjustmens?
Thanks all!

 

You have an 05 MCS, which allows for some rear camber adjustment. It doesn't allow a lot of adjustment though, so for people that are looking for a larger range of adjustment get the aftermarket rear arms. aftermarket ones are also lighter....

 

And stronger.. And "bling-ey" ;-)

 

Bling's good