I am always impressed as to how easily Google finds things on NAM...

So, this seems to be a good thread on removing the armrest from the F56 and people have found a replacement console without the armrest opening...
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-part-1-a.html

This will have to be on my list of things to do with Albert.

This thread also has a lot of discussion about the issues people have with the armrest. Not surprising that these are the same issues that I have with it.

 

Albert has been quiet for a while. My other vehicles have required attention, include State inspections. The first was for Blue and his brakes failed; not driven enough and the rotors rusted out. Ugh!

I found a link for everything you wanted to know about MINIs; the factory repair manual:
https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/

 

Albert came with the automatic wipers and headlights. These features have proved to be helpful and pretty reliable. I have found a few times when both have gotten confused and it seems understandable for the conditions that they were in that they did get confused. So, I give them each, overall, a thumbs up.

Unfortunately, I don’t get to use the automated headlights much. Because of the poor tach design I find that I need to have the lights turned on to have the dash lights on to illuminate the tach face so it is readable. With the lights on, when you open the door the car reminds you to turn them off before you get out of the car. Usually I just turn them to the off position, but the other day I must of turned them to the auto position as the light came on when I went for a drive that evening.

Now, a nice feature with the automatic lights is the corner lighting that comes on when turning a corner with the signal on. Very helpful for keeping the wheels from scrapping the granite curbs we have in this town. I like that!

The corner lighting gave me a chuckle when it lit up the wrong side of the road when I turned into my driveway. After I turned in I realized why that was. The approach to my driveway is from a pretty sharp right hand bend in the road and my driveway is a left turn off that bend. I had turn on the directional signal to the left, just before the right hand bend and the right side corner light came on when I turn right for the bend, but it didn’t change to the left side when I turned left for my driveway. Just a wee bit of confusion in the ECU programming there. This didn’t surprise me as the self-cancelling directionals in my Jeep seem to alway cancel before I can make this same turn into my driveway. Like I said, it gave me a bit of a chuckle, especially considering how like the Jeep this is.

 

I pretty much just use my automatic wipers as the intermittent setting. I would prefer if it had an intermittent setting since I think the auto wipes a bit faster than I'd like at time. But I turn it off afterwards. The same with my headlights. For some reason, I turn on automatic when it's dark, then I just turn it off when I leave the car. Maybe I should get used to technology but for now, I'll keep control.

And I don't really have an issue with the tachometer. It's kind of nice that the whole control display is pretty small. My main gripe is that if you display your speed digitally, the display is extra large so you lose your odometer. When I want to see it, I need to cycling through all the displays.

I didn't get the auto turning headlight options even though the salesperson was pushing it.

 

I think the cornering lights are different from the auto turning lights. Not sure though. I like to turn on the lights myself, mostly because with driving a black car I want other drivers to see it and the auto-on feature turns the lights on at a point when it is darker than when I want them on. Not a big deal for me. The switch works.

Where I live, there are a lot of trees and shadows. On a bright sunny day the tach all but disappears on me when the car goes into a shadow. Having the instrument lights on is just enough light to keep from loosing the display in the shadows. What I would really like is to put in the display from the GP3. Maybe someday,,,

 

I am so excited!
I finally installed the JCW Pro rear spoiler extension (winglets).


JCW Pro winglets

And while I was at it, I thought I would do a quick mural of the fall colors...

The installation was really quite simple and, I think, came out really nice. I will post more pictures of the installation and a DIY here:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...xtensions.html

I left them flat black to match the other flat black parts on the car.

And, I’ll report back about an increase in fuel mileage or noticeable increase in downforce in the rear at speed.
In the mean time, I am thinking these will go well with the JCW Pro rear diffuser.

 

With respect to mileage, I've learned comparing Gollum to himself works better than comparing across JCW drivers - there's a lot of scatter.


Mileage, Speed - reported by JCW owners


I've been around 28.8 for the last two years - the data has never been reset over 55k miles.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Charlie, are you still keeping this up?
At just over 3000 miles on the car, Albert’s mileage is 28.7 mpg at an avg speed of 31.3 mph.

I suspect that any gas mileage change now that I have put on the winglet will be purely coincidental.

 

This hasn’t been high on my priority list, but yesterday was cool enough to check this out. I would have to say this issue is heat-soak from the engine compartment and/or the heater core. When Albert was run from being cold, perfectly ambient temperature air came out of the vents. Very nice and refreshing. However, after being parked for a while, while shopping, the vents were blowing quite warm air and it didn’t cool off quickly, either. And this was with no change in the heater control settings (heat **** all the way to cold and no AC). I suspect that this condition may be more from the heater core as typically there is hot water running through them all the time and temperature is controlled by changing the air flow either bypass the heater core, going through the core or a mixture of both... So, I guess it is just something I’ll live with.

On a bright note, I thought there would never be another car able to pump out heat as quickly as our ‘04 Cooper does. Well, we have a new champion with Albert. Boy does he start cranking out the heat quickly. Nice, very nice.

And, darn, Albert’s pesky redline and rev limiter keeps showing up way too fast in first gear. You would think by now that I would know it was coming up before it hits. But no. I blame my inability to acceptably deal with this on the fact that the engine is way too smooth and free reving. I have no problem with this happening with the 2.4L engine in my Wrangler. Anything over 3000 rpm and that thing is about as smooth as a washing machine on a spin cycle and a few lead bricks in the tub... and it revs like there is a potato stuck in the exhaust pipe.

 

What is about these cars that makes you want to mod them? Why can’t we just leave well enough alone?

No I don’t have a good answer to those questions, but it just seems to be in their makeup.

I have a lot of fun reading about what people have done with their MINIs and, for the F56, MINI seems to be egging that one on with things like their JCW Pro line. In this case the JCW Pro suspension has caught my eye and this is a great write up about it:

JCW PRO coilovers

From what this write up says, it’s like these were made just for the car... HEY, they were! And it seems MINI got it right. Slightly lower, slightly stiffer springs and better shock valuing. What’s not to like? These are definitely going on my bucket list for Albert. Maybe a Christmas present to him?

 

To me, it's two reasons:

1) "Personalizing your MINI" is part of the fun and advertisements of the brand. Just cosmetically, you'll see lots of wacky combinations of colors, patterns, stripes, badges, etc. So it makes you want to make your MINI a bit more unique.
2) It's a fast, little car that handles well so it attracts drivers who'll want to push it. And some will naturally want to push it further than stock parameters. Plus having a turbo means it's easy to add power! And once you add one, you'll want to add more!

I've been restraining myself to just cosmetics for now. It's cheap so I can save up again before spending more on performance (hopefully after the winter).

 

You are spot on with that one. With our ‘04, my wife ordered it being a bit plain-Jane. But I couldn’t leave it alone, so I had the dealer put the white bonnet stripes on it before delivery as a surprise for her. She picked the car up on her birthday and she loved it. And so it goes on...

So much fun, so little time.

 

Wow! Those are two very handsome cars.

 

Rain slick roads and no traction control...
Yup, had to try it. And, yup, this was my first time. Part of it was to find out how well the yellow traction control light was actually indicating what was going on. I had a suspicion that it really was only semi effective and there actually was intervention that wasn’t indicated. I learned from track days in the wet and snowy parking lots, that it is better to test out these things happen at much slower speeds than dry pavement. Well, that was quite an experience; no traction control, mildly aggressive on the throttle and a little bit of steering input. The tires lit up like a match in a pan of gas, the car developed a very acute case of understeer and headed straight towards the edge of road.

So with that test complete, I learned several things... The first was THIS CAR HAS A MONSTROUS AMOUNT OF POWER LOW IN THE RPM RANGE. Crap, things got lost really quickly. No hesitation, just touch the throttle and instant tire spin. And not just one tire, both of them. So, the eDLC (eLSD) does work, at least on the street. Second, my suspension was confirmed that the yellow traction control light is less than 100% (quite a bit less, actually) at indicating intervention. With traction control on, I have been a lot more aggressive on the throttle than what I was was in this little test. Considering how easily the engine was able to overpower the tires without traction control, I have to believe that with those aggressive throttle applications I have been getting intervention a lot that hasn’t been indicated. I will also say that the intervention has been subtle, like it just was missing a bit of power, not anything that was abrupt at all. A bit of credit to BMW for making this system work so well, at least on the street.

I am now looking forward to getting Albert out onto the autocross circuit so I can really try it out without the nannies in a safe environment.

 

Albert took me for a 200-ish mile highway ride yesterday. You know you have a fun car when even a highway ride on cruse control is enjoyable. Overall, Albert has been proving himself to be quite the grand touring machine. The seemingly effortless power is a big part of that, along with a reasonably sophisticated ride. Especially nice is being able to shift gears while being in cruse control without deactivating the cruse control. It just takes a pause as you change gears. I have had occasions where I have set the cruse speed while in 5th gear, like in a long work zone. At the end of the work zone, use the cruse speed button to increase the speed up to highway speed and then shift the transmission. It is also nice that the speed button allow for either 1 mph changes or 5 mph changes. I’ve only done this for up shifts; not sure what will happen with downshifts.

The trip, however, started on a bit of a misstep - about a 100 yrds from my house the tire pressure warning light came on. Now it was 12 deg out and it had been in the 40s - 50s before yesterday. I would not have thought this would be an issue, though. Yes I know that tire pressure drops with a drop in temperature (about 1 psi for every 10 deg). But at my last check the tires were in the mid-30 psi range and when I checked them after getting the warning light they were all about 24 psi. That would equate to about a 100 deg change in temperature and I know that didn’t happen. So a bit of a mystery brewing here with all 4 tires loosing pressure at about the same rate. Hmmmmm? I pumped them up back to the mid 30s again and took off on my trip. While monitoring the pressures for a while I found it interesting to see the tire pressure increases as I drove Albert on the highway and with the sun shining on one side of the car. A quick check of pressures on the return trip home and all was OK.

 

Just got my JCW back from the dealer who I had install the JCW Pro suspension. I had them set it for 20mm lower than the base suspension height. First impressions... I like it. It brings a crispness to the ride and handling that was missing with the base JCW suspension. Someone said that this is suspension that the car should have come with... I agree. It seems to play well with the run flats tires that are still on the car. It is a noticeably firmer ride than the base suspension, which is noticeable over the pot hole repair roads in the city I live in. But, the shocks make that livable. On the highway, to about 60-65 mph, the ride quality is what I like, it is more secure and the wandering that the car had seems to have disappeared.

Next to Smokey, who is at stock height, Albert is noticeably less high and he no longer looks bigger than the previous Gen MINIs.

I plan to do pictures tomorrow with some before and after shots. Stay tuned.

 

I had hoped to post this earlier, but it seems that life sometimes gets in the way of life. And fun gets in the way of having fun...

I had only a couple of days of playing with Albert after getting the JCW Pro suspension installed, before the snows came. 20+ inches of the stuff that I had to deal with. Albert went into the garage, safe from the mess. Then I went skiing for 3 days with friends. Then I had to shovel that 20+ inches off a flat roof before a round of rain comes. Work and fun ... what life is about.

A little over 2 weeks ago I ordered the JCW Pro Sports Chassis (coilovers suspension) from Shop MINI USA. MINI also has a rebate going on, which made it worth while to do. The cost for the hardware was about $1500. Thanksgiving week my dealer (Keeler MINI) did the install. It took about a day, including a wheel alignment. That was another $1100. The car was completed on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Because of that upcoming snow storm late the following Sunday, I didn’t have much of a chance to test it out before putting Albert away in the garage for a while. Even so, I do have some first impressions...

To repeat what I posted above, overall, I am impressed with the JCW Pro suspension. It brings a crispness to the ride and handling that was missing with the base JCW suspension. Some have said that this is suspension that the car should have come with... I agree. It seems to play well with the run flats tires that are still on the car. The ride is firmer. Both the shocks and springs are stiffer than the base JCW suspension. The shock do well at controlling the stiffer springs and ride is still reasonably good compared to the stock setup. Overall the ride is flatter around corners. The little bit of wandering on the highway (60-65 mph) seems to be. Per the wheel alignment, the front camber is now a little over 0.5 deg (0 deg 30 minutes), which is nice (for now ). Most importantly, the wife still loves riding in the car.

I had asked for the car to be lowered by 20mm (About 3/4 inch). The MINI JCW wheels have a small-ish center hub that is easy to measure from. With the stock suspension, my measurement from the bottom of that hub to the lower edge of the lip on the wheel arch was 15 5/8 inches in the front and 15 1/8 in the rear. With the Pro coilovers, those measurements are now 14” all the way around. Not sure if I got the measurements correct as that seems to be more lowering than the Pro coilovers will allow (about 28mm lower in the rear and over 30 in the front). So, when the snow clears, I’ll be taking wheels off and checking the actual settings and then taking it back to the dealer to have it raised up by at least 10mm all of the way around.

I have read a number of posts by people who had lowered their MINIs and then found there was a vibration that seems to come from the drivetrain. The general consensus was that this was a result of the CV joints being too straight and that raising the car a bit would resolve this. Well, it seems that Albert may have contracted this malaise as I get a vibration (almost like a loose wheel) under hard acceleration. I am hopeful that raising Albert a bit will resolve this.

Here are some before and after photos of Albert. Sorry, no unboxing photos of the suspension as it was shipped directly to the dealer. Also, as I said, I plan to raise the car a bit so these pictures are “representative” of the way Albert will be.


The all important height adjustment tool


Base JCW Suspension

When I measured the height of the car with the stock suspension, I was surprised to find that the height in the front was greater than the back, at least to the wheel well arch. The MINI instructions for setting up the Pro suspension show the measurement to be from the bottom of the wheel (Lower rim edge) to the wheel arch. MINI recommends, for 17” wheels, 567mm front and 552mm rear; a little over a half inch more height in the front than rear, which is consistent with the stock suspension difference. I haven’t yet had a chance to make that measurement. I also wonder what the actual ride height of the car is. That is, the wheel well arch, front and rear might be of different sizes, hence the different MINI specs to make the car level to the ground. Maybe I will measure that too. When I get a chance to make those measurements, I’ll post back.


With the JCW Pro suspension


Base JCW Suspension


With the JCW Pro suspension


Base JCW Suspension


With the JCW Pro suspension


Base JCW Suspension compared to Smokey, my R56S. Does Albert’s butt look big or what?


Albert with the JCW Pro suspension. Looks better and not quite so big.

While I like the looks of Albert lowered the way he is, I am not sure it is best for the car and handling in general. This thread - https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-unboxing.html - provides some recommended setting for the JCW Pro suspension. I think these recommendations are higher than what Albert is at now but it is still lower than what I would like, especially given clearances needed to get in and out of my driveway. There will definitely be more to come about this. Stay tuned.

 

While Albert was at the dealer getting the JCW Pro suspension installed, I got a loaner 2020 MINI Clubman S All4 with paddle shifters on a JCW steering wheel. This was over Thanksgiving so I had the Clubman for 2 and a half days and got to take it some nice drives. First off, I will say that I could be a quick convert to drop the stick and go with a MINI with paddle shifters. I understood the point of having the paddle shifters, but I had no clue as to how nice they are to use. This is coming from a person who has shifted gears in a number of cars for a lot of years, starting with a ‘59 MGA, and takes pride in knowing how to double clutch and heel and toe

The paddles are in the exact right spot on the steering wheel and have a nice feel. The up shifts come off with a real solid feel. The engine revs freely so it is worth playing with the shifters. At moderate speeds (50-ish) it would let me manually up shift into 8th, which is about 1500 rpm (or less). In AT mode highway cruising at 70+ is in 8th and there is plenty of low end torque to handle most any hill without downshifting.

Downshifts with the paddles are nicely done with rev matching, but they could be a little more solid, which was a comment about the 2020 300+ Hp JCW Clubman. It will downshift on its own, but it is at a very low speed and it did it when I was braking for a stop. Not sure what would happen if I had just coasted to a really slow speed and whether it would downshift on its own like it did when I was braking. One oddity is that, if in a high gear and in the manual shift mode, it will down shift on its own if the throttle is mashed to the floor, but it doesn’t upshift from there. You have to do that... And, if I remember correctly, it will allow you to bounce the engine off the rev limiter and not “automatically upshifting” on you. So, overall it seems like this AT, with the paddle shifters is well suited for track use.

I did try manually shifting using the shift lever, but it is not as nice as using the paddles and if that was the only way to do it, the AT would be a deal breaker; I would rather have a manual. Having the paddles is what makes it all come together and makes the AT worth while having.

I also found that I could left foot brake with the AT without loosing engine power as happens with my R56 S with the manual. No left braking there as power is lost as soon as the brake is touched and is slow to recover. Being able to left foot brake is a bonus for track use (for anyone interested).

Overall, I am impressed with the AT with paddle shifters and I can see the new GP3 working really well with the “slush-box” and working much better than with the stick.

Other notes, the Clubman S is a ”MINI” at heart, with some utility. It handles well and, surprisingly, it rides really well on the highway and in town with the pothole repaired roads. This is with the RFT. The ride may be due in part to the 225-45x17 tires which is larger (taller sidewalls) than what is/was used on the Coopers. But if you are looking for something with the crisp handling of an R56 S or R53 S, you will be disappointed. This is not a track or autocross car. However, if you have a small family and/or want some utility, do highway trips of a couple of hours or so and still have something that is fun to drive (you won’t mistake it for a Camry), this is a definite option. In AT mode, shifts at low speeds are almost invisible and downshifts are made with only modest throttle pressure. Up shifts are scaled to the throttle input (light throttle, early up shifts; more aggressive throttle, later up shifts). I could really see myself having and liking this car under those circumstances.

 

I will admit to not having crawled under Albert to see what the business side of him looks like. I just figured that he has a typical MINI designed suspension front and rear. Basically shocks inside of springs; or coilovers.

What a surprise I got when I went to look at how the dealer’s mechanic set the height of the car on the JCW Pro suspension. The rears are not coilovers. The springs and shocks are separate. At first I couldn’t find the springs. Ok, the car was not jacked up and I was looking under from the rear car with my iPhone light. I must have stared, for a good minute, at that nice, shiny brand new shock trying to see to the top of it to see if i could find the spring.

Come on, it is red. I must be able to see it up there somewhere. I felt a little foolish when I saw a flash of red through the thick of the rest of the suspension parts. There’s the spring; in front of the axial. What is it doing there when the shock is behind the axial? And, how do I go about adjusting the height of the car? I can’t see any part of the adjuster from the rear of the car. Fortunately, the spokes of the wheel have enough space between them so that I could see the top of the spring. There it is, the adjuster on top of the spring. No wonder I couldn’t figure out from the picture on the Shop MINI USA web page as to how the spring and height adjuster went on the rear shock. It doesn’t...

And, yes the suspension is slammed...

Clearly, there was a disconnect between the SA and me, and/or between the SA and the mechanic. Maybe there was a third person (shop supervisor?) between the SA and mechanic. And I knew something wasn’t quite right how I explained what I wanted when I hung up the phone with the SA. It is so much better to show things like this with a picture; not words over a phone. Oh, well. Albert isn’t getting driven much these days with snow and salt on roads.

I did take Albert out today for a short ride. I am still liking the Pro suspension. Firm and well controlled. Street warts, RFTs and all, the ride was still good.

 

I have been looking into what others have done with respect to setting up their JCW Pro suspension. I found this thread (same link in posts above) where the person (Ryan) did a lot of measurements on his JCW.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4112455

The post was in August 2015, so it was earlier in the model run than my car.

Before I took Albert in to have the dealer perform the install of the JCW Pro suspension I measured the following ride heights. These measurements were taken from the center of the wheel vertically to the wheel arch. That is, the underside edge of the wheel arch.

Front: 14.5”
Rear: 14.0”

Ryan measured the following on his JCW:

Front: 14.75"
Rear: 14.375"

Not sure why there is a difference of ~0.25”. This is what he said about taking the measurement:

Could he have measure to the top of the lip on the wheel well arch? Don’t know.

Ryan further recommended setting the car’s ride height to be 1.125” lower, with an upper height being 7/8” lower than stock.

He also reported:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4112747

that there are 25 useful threads on the front and he set the collar so that there were 10 threads exposed below it (0.75” of exposed threads). In the rear there were no threads showing below the ring. This resulted in his car being lowered by 1.1” and the same rake as original. Or, as measured from the center of the wheel 13.6” and 13.275” front and rear respective.

I want Albert to be a little higher than that (only lowered by 7/8 to 1 inch). So I plan to set the collar on the front to have 14 threads exposed and 4 threads on the rear. Yes, I know this is based on Ryan’s measurements, which are different from mine. But the lowering amount should be good for me. It also gives me a starting point.

On a side note; I don’t understand the MINI directions. Here is a copy of the page for setting the front suspension.


MINI instructions for setting ride height.

MINI says to set the height from the bottom edge of the wheel (not tire) to the wheel well arch at following heights:

Front: 567mm (22.32”)
Rear: 552mm (21.73”)

The outer edge diameter of the 17” JCW wheel on Albert is 18.5”, which is 9.25” to the center. This would put the measurement from the center of the front wheel to the bottom edge of the wheel well arch at ~13” and the rear at ~12.5”. This is less than what the adjustment will allow. So, this makes no sense to me. If someone can figure out how MINI expects one to set the car height, let me know. In the mean time, I would suggest that anyone making these setting to follow Ryan’s lead. That is, make the measurements from the center of the wheel to match what Ryan did and to not try to set the height to MINI’s instructions.

 

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a Happy Holiday.

The winter solstice has come and gone. Winter has officially started. Around here, that means cold, snow and skiing. It also means that the days will be getting longer, slowly at first, and then more quickly as time passes. With that Albert will be able to come out hibernation and stretch his legs. In the meantime, the Wrangler will be doing the lion’s share of the driving duties. For these days the “Extreme Performance Tire” is a set of BF Goodrich KOs...

Albert did get an early Christmas present this year... The JCW Pro Aerodynamics for the rear (rear diffuser)... I think these parts will do nicely to clean up the looks of Albert’s back end. The egg crate looking pieces either side of the exhaust are busy looking and collect a lot of road dirt. So, Albert will be rousted from his slumber on Friday to go to have it installed at the dealer. While he is there they will adjust the suspension so he is no longer slammed. Now neither of these efforts are beyond me, it is just that it IS winter and cold out, and I don’t have a heated garage to do this in. One important thing about installing the rear diffuser is that it is glued into place and the instructions say that it is to sit for 12hrs at room temperature and not be driven for that time. So, it will sit overnight in the dealer’s shop to be picked up on Saturday. Pictures to come.

For whatever you are doing for the Holidays, enjoy!
Motor On!

 

Well, with a little investigation (jacked the car up and pulled the wheels off...), with pictures (all pictures are from before raising the car up). I found that the dealer mechanic had bottomed out the suspension. The car was slammed. It was actually lower than what MINI says that the shocks will go. Not sure how, but it was. By my measurement they lowered the car by 1.625” in the front...



JCW Pro suspension, front

JCW Pro Suspension, rear, looking forward; note the separate shock and spring setup


A lovely bit of workmanship. I alway thought that the red springs added a lot to the way the car looked. But only to those who periodically crawl under the car to investigate what is under there and and what might have changed over time...

But note that both of the suspension height adjusters are bottomed out. In retrospect, I believe this caused two problems. The first being related to the CV joints and the suspension bumper stops.If you read up on MINIs that have been lowered too far, people have reported that the car develops a vibration, like a wheel out of balance. Others have stated that this may be related to an issue with the CV joints not acting nicely with the lowered car (something about changing the CV joint angle). Well, guess what? I think Albert had what was that CV joint issue. Under moderate to hard acceleration it felt like the front wheels were wobbling. It doesn’t happen to all MINIs, but it has happened enough that people have posted on NAM about it. So, what is the fix? Raise the car up.

It also seems that lowering the car so it is slammed, sets the suspension down onto the stops. On smooth roads the ride was fine. But on some of the pothole repairs, pavement cracks and developing pothole the ride was rough and jarring. When first riding in the car, I thought it was just the stiffer suspension. However, after having the suspension raised up, the ride has been greatly improved.

My target for setting the car height was based on the guidance given in Ryan’s excellent post (https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4112455) and what Charlie Thompson had done recently with his JCW (https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4509769)

Because of the confusion in how to make the height measure, I took the approach that Charlie took. He has the same wheels I have so it was easy to make a one to one comparison. Ryan measured from the center of the wheel, which is also good, but I wanted to stay with a measurement style that was consistent with the MINI instructions.

The final heights on Charlie’s JCW was 578mm and 563mm, front and rear respectively.

The final height on Albert is 578mm (22.75”), both front and rear. From the center of the wheel, this would be 13.5” for comparison to Ryan’s measurements.

A note, I wonder if the outer diameter of all 17” wheels are the same and if that is why the MINI instructions don’t make sense. So, for anyone following this, I would be careful as to how you make your measurements and whether you follow the exact height measurements Charlie and I posted or you opt to do a difference (before and after measurement). Unless you have the same wheels we have, I would suggest that you choose to do a difference measurement. That is, choose an amount you want to lower the car by (maybe about an inch), then pick a way to make the measurement (eg: for the bottom of the wheel, from the center of the wheel, etc). And be consistent as to how you make the measurements. Also, roll the car a bit once it is on the ground, after you make an adjustment, to ensure the suspension is setting at its rolling height.

Oh, also, per Ryan’s post, each turn of the adjuster is 1.9mm

And, yes, with the car raised up the wheel wobble seems to be gone... Woo Hoo
More testing to follow...

A few more pictures...
I put a ruler in, along side of the threads on the front shock. The best I can tell, the bottom of the ruler is setting on the adjuster land (spring rest). That would be the at the bottom of the spring.



Front shock w/ ruler

Another thing I found is what appears to be a small set screw in the adjuster. It is small enough that it is hard for me to tell what it is. But if it is a set screw, over time with water, salt and dirt getting into it, this is going to be a real PIA to loosen. I plan to check it further and if it is truly a set screw, I will coat it with never seize.



Is this a set screw?

After looking looking at all of this and I was about the heft the wheels back into place I thought it might be fun to see what these wheels weighed...



Boat anchors

45 lbs of road hugging weight. “eek”

 

As part of my recent visit to the Dealer, I had them install the rear components of the JCW Pro Aerodynamics parts that are available. Some people refer to it as the rear diffuser, but in the strictest sense it is not a true diffuser as was the case for the Gen II GP. This is more of a smoothing arch from the underside of the car to the rear bumper. A big difference in the Gen III MINIs from the Gen IIs is that the muffler on the Gen IIIs sits crosswise in the back of the car, just ahead of the bumper. This blocks any chance of putting any sort of real diffuser channels in there and covering up the suspension, as was done on the Gen II MINI.

There are also small winglets that fit in the lower outboard corners of the bumper. I assume these help with air flow into the back of the car. Not sure if all of this actually does anything, but I think it makes for a much better looking rear bumper. Hence the mod...

Sorry about the quality of the pictures. Not the best that I have done, but you get to see how the stock and JCW Pro versions look. Another thing to note is that the diffuser part is made to be painted if you want. I chose to leave it the flat black plastic, the same as the rest of the plastic trim on the car. I like it...



The basic JCW rear bumper. Sorry for thee poor quality, this is in the dealer’s check in area and the lighting is bad..



The JCW Pro Aero, rear diffuser. Much cleaner look and note the lower bumper corner winglets... nope, not mudflats.

 

So Albert, and owner, are learning more about suspension setup. On Smokey I learned about sway bars and what they did. I also learned about shock setup or at least some basics and how they tend to work similar to sway bars in controlling understeer and oversteer. Springs, too, play into this in the same way.

However, I didn’t know what it means to lower a car and with the JCW Pro coilovers in Albert now, I thought I should find out. I know that lowering a car is good as it lowers the CG. But what about fore and aft rake? Well, wouldn’t you know that Charlie Thompson is thinking the same thing and posted (https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4513722) about roll centers and how lowering a car too much can be bad

This got me thinking that I should look this up and Charlie posted a link to this site that does a wonderful job of explaining everything you want to know about setting up a car...
https://suspensionsecrets.co.uk/how-to-adjust-and-tune/

I had figured I would set the rake of the car to what MINI had used. But it is clearly more complicated than that. Both rake and height are important. Go figure.

I have more to think about now. It may not make much difference on the street where one is not pushing the car to 90+%. But on the track, the option of not being right isn’t an option...

 

I found a great use for that useless and in the way arm rest MINI put in the Gen 3 Hatch with a stick... In the upright and out of the way (sort of) position, it makes a great ski holder... I put an old towel between it and the passenger seat, put the skis in from the back and rested front end of them on top of the towel. They then nicely slide down between the seat and arm rest, which holds the skis in place. Of course, this interferes with any passenger that might be sitting in that seat. But this was a solo run to meet up with some friends for a great day of skiing... We all enjoyed this:



Blue bird day at Gore Mtn

This was also my first long trip with the JCW Pro suspension. I am impressed. The ride is firm, but acceptable, and that is with the MINI spec RFTs. I didn’t push it, given traffic on the 2 lane roads. However, I did come across a section of road, which I thought was just damp, but turn out to be really slick, and slick through a curve. The front tires slid a bit at first, which caused an immediate response from the traction control. This, in turn caused the rear to step out slightly, which was also corrected by the traction control... Black ice? Maybe... Really crappy tires? Likely. Both? More than likely..... Either way, the traction control did its thing and all was good. Now this was a corner I have taken many times in my Wrangler and I was no faster than that. So I am glad to have been in Albert as the Wrangler has none of those fancy controls and I am not sure that I would have been able to handle it as well.

That little slide did provide a hint of the balance of the car at its limits. A bit of understeer with chance for it to oversteer with a throttle lift (as the traction control did at first). This is a bit less conservative than I had hoped for and I will be raising the front to return the car to the MINI stance (about 1/2 inch higher in the front) before taking it to the track.

I have signed up for a car control clinic at Lime Rock Park, which is done on a skid pad and a go kart-like paved autocross course with elevation changes. This should allow Albert to reach its limits in a safe environment in order to test its balance.