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The guy who runs these event is from a place near Newark and has a shop called AZP Installs. The events start at 10 (hope I remember that correctly). If you are from around there or closer, it might be worth a trip.
A lot of different cars were running yesterday. Mustang Cobra, a monster M3, Audi something which clearly had power, a couple of NASA race, a few STIs as well as a Miata, BMW 2002, a BRZ and others. Even a tube frame mid-engine STI thing.
Ugh - Why? is the question... Why would MINI recommend tire pressures up in the 40+ psi range? With RFTs, no less. The thing rides like it has bricks for tires, especially with the JCW Pro suspension. It wasn’t so bad with the base JCW suspension. But it is borderline horrible with the Pro suspension. My guess is that I am not the first owner of one of these cars to drop the tire pressure to something more conventional.... 35 psi cold in the front and 36 psi cold in the rear. This way when they come up in pressure when driving they will all be even at 37 or 38 psi. At least that is the plan. I took it out for a short ride to reset the system, which takes 5 to 10 minutes of driving. WHAT? How could it take that long to read 4 sensors? My R56 takes all of 2 minutes or less. Does that mean I could be running on a flat tire for that long before it catches up to reality? I hope not. That aside, when I got back home, the pressures were at 37 psi. Next is to see what happens at highway speeds. My guess is one more psi rise in pressure.
And, Oh, that dead on-center steering feel seems to be gone. Again, we shall see at highway speeds.
Ugh - Why? is the question... Why would MINI recommend tire pressures up in the 40+ psi range? With RFTs, no less. The thing rides like it has bricks for tires, especially with the JCW Pro suspension. It wasn’t so bad with the base JCW suspension. But it is borderline horrible with the Pro suspension. My guess is that I am not the first owner of one of these cars to drop the tire pressure to something more conventional.... 35 psi cold in the front and 36 psi cold in the rear. This way when they come up in pressure when driving they will all be even at 37 or 38 psi. At least that is the plan. I took it out for a short ride to reset the system, which takes 5 to 10 minutes of driving. WHAT? How could it take that long to read 4 sensors? My R56 takes all of 2 minutes or less. Does that mean I could be running on a flat tire for that long before it catches up to reality? I hope not. That aside, when I got back home, the pressures were at 37 psi. Next is to see what happens at highway speeds. My guess is one more psi rise in pressure.
And, Oh, that dead on-center steering feel seems to be gone. Again, we shall see at highway speeds.
In short, the higher the speed, the higher the pressure in the tire. If you never plan on going faster then 80 mph, you can lower the pressure in your tires. If you plan on using the full speed of the vehicle, I would suggest going with the recommend tire pressure.
and that has been my experience out on the track, too. Anything over 39 psi (hot) and the tires loose traction. If it needs to be at a higher pressure than that, then the car should have been provide with a larger tire in order to allow a lower pressure. This is a rant I have with MINI - MINI missed the mark with putting tires and wheels on this car, which is intended to be a performance car. The tires that came on this car are anything but “performance”.
So, I don’t doubt the chart, it is MINI I am disappointed in...
And a side note...
TR makes a wrong statement:
In order to accommodate higher speeds, the tire size and inflation pressure recommendations are tuned beyond what is branded on the tire's sidewalls.
Going over the branded pressure, which is identified as a “MAX” is a big no-no. Just looking for trouble going over that, as with any pressure vessel... Hopefully that was just a mis-statement on their part. The charts don’t seem to go over the rated pressure; they lower the load rating instead. So, I have to believe that was an editorial error on their part.
In short, the higher the speed, the higher the pressure in the tire. If you never plan on going faster then 80 mph, you can lower the pressure in your tires. If you plan on using the full speed of the vehicle, I would suggest going with the recommend tire pressure.
You really got me curious about all of this. Thanks As it turns out, just dropping the pressure, irrespective of road speed, may not be a good idea...
So I looked at the stock tires (205-45x17) purely from a load rating standpoint. The JCW weighs in at about 2800# and if 65% of that is on the front wheels, that means the front tires are handling about 1800# (rounded). The tires I have are rated at 1235# at 50 psi. The MINI recommended pressure is 42. Load capability and pressure are proportional, so 42*1235/50 is 1037#, or 2074# for the 2 front tires. A 14% margin. At my desired 36 psi, the available load capability is 36*1235/50 or 889#, or 1778. Overloaded. Ugh. Rerunning that for 37 psi gets me to just over 1800#. Ok, yes, that is only the car’s weight; no driver. Ugh, again.
And this doesn’t address road speed, which you pointed to.
If I go to a 225-45x17, the load rating is 1477#. At 36 psi, those tires have a load capability of 1063# or 2126# for 2. A 16% margin.
Now I may be a little high on the weight that the front tires are handling, but, IMHO, MINI doesn’t leave any margin with the tires they provided.
And it looks like I need to raise the pressure in the fronts a notch for the stock tires...
I don't think I've ever run my tires lower than the door jamb sticker, but the Mini has the highest pressure on the door jamb of all the cars I've owned. I try to run my Clubman right at 38psi front and rear, since that provides the best compromise for feedback, response, and ride. I am also running Megan Racing coil overs, though...
Really, I should have known better because, a long time ago, I went through all of this with a pickup truck and slide in camper I had. For the load I had, I had to run load range E tires in the rear. If I remember correctly, each rear tire was good for 3300# at 90 psi. Plus I had to make sure the wheels were load rated for that load, too. I’ll tell ya, it was really hard to find out what the real load rating of a pickup truck is, and it has nothing to do with what it is called (Half ton, 3/4 ton, 1 ton, etc). I had a HD 3/4 ton and its factory load rating was higher than the standard 1 ton, and its load rating was over 2 ton... One doesn’t tend to think about those things when dealing with cars, though.
So, I took my own advice and went up a couple of sizes in tires...
Well, not really. These have been in the works for a while now. It just turns out they were probably the right thing to do...
The MIGHTY YOKOs vs the wimpy Hankooks. My sincere apologies for any implied bias here, I intended for the bias to be loud and clear...
225-45x17 A052 Yokohamas vs 205-45x17 426 AS RFT Hankooks
The height difference is an illusion as there is less than an inch difference in diameter (25.1” vs 24”.3 or 0.8”; 3%).
These are mounted on the NM 7.5” wide wheels which seem to work well for the tires (as others have posted). I’ll get pictures of them on the car when the Florida swamp season rains subside for a bit... Hopefully today...
Lost in the wheel wells (stock wheels and Hankook 205-45x17)
Meatballs on the edge (Yokohama 225-45x17)
I’m not sure I see a difference... Can you?
My concern is tire rub... I had tire rub on the inside of the wheel well arch on my R56 when I tried 225 tires. I wonder if that is going to be an issue here, too. The offset is 40 on those wheels vs 54 on the stock. So, just over a half inch, but then there is tire width, too, to contend with. I know 2 others running this setup and no rubbing was mentioned. Charlie T is running 8” wide at 45mm offset. So his would be about 5 mm (~0.2”) inboard for the tread location. Darbys2019JCW is running my wheels and tires, but a slightly different suspension.
Any input on tire rub with these wheels and tires?
Not sure who sized these wheels for this car, but they have way too much (too little?) offset. They go from stock at 54 MM to 40 MM; over a half inch further outboard. With a better designed spoke they could have been at a 48mm offset and these tires might just fit and the wheels could still clear the brakes. And I know others are putting 225-45x17 Yokohamas on the car. Are they rubbing? I don’t know. How are they clearing if they are not? Except for Charlie Thompson, who has no rubbing, but has wheels with 45mm offset (about 0.2” further inboard), I don’t know.
And this is what I got...
Major tire rub...
As I see it, I have 3 options:
- Trim the wheel well arch and use a heat gun to push in the liner, and hope for the best.
- Scrap the tires for some 215-45x17 tires on these wheels and hope for the best. The tread on the 215s is 1/2” less, so 0.25” on a side, which may be just enough to clear the wheel well liner.
- Put some 215-45x17 tires on the stock wheels and scrap the NM wheels and 225 tires and take a big loss on them. Ugh
And time is ticking to my first track day with Albert...
Perhaps a silly idea, but if you check the inner clearances and have 5-10 mm available (which I bet you do) then I might be tempted to find a trustworthy machine shop, and have them take 5 mm off the mounting surface of the wheels.
I tried to find that ad I remember seeing for "negative spacers - [-5 mm to -20 mm]" but it eludes me. You're probably too damned irritated for my dumb-*** humor anyway.
It jars my preserves that Mini has provided so little room for proper wheels/tires, given that this is the obvious performance constraint - particularly on the Works cars.
I thought about the machine shop route, but I figured the thickness is sized for the bolts. Taking 5mm off would surely weaken that area.
I also thought about more rear camber, but that just seems to be in the direction of more understeer. It already has -2 deg back there.
I wish I had the foresight to have looked into the wheel wells of the IMSA JCW race cars when I had a chance to see what they did to fit 225 tires into the wheel wells of those cars. I do know they had the stock liners in the front wheel wells, at least.
You are right about your impression of MINI. The JCW seems to be a want-a-be track car but can’t quite get there, without a lot of work. The JCW is more than 200 lbs heavier than my R56S and I may be forced to put the same size tires on the JCW as I use on the S. I am skeptical that the JCW will perform much better than the S given the weight difference, without the larger tire.
I am going to sleep on it and things will look different in the morning...
Not sure who sized these wheels for this car, but they have way too much (too little?) offset. They go from stock at 54 MM to 40 MM; over a half inch further outboard. With a better designed spoke they could have been at a 48mm offset and these tires might just fit and the wheels could still clear the brakes. And I know others are putting 225-45x17 Yokohamas on the car. Are they rubbing? I don’t know. How are they clearing if they are not? Except for Charlie Thompson, who has no rubbing, but has wheels with 45mm offset (about 0.2” further inboard), I don’t know.
And this is what I got...
Major tire rub...
As I see it, I have 3 options:
- Trim the wheel well arch and use a heat gun to push in the liner, and hope for the best.
- Scrap the tires for some 215-45x17 tires on these wheels and hope for the best. The tread on the 215s is 1/2” less, so 0.25” on a side, which may be just enough to clear the wheel well liner.
- Put some 215-45x17 tires on the stock wheels and scrap the NM wheels and 225 tires and take a big loss on them. Ugh
And time is ticking to my first track day with Albert...
I have the NM Wheels and same Yokos...I do have the NM Rear Lower Adlustable Control Arms so I can set the camber where I want and that might help but I am running just -1.8 camber on the rear...When I put on some 235/40/17 RE71s I did have to trim the inside lip with a dremel on the rear plastic fenders BUT I run 5mm spacers all the way around...I wonder what height you have your suspension set at? I have the front at 22.25" (565mm) and the rear at 22.75" (578mm) with no issues (I am going to lower the rear down to 22" (559mm) {measuring from the from the bottom lip of a 17" wheel to the bottom of the plastic fender s...on a 18" wheel you would add 1/2" for height settings]
Hope you find a way to adjust your setup just a tad for no rubbing...
But sometimes things are better in the morning after sleeping on some issue... So true today.
Long story, short, I am keeping the wheels and tires. They seem to have already made room for themselves and have settled in for the long haul...
I decided to look inside the right side wheel well and the rubbing:
Right side wheel well arch looking slightly forward on the car.
Clearly the wheels are saying “keep me; I’ll be good”, and they neatly carved out their spot in the wheel well. “See, no Dremel work on your part. We did the work for you”.
Ok, that part of the puzzle seems to be somewhat solved.
But I decided I would raise the car slightly to give it more static clearance. Now, I know, this won’t change how far up into the wheel well the tire will go, it does make it a little harder to get there and it makes me feel better.
I put in 3 turns in the front shocks, that took almost no effort. At 1.9mm a turn, that is 5.7 mm of lift (~0.25”)
The rears are a different story. I only wanted to make two turns of the nut. That’s all!
These things are crazy ridiculous! They are almost impossible to adjust. The male thread part just spins with the nut. How stupid is that. I even added some light oil to the nut threads to help.
Rear height adjustment
The threaded part and the flange above the threads are not keyed to anything and there is no place to hold it from spinning.
I finally decided that the only way I could do it short of putting a set of pliers on it (which I have, but would mark it all up) was to drop the suspension to loosen the spring so I could spin and hold things by hand.
Dropping the rear suspension!
So, dropping the rear suspension only takes 4 jacks to do, and is as simple as removing the bolt from the bottom of the shock. Simple, rrrriiiight... No you can’t do one side at a time because the sway bar keeps the LCA from going all of the way down; there’s 2 jacks to raise both sides of the car. Then the LCA needs to be supported so the bolt can be removed and this has to be done both sides at the same time, otherwise the sway bar keeps them from going all of the way down... Why? Because the sway bar is connected to the LCA not the shock, as in past MINIs.
Oh, wait a minute... It still won’t go down far enough to loosen the spring. How in the H*ll did the shop put the springs in? I don’t know, and I didn’t take the time to figure it out.
However, it did loosen the spring enough that I could hold that top flange with my hands with good leather work gloves on to keep that top flange and threads from spinning with the nut. In the meantime I wiped off the reference mark I put on it so I could know how far I had changed things... Well, I had gotten one side done with reference marks and I just measured the gap and made them almost equal on both sides. I say “almost” as I raised the left side about 1/32” more to compensate for driver weight (a swag... )
2 and half hours later...
Then, on a whim, I measured the outside diameter of the NM wheel... Oh, it is 1/8” smaller than the MINI wheels, so an ride height measurement now will be 1/16” short of any measurement with the MINI wheels. Ok that is easy to compensate for...
height Front Rear
Prior 578mm 578mm
Now 578mm. 576mm (Compensated)
Ok, now what? Things settled in, maybe? Really?
Just to point out, there are no locking rings on these things. The fronts have a tiny set screw, that I think is supposed to do that. Maybe? But one of mine was already rotted and the other, instantaneously cross threaded itself when I put it back in. These are dong nothing.
That is a 2mm Allen wrench holding the set screw.
That set screw is tiny! As I said...
Also, they are using Torx head bolts for everything, including the bottom bolt for the shock.
Torx Head bolt
Of course my set of Torx sockets only goes put to E16 and this is an E18... But, a 5/8” 12 point socket fits it just nicely....
And one last fun fact about our High Performance MINI JCW...
One thing that I should note is that with full compression, I should be about at the limit of the suspension travel. These cars have only about 3” of travel (I need to double check) and with the car jacked up, there is only about 3” of space between the wheel and the wheel well arch. That I forgot to measure when I was measuring everything else, so this is an eyeball guess...
I looked at the tire spacing to the front strut, which would be the other limiting area for clearance and that was plenty good. I can put my finger in between the two. Based on the calibrated thickness of my finger I would say there is 10 to 15 mm of space there. Plenty of room to have made the offset of these wheels 45 or 47 instead of 40... That surely would have helped the rear clearance.
I did some driving with the way things are now and have to say the A052s are AMAZING! The Hankook AS RFTs tires are huge disappointment compared to these. The Yokos have a good on center feel that the Hankooks don’t have, so there is no longer a continuous hunt with the steering wheel to go straight down the road. I haven’t pushed them in any corners, but they feel very linear on turn-in and in response. They ride very quietly. Much quieter than the Hankooks, which I never would have guessed based on the noise the RE71Rs and the ZIIs make. I expect this will change with some track wear. Their ride quality, with 40 psi in them, is also very good. Again, much, much better than the RFTs, but this is somewhat expected, but is somewhat unexpected give the 40 psi and my experience with the RE71Rs and ZIIs.
The car is less darty and turn-in is somewhat subdued with the Yokos than my R56S is with the RE71Rs. That isn’t to say that the Yokos feel like they need to take a set or something before they respond or any thing of the like. I expect a lot of this difference is likely due to not having much camber up front (-0.5 deg) as compared to the -1.5 the S has. I am going to wait to do camber plates for Albert until I get done with this event and I see how the car does.
I have the NM Wheels and same Yokos...I do have the NM Rear Lower Adlustable Control Arms so I can set the camber where I want and that might help but I am running just -1.8 camber on the rear...When I put on some 235/40/17 RE71s I did have to trim the inside lip with a dremel on the rear plastic fenders BUT I run 5mm spacers all the way around...I wonder what height you have your suspension set at? I have the front at 22.25" (565mm) and the rear at 22.75" (578mm) with no issues (I am going to lower the rear down to 22" (559mm) {measuring from the from the bottom lip of a 17" wheel to the bottom of the plastic fender s...on a 18" wheel you would add 1/2" for height settings]
Hope you find a way to adjust your setup just a tad for no rubbing...
Is there any chance you measured the back spacing on your wheels? I believe I have the term correct. That would be the distance from the outer edge of the inboard side of the wheel to the mounting surface at the center of the wheel. I believe mine measures 5 13/16 inches.
I tried to find that ad I remember seeing for "negative spacers - [-5 mm to -20 mm]" but it eludes me.
Cheers,
Charlie
I found a set of those “negative spacers”. They sell them at Tire Rack:
“Negative Spacers”
I am still having issues with rubbing on the right rear. I know know that others (Darby and cmt, in particular) have put the Yokos on their cars without issue. But call me a worry wart. I am going to WGI and, not only is that track hard on brakes, it is hard on suspensions with 10 deg banking in a ~120 deg turn and with curbing that will make a stock car take notice. If I am having rubbing on the street just from a little compression here and there, WGI will confound that by 10x. So instead of worrying about it, I have decided to go one size smaller on these NM wheel. These 215-45 Falken tires are 0.5” smaller in diameter, which means 0.25” more radial clearance and they have 0.4” inches less tread width, which means the outboard edge of the tread is about 0.2” inboard compared to the Yokos and that should be at about the same location as Charlie’s tires are with his 45 mm offset wheels (mine being 40mm). I think this size tire will be a good compromise and better than mounting them on the stock wheels.
Why Falken tires? Well, these are new and the TR test showed them to be as good as the RE71Rs and A052s. We shall see. Also, the price is really good and makes up for a bit of the pain of loosing the Yokos. As for the Yokos, I will see how the smaller size tire does. If there is rubbing even with the smaller tire, the Yokos will be put up for sale. If there is no rubbing with the smaller tires, I may put the Yokos back on and see what happens.
I plan a full write up. Car, tires, fun. One thing I know already is that the seats in the JCW are better than what are in the R56, so that will be good.
In heading to the track I have opted to be a bit more conservative than others. The 225-45x17 Yokohamas are gone in favor of a slightly narrower 215-45x17 Falken (200 TW):
225 Yokohama vs 215 Falken
While I might have gotten away with the 225 Yokohama tires, I didn’t want to chance a 3 day track event with a tire that is rubbing as badly as these are. The last thing I would need would be a blown tire from it rubbing at 125 mph...
This is the sort of thing I am seeing:
Wheel well arch rubbing on the tire
This is melted plastic on the tire from the arch. There is no damage or real marks on the tire itself.
Tire rubbing on the wheel well arch
For now I am staying with the NM wheels, although I think the offset is too much. I have been looking into wheels that fit the JCW brakes and have come up with one of my favorites - Enkei Racing has one that is 8”-17” with a ET 50mm vs the ET40 of the NM wheels. A 5mm spacer will set them right at the same locations as Charlie Thompson’s wheels on his JCW.
As for brake pads for the track, the Pagid pads were a “bust”. The pad plate is identical to the M2 BMW brake pad plate, but the pad thickness is different. The M2 pad is 17.4mm thick and the replacement track pads I got that are specifically for the JCW are 15.15mm thick. If MINI had just used 25mm thick rotors instead of 30mm thick rotors, the M2 pads would have fit.
For front pads I bought the iSweep is4000 race pad, which are carried by ECS Tuning and Turner Motorsports. The other options would have been the G-Loc or Carbotech, but the lead time was too long to get them for my upcoming track day.
The iSweep pads are made by a Japanese company that does mostly mods for Audi and VW and they appear to be dabbling in the “BMW” MINI market with their pads. There was a huge sticker shock for these pads vs the pads for the Wilwoods on Smokey. Like a 3x factor...
The specs for the is4000 are pretty aggressive, but I liked the looks of the linear friction curve with temperature and the large range of temperature performance:
iSweep brake pad chart
For rear pads I went with the Hawk DTC30 pad. At the time I ordered the iSweep pads for the front, I did not know they made a rear pad and I had the Hawks on hand so I stayed with them.
My initial impression of the iSweep pads are that they are going to be really nice on the track. I took the car out for a quick spin and a few hard stops. Braking with them was very linear and aggressive. And the rotors look nice with them. As for the Hawk DTC30s, they seemed good under braking, but may be a bit hard on the rotors. They clearly need some bedding in to be more rotor friendly.
As for the brake pad wear sensors... they are nicely tied off and out of the way; never to wear out...
A few notes about the MINI JCW brake pads... There is a separate inside pad that is thinner than the outside pad. The rear pads for the JCW are a different compound from the pads on the F56 S model, and yet the backing plates are the same. So don’t mix them up if getting stock pads from someone.
For reference, here are the specs for the Pagid race brake pads. The linear nature of each of the pads is impressive, as is the temperature range for each pad. The temperature range would say they are pretty usable on the street. This is consistent with what I have observed with my cousin’s M2 with the RSL 29 endurance pad, the same pad as I tried.
Pagid race brake pads
The iSweep is4000 race pad I now have appears to be equivalent to the Pagid RSL 1. A down side to the Pagid pads (other than they don’t fit, unless special ordered ... ) is that there is no duplicate rear pad for the F56 MINI.
BTY - Here is a link to the iSweep brake pads for the JCW front brakes. You will notice that they have some pads that would make for good street pads (eg: is2000 or the is2500). I think for the track I would get a set of the is4000 for the rear (if I had known about them when I ordered the fronts). On Smokey (my R56 S) I have found that matching pads front to rear works really well. I know, this defies conventional wisdom (which I do all of the time).
I would not hazard a guess as to what iSweep is displaying as the “stock” pad performance. As for the stock MINI JCW front brake compound, i would think it is more on line with the is2000 than the is1500, given that the stock MINI JCW rear pad appears to be a different compound from what is on the rear of S and base F56.
I am not a big fan of the iSweep is3500 and Endurance pad specs. The continual rise in friction coefficient with temperature, to me, would mean that their release characteristics and the ability to trail brake with them would be difficult. That is, as you are trying to reduce the braking forces, the pads are heating up and gaining braking forces. I had this happen with a set of EBC Yellow Stuff pads I once tried. It was very difficult to time braking to get corners right, especially with traffic.
A side note - The Carbotech XP10 pads I have used in the past were wonderful. Very linear. Great temperature range. I would expect the same from the G-Loc pads. Some people didn’t like them as they didn’t have the instantaneous, snap-your-neck grab some people want in their race car. For a track day, I’ll take the smoothness, and control of these pads.
Last edited by Eddie07S; 08-13-2020 at 07:46 AM.
Reason: Added clarification and fix typos
The Yokos are gone and on the car are the Mighty Falkens...
Falken 215-45x17 on Albert
No Rubbing!
I can’t say I notice any real difference from the Yokos. Maybe slightly softer, but that could have been the 3-4 psi lower tire pressure. I am looking forward to their track performance.
As for the iSweep brake pads....
AMAZING!
I took Albert out for a spin and a little brake pad bedding. These pads feel like I remember the Carbotechs being. Very linear and no drama. Maybe even more bite. What was a shock was how well the brakes on this JCW work. Far better than the Wilwoods I have on Smokey. Very easy to get to threshold braking with these brakes.
I did find out that iSweep makes rear pads for the F56 MINI. They sell them through Neuspeed. ECS carries the front pads, but I didn’t see any iSweep rear pads for the this car on their web site, which surprises me given that the orders are filled through Neuspeed anyway.
For now I have a set of Hawk DTC30 in the rear of Albert. I expect them to work well for the track
Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Glen with Albert.
WGI is a track that I believe was designed to find every flaw in a car’s design and make the worst of it. If the does well at the Glen, then it is a really good car. The BMW M2 seems very well suited to this track. Not much in the way of flaws found in my cousin’s M2, other than a broken turbo charge pipe that is a known failure point in that car... Why does BMW do such things???
And flaws it did find in Albert; a lot of those are well known. But it also has good points, of which you can probably guess some of which.
My overall conclusion - a worthy try*, but not there as a serious track car. A once or twice a year to turn some fun laps car, maybe. Don’t get me wrong, it is a fun car on the track. There are things about it that are clearly well suited for the track (engine, front brakes), which would make it a great candidate for fixing up to be a serious track car.
(* with the JCW pro coilovers)
Seats are really good for stock seats. Much better than what came in the previous generations of MINIs. I ran the car with just the stock belts and a CG lock just to see if they were as good as they feel on the street. I would be happy to just leave those in the car and drive it on the track.
The car has a more solid feel to it than the R56S. It has less body flex. But the wiper and turn signals are too close to the steering wheel and I would catch them with my gloves at times.
The transmission is good other than very notch going into 5th. Not sure what that is about... Rev matching is OK but didn’t alway match.
Albert has installed the JCW Pro coilovers. Most people would say they are harsh on the street. Too stiff. Well, not too bad on the track. The damping is good, but could do with more. The spring rates are good, but could do with more. The car has far more body lean than Smokey, my R56 S that has the really fat front and rear sway bars. The stock JCW suspension would be out of its league on this track.
Overall, the handling is neutral with no unwanted gestures. But, with the lack of camber in the front, it will understeer in corners when pushed. Overall, I found the car to be easy to drive fast.
The high speed stability with the tires I was using (more below about tires) was quite good. My highest indicated speed was 125ish. That said, aero on this car must be worse than the R56S as its top speed wasn’t that much higher than the S.
The engine seemed to be well suited to track use. Never skipped a beat even in the 85-90 deg heat we had. The car has a temperature gage (no numbers) that didn’t move. And I never felt a cut back in power from any heat related issues as some cars will do (Lotus Exige for example).
The JCW engine (stock) pulls really strong to about 6000+ rpm, even in higher gears, which the R56 S does not do. In 5th on the back straight I could feel it still pulling to the braking point, whereas the S was pretty well just marking time. There is also is a point in rolling on the throttle in 3rd where, at about 80%, there is a noticeable jump in power. Maybe the vanos changing cam timing?
The exhaust note is great on this car, in normal mode. It has a very pleasant growl.
The brakes were a mixed blessing. This could have been due in part to the mixed pads front to rear that I was using. Hawk DTC30 in the rear and iSweep 4000 in the front. When the brakes were cold, there was great balance front to rear, which is probably why I thought they were good on the street; not enough heat in them. When they got heated up (about 2 laps), this balance went away and things got to be “interesting”. Tail end wiggle was enough at times to make it feel like it was going to go sideways on me. This happened with trail braking into some corners; not all. I believe the rear pads were getting over heated and I need better pads. Actually what I want is the matching pads to the fronts. But then, I wonder what the heat soak point is on the rear rotors. These rear rotors are smaller than what is on the R56S and way smaller than what is on the R56 JCW. So, I think MINI/BMW screwed up here and bigger rotors really are needed there.
The front brakes seem flawless with the iSweep pads. I say “seemed” as the issues with the rears would likely have masked issues with the fronts, if there were any. There were times where I would be lightly braking and there was a definite increase in brake force, even though I was holding steady pressure on the pedal. This could have been a non-linear response in the pads as they heated up, which would be contrary to their data. Or it could have been caused by something with the rears... Don’t know.
The front rotors would take application after application without feeling like they were getting heat soaked. They seemed to suck up heat like crazy and spill it before the next turn. The pedal never got soft and nothing gave the feeling like it was being over heated. I got tired before the car did. This was with a flush of Motul 600 brake fluid.
I can’t imagine what this car would be like with the stock pads... WGI will kill brakes. Maybe a first time student will do ok with them? But anyone with experience, on this track, will kill them. Maybe this is the reason the Car and Driver test at VIR reported tail wiggle when braking. The pads were not up to the task.
I tried to fit 225-45x17 tires on the car, with 7.5 inch wide ET40 wheels vs the 7” wide ET54mm stock wheels. Not enough offset on these wheels. ET40 is too little. Even on the street they rubbed. So I dropped a size, knowing that might not be enough to keep the tires from rubbing on the wheel well liner when out on the track. And rub they did and trashed the liner on the left side rear. Not sure what to do about this. But, someone might get a great set of lightly used wheels and tires for a good price.
The tires I ran on are the Falken RT660, which is their new TW200 tire. Sticky and well suited to track use. There is also the RT615K, which is also a worthy choice if looking for long wearing. I had a chance to talk to racer who competes in endurance races using these 2 tires and the Yokohama A052s. He says that he get about 10 hrs out of a set of the RT615Ks, whereas only 4-5 hr on a set of the RT660s or A052s. However, the big factor in favor of the Falkens is their price; about 1/3rd less than the Yokos.
Very good straight line stability with the RT660s. Predictable and linear in the corners. I easily reached 1g with them. Wear was good for 3 days out. Highly recommend them...
The biggest failures of this car for being a worthy track car are the lack of a mechanical LSD and the lack of camber.
Camber is easy to fix and not overly costly. Why did the GP2 get camber and the next Gen JCW didn’t get it? Why does the GP 3 get camber? Why do the performance BMWs get camber and the performance MINIs don’t? Are we not “worthy”?
The eDLC is abominable. It basically doesn’t work. I can feel the inside tires alternate between slipping and sticking when accelerating out of the miserable uphill corkscrew of a turn they call “The Toe”. Traction control lights flash all the time this is happening. Useless! Gee, I guess this really isn’t a “track” car in MINI/BMW‘S minds. Therefore, it doesn’t deserve a real LSD like the GP3 gets... Like I said, if there is a flaw in a car’s design this track will find it and the lack of a mechanical LSD is a huge flaw.
In my mind, these 2 things, which are missing from this car, are needed to make it a competent track car. MINI missed the mark big time by not offering these as options on the JCW
So, what does this car need...
1) Camber plates. This is not unusual for most street cars; even my cousin’s M2 needed more camber (but at least it started with some). Inexpensive ($500-600) and do it as a DIY. I could stop there, but would have to put up with the eDLC.
2) Mechanical LSD - WaveTrac or Quaife. My guess $1000+, then $2000+ to install it... Ugh
3) Bigger rear brakes (maybe) - price unknown as I don’t know what else is out there...
Desirable -
4) larger front and rear sway bars
5) bigger wheels and tires that fit.
So, will Albert make it to the track again? Maybe...
Last edited by Eddie07S; 08-24-2020 at 03:59 PM.
Reason: Fixed typos
Brutal assessment. It’s too bad they didn’t offer an LSD. Hopefully the brakes can be sorted out with different pads. I had no idea the rear rotors were so small! WTH?!?
Now you have me eyeing the Falkens. My Hankooks are 225/45 and I’d really like a 235/40. I see the Falkens are available in that size
07-21-2020, 10:33 AM
Hopefully that was just a mis-statement on their part. The charts don’t seem to go over the rated pressure; they lower the load rating instead. So, I have to believe that was an editorial error on their part.
Gee, I guess this really isn’t a “track” car in MINI/BMW‘S minds. Therefore, it doesn’t deserve a real LSD like the GP3 gets... Like I said, if there is a flaw in a car’s design this track will find it and the lack of a mechanical LSD is a huge flaw.
