Interesting prose...

And, yes, getting to be time for the summer wear.

Speaking of which... I will give you first dibs on a very slightly used set of Yokohama tires* that you love so much... Less than 100 miles on them; maybe less that 50 miles. I am not that far away, and I would be reasonable on price. I do seem to remember yours are new or new-ish, but these keep well in a dark, cool place (these have been stored in a basement)... But a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush... Post back if interested.

*225-45x17 A052s

 

I look forward to meeting you in a while, and putting those tires to good use!

Thank you,

Charlie

 

I know there are few people reading this thread who will appreciate this MINI build for autocross:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4578989

You will want to go up a few posts above where this link takes you to see what is under its bonnet.

 

Slowly getting Albert ready for spring and summer. The NM wheels have been to the body shop to be clear coated. I only put a few hundred miles on them and used them for one 3 day track event. Maybe I should have cleaned them up afterwards and not let them sit over the winter with the track crap slowly “welding” itself in to the finish:


NM wheels and track crap



Dull finish made more dull with track crap

Wheels use out on the track take “heavies”. Between the very tenacious track brake pad dust and the tire rubber chunks, both of which have an affinity for sticking to wheels, they are not easily cleaned. Especially after sitting for almost a year. I used Meguiar’s color changing wheel cleaner, which seems to be pretty aggressive, a scrub brush, a blue (no scratch) scrubbing pad and some plastic trim removal pry tools to get the stuff off... 2 days of that and off to the body shop. They did look good when they were cleaned, but I am not a fan of the semi-gloss finish these wheels come with, especially with the car being glossy black.

These will look much better:


Clear coated NM wheels

Yes, these are going to look great...

Tires will be mounted in a week or two, to let the clear coat harden full... By then it may have stopped snowing around here...

These will be used as street wheels as the offset was too little and they caused tire rubbing in the wheel well when out on the track.

 

Mighty purty sir.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Have fun tomorrow... Looks like weather in the 60s and sunny-ish...

 

Ooh - shiny! Those will look slick!

 

Well, not everything in this world revolves around Albert... Though, He would like to think so.

There are two other MINIs in this household and they get attention too. This past week, Smokey got some treats...

A set of K-Mac caster camber plates and a pair of new front shocks. The shocks are Bilstein B8 replacements for the ones that are on Smokey already. Those were used to begin with and they now have a lot of track days on them and I suspect they have some wear in them. They have been good, so why not stay with tried and true. And the rears don’t do much, so why replace them...


K-Mac caster camber plates


The K-Macs are interesting in that the adjustment is done with a free floating plate. They also come with an upper spring perch that is made with an offset to allow stock springs to be used and still be able to dial in some significant negative camber.

The last tidbit is the tow strap...
Red, so they don’t miss it when it is needed...

 

We're tow strap twins lol!

 

I ordered everything from Turner... The red was the best price and it stands out nicely.

I did a fit up and the strap comes out at an odd angle. Then I found after just hand tightening it, I could not loosened it by hand. It locked in really well, which is good but was a bit of a surprise. Usually looks aren’t a big deal to me, but there is just something about this strap angle that was bothersome... But, if I put some sort of a shim in there, I am afraid that it may not tighten as well or easily. There is no good way to tighten it with a tool. I may just leave it as is and embrace the imperfection...

 

Funny you mention that... I have the blue version, and it does thread in all the way and settle at an angle. Looks a little bit weird. I was thinking of wrapping the threads with some teflon tape (or something) to make it a little bit more snug. Then, thread it in all the way, and back it out to level and see how it is. You can always twist it back in when it is needed to make it more secure.

 

I just hand tighten mine. I put some copper anti-size on the threads just in case.

I just noticed how off center that headlight is. Now I can't unsee it

 

I was actually wondering if having hang down at an angle might be better. That is, I wonder if it then follows the natural flow of air around the front of the car... Maybe Turner planned it that way for better aero on his race car...

More seriously, I am hesitant to put anything on the threads of the tow hook that will make it easier for it to come loose. I understand that teflon tape can make it tighter, but it also makes it easier to loosen. So I would be on the fence about that. A friend was on the track behind a car that dropped a tow hook and it smashed his windshield. He posted a short video (link) of the hit happening. The last thing I would want to be is the next person to drop one on the track... That said, I may just leave it.

Also, I would rather futz with putting in the new suspension parts...

 

You might be on to something:



When I first put mine on, I wondered if it was off-kilter due to slight differences between the BMW socket and the Mini socket alignments.

 

Hey, when were you at WGI? That’s a nice picture!

 

A friend and I try to get down there at least once a year to do the track tour. This year, the trip was supposed to be this weekend for "Opening Weekend", but I have too many obligations this weekend. That picture was from May 2019. Here's another:


Before COVID, they used to take you around and let you stop on the front straight to get some pictures. Now, you have to stay in the car the whole time you're on the grounds. Not sure if this summer any of the restrictions will loosen.

 

That is great. I remember that you had said that you have tried to be there each year. Again, great pictures!

As for restrictions, we can hope that things will get better. And with vaccine inoculations becoming more common, we may see things go in a positive direction.

Not sure when I can get there. There are several events I would like to go to. We’ll see.

 

I got this month’s issue of Sports Car (March/April 2021, vol 79, issue 2), the magazine of of SCCA. I very much enjoy reading the articles by Randy Pobst and in this issue I especially liked his comments about setting up a car to handle well and to achieve the quickest lap times. It may not be what you think. He tends to defy conventional wisdom, at least that of people who are less experienced than he is. This month’s article is especially dear to me as it talks about wanting a touch of understeer in a car. While I won’t quote the whole article here, but here are few choice statements:

”Review: What’s your primary job as a driver? Weight management.... Moving your vehicle’s weight front to rear is the most important thing you do with your controls. Weight is load and load is traction.”

”...steering is not as important as weight management. That is not obvious. If the driver does not put some load on the steering tires, they will have little effect.

I propose that some drivers do not understand this, and so the set their cars up with oversteer so they will turn well, without having to think about keeping some load up there when entering a corner. That is fine for quick steering response, but it is not good for traction under acceleration, because the rear tires are carrying too much load mid-corner and can not accept any more weight transfer from acceleration.... That’s why the car is best if balanced with a little understeer so that the rear tires can accept the power with overloading so easily, and so constant counter-steering is not necessary.”

Ok, what does “...the rear tires can accept the power...” have to do with MINIs? Nothing. But physics is still physics and all 4 tires on a car need to share in the work to achieve fast lap time. In a FWD car the aspect of weight transfer to the front tires in a corner is just as import as it is in a RWD car. This will add traction to the front wheels and, with a MINI, will improve camber as the suspension gets compressed, further improving traction. A slight amount of understeer in a FWD car will allow load transfer to the front wheels when going into a corner with heavy trail braking. The rear tires are still taking up some of the cornering forces to keep the back end from coming around when doing this. A FWD car setup to oversteer will lessen the ability to heavily trail brake into a corner because of the tendency to want to swap end and there will likely be counter-steering involved. The rear tires are not sharing enough of the load in this case...

At least that’s my theory... I wish Randy had touched more on that subject for FWD cars as he has a lot of experience with those.

 

Pobst is one of my favorite drivers, ever since I saw him race at Watkins Glen for Mazda. Those comments help justify a front sway bar upgrade in the Mini

 

I got to meet Randy at LRP, maybe about the same time. A friend was on the pit crew for one of the other Mazdas. He was the member of the pit crew who helped Liam Dwyer in and out of the car.

It was after I made the change to the larger front sway bar to balance with the larger rear bar that I saw some of the stuff that Randy wrote on the subject of car setup for under vs oversteer. It made me feel good that I wasn’t nuts in what I was feeling about the way the car handled after I made that change....

 

Summer tires are on and on with the clear coated NM wheels:



Summer is coming

Sorry for the dirty car picture. Tomorrow into Friday is supposed to be about 2” of rain fall, so I saw no point in washing the car for this picture. But I was excited by how the wheels and tires looked on Albert, so I took the picture anyway.

The tires are the Continental’s older DW model summer tire. I bought these on clearance from TR when Continental was coming out with their replacement. They were rated really high for wet handling by TR testing and I thought that they might make a good rain tire on Smokey when at the track. However, that idea has gone by the wayside, at this point, with Albert now in the picture.

These tires were somewhat panned in the owner reviews on TR and I am not sure why. The shop that mounted the tires put a 37 psi in them and that is where I left them. Compared to the run flat Hankook tires. these Continentals are orders of magnitude better. To put it another way, these tires reaffirmed my impression of the Hankooks as being crap... What was MINI thinking when they put the Hankooks on this car?

Even with the stiffer sidewalls in the RF Hankooks, the steering response of the DWs is better. The shimmy with acceleration is gone, the wandering down the highway is gone. With the tires and wheels being lighter, acceleration is better. And, surprise, the ride is better. Last but not least, the DWs look like they belong on the car. If not driving at above 9/10ths out on the street, these seem to be a perfect fit for this car.

Sunday is supposed to be nice and planned is a road trip to Palmer Motorsports park to meet up with Charlie Thompson. He will be the recipient of a lightly scuffed in set of 225-45x17 A052 Yokos, which he loves so much, and we will get to spend some quality time watching drivers having some fun out on this nice track.

 

Well, I met up with Charlie Thompson (cmt52663) to provide him with an almost new set of his favorite, sticky, gum ball tires. The day was perfect for a ride; dry, cool and overcast with only a light breeze. This was a highway drive, which is okay. I know, these are twisty road cars, not highway cars. Oh, contrar! These are wonderful, effortless cruisers on the highway. Besides, with the backend of Albert all loaded up with 4 Yokohama 225-45x17 A052 tires, I didn’t need those flying around on some twisty road pulling 0.9 g turns...



Loaded with tires

I am constantly amazed as to how much can be fit into the back of a MINI. The F56 is slightly better shaped and maybe slightly larger for doing this than the R56, which is nice. This size tire rolls in perfectly, just slightly smaller than the height to the head liner. I cut a 42.5” long pole to fit across the back and it rests on the latch bracket for the rear seats. I use an 8’ long (maybe a bit longer?) cam lock tie down strap hooked on the brackets and around the front of the tires to hold them all securely in place.

The meetup was to take place at Palmer Motorsports park located just outside of Palmer, MA. There was to be a track event there and it would have been fun to observe one in action. But, April being the fickle month that it is weather wise, Mother Nature had other plans and luckily Charlie contacted the event organizer the day before as the event was canceled due to weather. We found out later at destination plan “B” that Palmer had received about 9” of heavy wet snow Thursday night and into Friday... Oooops... Not good for being out on a race track with slicks...

So plan “B”... I had been to Palmer before and knew of a very nice restaurant, The Steaming Tender, which turned out to be a perfect alternative. They have a wonderful short menu of beautifully prepared food. Charlie and I had variations of turkey; I had a Waldorf turkey wrap and Charlie had a turkey dinner... Perfect I wonder if this was a subconscious choice on my part given the wild turkey that decided to walk across the highway in front of me on my drive there, which gave me the opportunity to test the JCW’s awesome brakes to avoid hitting it...

They opened at noon and both of use arrived a bit early and before they opened. This allowed for a quick shift of the tires from my car to Charlie’s and we got to exam the rear wheel wells for the tire tire rub I was having with slightly smaller, 215 tires on the NM wheels. It turns out small differences make a significant difference in the figment of tires on these cars. The NM wheels that are “made” for the F56 have a bit less offset (ET 40) than the NM wheels that Charlie has, which are for a VW and have an ET 45 offset. So that puts the outside edge of his 225 tires at about the same place as as the 215 tires I was using. And, he has similar wheel well liner wear as I have. Go figure. I wonder at the choice of offset that NM uses on the MINI wheels they sell. The steel body seam of the fender is located very close to where this wear is and I wonder if it would have cut into a 225 tire with the ET 40 wheels. I know others have not seen this, but it is none the less a concern of mine. Unfortunately one can’t just buy the wheels Charlie has as the centers need to be bored out to fit the MINI. It is a shame as NM could easily do this and market the wheel for the MINI. They are an 8” wide wheel vs the 7.5” wide wheel they market for the MINI... And based on the fitup on Charlie’s MINI, they are perfect for the car...

It was great to finally meet up with Charlie Thompson and I hope to have the opportunity again some day. In the mean time I will continue to enjoy reading his post here on NAM.

P.S. - Speaking of tires. We both agreed that MINI does the JCW a great disservice putting the crap-tastic Hankook AS tires on these cars. This ride gave me the opportunity to try out the Continental DW tires I put on a few days ago. What a difference in every way imaginable. The straight line tracking is greatly improved, the turn-in is better, the grip is reassuring, etc. These may not be a “track” tire but they serve the JCW far better and much closer to what the car deserves than do the Hankooks. Shame on MINI. There are far better AS run flat performance tires they could have used.

Enjoy the day and MOTOR ON!

 

That's awesome!

Here is my Clubman with four tires and wheels in the back, although the four across the back are only 205/45-17's:

 

These cars are great! Right?

The Clubman is a perfect addition to the MINI lineup. I know several people with them and they serve them well. The fact you can include a separate set of wheels in with the tires in the back shows just how much more room there is in them. Can’t do that with the hatch.

 

Jon that was a good trip, a great lunch, and a delight to meet you in person.

Thanks for the stickies, and I'll try and use them responsibly... ;-)

Cheers,

Charlie