Just my 2 cents, but the LSD is your biggest limitation. If I was to do only ONE mod, it would be camber plates. But my second mod would be LSD (then swaybars).

Think about it this way…. eLSD is not only wearing your brakes, but it’s also limiting power. I have F56 JCW and stock GP2 (with eLSD). F56 has Wavetrac LSD, Whiteline sways (biggest I could find, front/rear), and Vorshlag camber plates. With stock springs and shocks the F56 is 2.5 seconds faster at the track (same brake pads-DTC60f/DTC30r, same day, same tires- RE71RS). The only disadvantage the GP2 had was 215 tires vs 225 on F56.

BTW, have you tried a more aggressive pad (sorry if you covered this above)? DTC60 is actually a bit too much on the F56 with a real diff. They are barely wearing at all, so I think the rotors are taking all the abuse (I am going to give DTC30 a try on front).

P.S. I do my own alignments in the garage. The Mini is probably the ONLY one (of cars I’ve done) that I could actually change at track. Toe is a simple measurement that can be done with two tape measures and two toe plates (aka straight plates you can place against your wheels). If you have adjustable camber plates and a way to measure camber it’s not a big deal. You will need to adjust camber the same amount L/R and then change toe equally L/R to get total toe you want. But you better have a crew helping as you will eat up time. That said, the answer is still a real LSD.

P.P.S. The GP2 doesn’t eat pads with DTC60 installed. But brakes are massive in comparison, and I believe it has better cooling as well.

 

In my signature I list out the mods that I have made to my R56S. Sway bars, LSD, custom BBK, camber plates, etc. So, yup I am familiar with all of that. That is my track car I can still drive on the street.

My F56 JCW is my street car that I drive on the track. Stock, except the JCW Pro suspension (I consider that to be “stock”). My plan has always been to keep it stock. At this point, I have fleeting thoughts of camber plates to control tire wear. Quite frankly, I feel the car’s handling is quite good and the eDLC is really a minor issue, which only really affects how the car goes through the Toe at Watkins Glen. I just like whining about BMW’s idiocy in not having a mechanical LSD for the car. Then again, they got rid of the dip stick too, so go figure. The eDLC was more of an issue on the R56S, hence the LSD. But the eDLC is also track dependent. It is less of an issue at Watkins Glen with the higher speed turns than it is at Lime Rock Park with the tighter turns. So the JCW gets driven at WGI and the R56S gets driven at LRP.

Brake pads are always a conundrum. I fought with the brakes on the R56S for a long time. WGI cooks brakes. The pads that work there on that car are the DTC60s. No other pad can stand the heat. But those pads will eat rotors in a day if they don’t get hot enough. That happened to me at Palmer. I have since gone to the Wilwood Poly H for tracks with less braking. In the rears, I run the DTC60s all of the time. Works great with either of those front pads. Nope, that is not too much brake pad for the rear. It actually balances the car better than a “lighter” pad.

On the JCW at WGI I started with the Carbotech XP12s and have since gone to the XP20s; much better. In the rears I have the Carbotech XP12s.

You have an interesting issue with how the DTC60 work in the GP 2 vs the JCW. It may be that the brakes on JCW with the LSD are actually running cooler than they do on the GP with the eDLC and the pads DTC 60 pads on the JCW are not getting up to temperature and are just grinding away at the rotors. The DTC30s might be a good choice. However, I would strongly suggest trying the Carbotech XP12s for that application. I was not a fan of the DTC 30s when I tried them.

 

For years I thought the GoPro was a really neat idea. But I already had a really good video camera, with really good image stabilization and that worked really well for in-car video. And for years I used that for a lot of what I did. Then, along came cell phones with quite decent cameras, still and video. Then I lost the ability to edit the video from my really good video camera when I found out that the software “expired” with a Windows update. And I found that the image stabilization in phones was just so-so. Ugh! Procrastination set in…

Well, yesterday I pulled the plug and bought:


Welcome to the latest and greatest world of action videos.

And just in time for Albert’s trip to WGI. Now, to figure out how to pair it with Harry’s Lap Timer.

 

A little while ago I posed the above question about what happens to the geometry of the front tire that is on the inside of a turn.

It turns out that a picture is worth a 1000 words and can answer some questions. Here is my R56 with the front wheels turned and this is the wheel that would be on the inside of a turn:


So, this is pretty much what I thought it would do, and that is without any body roll. To be fair, this car has about -3 deg of front camber, so this would be exaggerated as compared to anything I would do on Albert. I am figuring Albert would get about -2 deg, IF he was to get camber plates.

From this, I would expect that adding front camber will exacerbate the tendency for that inside tire to spin. But I also would think that the inside front tire is already flying pretty high in the air, so what is a little more?

Something to procrastinate on over the winter. For now, it is what it is.

 

First off, I apologize for not reading up on your setup/background goals…

Interesting that you say the eDLC was more an issue on the R56. I purchased my F56 in winter after I’d done a couple of track days on a R56 JCW. That alone was my main reason for just biting the bullet and getting a LSD for the F56 over winter.

re: DTC60…. I hear you on that. My issue is that my son tracks the mini (and I’ve also lent it out to an out of town friend for a track day when they visited). I found that it took me an entire session (or two!) to get the brakes feeling normal after a day with another driver. I also drive it on the street quite a bit (I know, I know). I will try the DTC30 to see if they hold up. Thanks for the info regarding DTC60 on rear. I find that the GP2 responds way better to trail braking, so maybe with DTC60 on the rear the F56 can help out with that.

I am currently sticking with Hawk because they are available “off the shelf” here in Canada. I would love to try others, but this just helps with my sanity and pocket book. You may not know how good you have it down south! Haha

P.S. camber plates have a slight downside in regards to a street car (mainly tire wear). However, I can’t really find a downside to the LSD, with regards to being streetable. At least, with the Quaife/Wavetrac that is. But I’m sure you are well aware.. haha. Sorry to push it, but isn’t that was track buddies are for??? 😂. Ok, I will stop now.

I also like to complain that BMW/Mini took it off, but it’s hard to argue the eDLc vs. is an expensive part that most drivers won’t benefit from. Unfortunately, I can see how the penny pinchers won out on that.

 

I agree with the sentiment that the inside tire is already heavily unweighted so what’s a little more… I feel that the added grip (and lower tire wear) will definitely make up for any lost grip on the inside wheel. Your eDLC is already stopping it from spinning, and would handle that regardless. The reason I think this is because I’ve always gotten more corner grip by adding camber on any car. I HAVE noticed a downside in braking, when I’ve gone way too far though (e.g. over -3.5 degrees I started to notice braking performance started falling off on my z06). That downside should carry forward to acceleration on a FWD, but I don’t think -2 degrees is at that point. (All just my 2 cents).

EDIT: I suppose there could be an argument that you are losing more power to the brakes because the eDLC on your car could be sapping more power. I’d think the outside tire would get the grip that the inside tire loses, but maybe not the power that’s lost to the brakes. 🤔

 

No worries.

I only ran the R56 for a little while with the stock brakes. I don’t remember any particular issues with them in the stock form. But I may not have been looking for it. Then I went to the Wilwoods. That was when the problems really started. The eDLC was literally over braking the inside wheel causing it to actually drag. It took me a really long time to figure out what was going, but long story short - The Wilwood BBK uses a different piston size which made it incompatible with the car’s ABS system that drives the eDLC. At that point frustration was through the roof and the LSD went in. It was also a good excuse to do the larger swaybars and poly bushing. And down the rabbit hole I went.

Ok, a Z06 and MINIs out on the track, go you!

What tracks in Canada do you usually run?

My guess would be that you have visited the Hawk web page for their brake pads. Is there a chance you can get the DTC50 pad. It has been a long since I tried the DTC30, and it might have been on the rear of the R56, but the performance curve for that pad shows it dropping off with temperature and it having only a modest upper temperature range. This seems to match my recollection. I wasn’t thrilled with it. The DTC50 looks to be a better fit. My 2 cents…

Just a note… The backing plate for the JCW’s front brakes are the same as that for the BMW M2 (2016 vintage). I know Pagid makes pads for that and I would thing PFC too. The difference is that the M2 pads are a millimeter or 2 thicker and are just a little too thick to fit the MINI. You can custom order the MINI size pads from Pagid. That may be an option. There is also a company from Japan, iSweep, that makes pads for the JCW. Their 4000 pad is good for lighter applications. Some options to look into if the Hawks don’t work out.

I think you are right about why the LSD went away. Sad, though, as they put it into the Gen 3 GP3.

As for loosing power from the eDLC - From my experience with the R56 issues, I think as long as that inside wheel isn’t dragging, then the engine’s power should all be going to the outside tire. It just depends on how much brake is applied to that inside wheel; much like the split a LSD has. However, that is not to say that a LSD would not be better (much better).

And, yes, camberplates, LSD, etc are all about trade offs. And rabbit holes…

 

Thanks for the tips!

Re: pads. I was able to fit the BMW pads on the F56 by removing the shims. I have new rotors, and it was a very tight fit! Had to get the pistons all the way back.

I saw the DTC50 as well, and may try those next year, if I can get some. I’ve also heard a lot of talk locally about “Endless” pads. We have a local dealer who can taylor them to my needs (apparently). Might try that next year.

My local track is Rocky Mountain Motorsports Resort and that’s my main haunt. Just getting back into things after a 15+ year hiatus from motorsports, so haven’t hit any other tracks recently. I just enjoy lapping and spend way too much time out there as it’s only 45 mins away. My split is about 30% Mini and 70% Z06. Mini days provide way more bang for the buck though! 😂

Good on you for sticking to your guns on your street car. I am somewhat trying to do the same in that most of my mods are aimed at longevity, while keeping the cars at a point where I still enjoy to drive on the street. Camber to help tires last, LSD for brake wear, big swaybars instead of crazy spring rates (and I would do this again in a heartbeat). I’ve found, and I have no doubt you’d agree, that the mini can be pretty capable in mostly stock form. I did find that the stock suspension (including springs) worked well on track with the big swaybars (except braking). In that form, there was almost no downside in normal driving. It was only noticeable when hitting a bump on one side at low speeds (e.g. pulling off road into a gas station or going over a curb into a parking lot required a cringe to prepare for the large jarring that would ensue, 😂 ). As I eluded to earlier, under heavy braking at track the car would drive way too much (enough that it was affecting enjoyment). I put in Dinan lowering springs and that has solved that problem and I do like the looks of the lower stance. The Dinan springs seemed to be one of least aggressive, and I’m happy overall. I will note that the springs affected the street ride the most. However, if you consider the “wife test”, I would say it still rides better than the GP2, which is not too bad (and has a certain “purposefulness”, if that were a word). For me, I will keep the GP2 mainly stock, even though I think the F56 started as the better daily driver. I’ve had to replace the worn out coilovers on the GP2 (went with PSS10), but aside from that I won’t change anything else.

Anyhow, I will watch your thread for more updates on Albert. Thanks for sharing!

Cheers

 

After extensive consultation and sober debate, the committee agrees that "purposefulness" - if not a word - should be.

Very kind regards,

Charlie

 

Thanks Charlie…

@RodGP Here is the Hawk pad data. For the MINIs what I look for most in a race pad is the heat range. Then I look at how linear the friction curves are. Without ducted cooling, the MINI brakes get hot. At Watkins Glen the pads get hot enough to melt (my theory), hence why I have gone to the Carbotech XP20s on the JCW.

Another pad to consider in the Hawk line is the HT-10. It has a higher heat range than the DTC50. Just feeding you ideas.

As for mods, as I noted I did the “rabbit hole” thing with the R56. It started out as an S with the optional sports suspension, which was the base suspension for the R56 JCW. I ran it for about 3 years with just IE fixed camber plates and the Wilwoods. It was a blast to drive on the track and I learned a lot with it. Then came the rabbit hole with the frustration with the brakes. I agree that the front and rear sway bars were huge for handling, still with the stock springs. Also poly bushings in the front lower control arms. The down side to the R56 MINI suspension waa the really crap-tastic shocks. Bilstein B8s fixed that. Only this year I put in heavier springs; the MINI JCW red springs and got real camber plates.

You and I seem to be of the same mind set as to worthwhile track mods…

On both of my MINIs the down side of the street suspension seems to be the rubber bushings. On both, I compress the rear suspension bushing in turns to the point the tires rub on the inside of the wheel well arch (evidence that it is loosing camber). I have pondered replacing those, but that hasn’t bubbled up on my list of things to do. But it is the reason my F56 JCW is only wearing 215 rubber, and not 225.

Thanks for following. I looked up your track. A lot of turns in a modest length track. Understandable that the MINI gives you a lot of smiles there. The MINI is made for that track. I have a similar track here; 2.2 mi and 18 turns and also a motorcycle track. MINI fun overload. If interest, I post my R56S stuff here, my latest.

 

I have this really nice (SK brand, I think) 4” long 1/4” drive extension that I use like a screwdriver handle with a 10mm sock to remove the nuts holding on the cover over the brake fluid reservoir. As I am walking over to the front of the car to use it, it, of course, slips out of my hand. It heads for that tiny little space between the driver’s side headlight and some cross members. Pink, pank, slide, clunk, down it went right down through the red circle:

If I had tried I could not have done that

I heard it “land” but where? For the life of me I could not see it. I didn’t know if it made its way down to the undertray or got hung up on the way down.

Over the years I have purchased things that look neat, but I am never sure if I will ever use them. I have a Wi-Fi borescope that was just that kind of purchase. Got it out, made sure it would still connect to my iPad and went looking. I found the darn socket looking staight up at me. Yup, the thing landed perfectly balanced upright on the drive end of the extension, on the undertray. Now, how does that happen? I wish I had a picture. And it is perfectly inaccessible from the top. I could hardly get the 1/4” dia head of the borescope down there to see it. Well, at least I found it. I did have to remove 5 or 6 screws holding on the undertray in order to get to it. An hour later, after dropping it, I was back to work and bleeding the brakes for Albert’s up coming track day.

And, Oh - I found that the dealer’s mechanic who did the last oil change didn’t close the flapper doors in the under tray. Good I was under there chasing a tool. And the next oil appointment will come with a reminder. Why, doesn’t anyone take the care that I take? That was a rhetorical question. Of course, it is because I pay myself more.

A few years back I had the privilege of talking to the owner of the Jäegermeister 962 Porsche. Part of the conversation include the question - “why cross-drilled brake rotors?”. The simple answer was “feel”. Brake pedal feel. He said that for a while he could only get slotted rotors, but the feel was not as good and that was important to him as a race car driver (yes, he raced it). And, yes, cross-drilled rotor will crack. But in his words - “All rotors will crack”

So, before my last event with Albert I got a set of slotted and dimpled rotors for Albert (the OEMs were warped):

ECS slotted and dimpled rotors

I will say, the brakes were amazing. I had attributed that to the pads, the Carbotech XP20s I used in place of the XP12s I had been using. However, thinking about it I do think the rotors were a factor also. I would like to try some real cross-drilled rotors, but I have been unable to find a set and it appears that there are none from the BMW M collection that will work. I did find a MINI one, but the holes are smaller than what is in the BMW M brakes and I have had issues in the past with those plugging up with brake dust and causing issues. I wonder if I can find a custom set, with aluminum hats and curved vane rotors. Hmmmm, tis to ponder…

Albert has been prepped, and taken for a check out spin. All is good.

 

The track event at Watkins Glen International with GVC has come and gone, and it was a great event as usual. The culture of the GVC hosted events permeates from the top down. Safety is paramount, then comes learning. This is all wrapped with the expectation that everyone is there to have fun.

Then there are the people. I see a lot of familiar faces each time I go, but I also see a lot of new faces. More people to meet and talk with. It also means there are new people to keep the club and events like this going, which I look forward to.

And MINIs! This event reminded me of events that a bunch of MINI enthusiasts from my area would attend in years past to which we would bring 6 - 8 MINIs. This event had Albert (of course), 2 Gen 1 MINIs, a brand new Gen 3 JCW, and a Gen 3 Clubman JCW with all of 302 Hp. Like the MINI enthusiasts from this area, these were all driven by people who wore a giant smile, were friendly and excited to learn how each of us were enjoying our MINIs. Being in different run groups meant there was little interaction between us, but it was, none the less, great to see others enjoying their MINIs this way.

One of the R53 Cooper S drivers was a woman who was just starting out and is my age when I started doing this years ago. Talking to her brought back memories of what it was like to “drink from the fire hose” and what it took to get to where I am today. Like me when I first start out on this long adventure, she was excited to be able to take her MINI out on the track, to learn, and had a grin from ear to ear the whole time. As a MINI owner I always like to hear what others have done with their MINIs and, when at the track, I am alway interested to hear what they have done to prep their MINIs. I was delighted to hear that this woman’s MINI was basically stock. Perfect! Learn how to drive the car that you have. Perfect the skills of driving fast, first. And there is no substitute to seat time. This is the way to learn to drive. Then I will always ask what a person is using for brake pads. If for no other reason than to learn what I might want to try. For a novice driver I like to encourage the use of a true race pad. This took me several track events to learn and I was sorry that I didn’t start my very first event with those. I started out with a performance street pad (Hawk HPS). Nope, for me they glazed over and lost most of their stopping power during an event. Not fun. My MINI friends at the time suggested the Carbotech XP10s. Wow, what a difference and I have been a fan of the Carbotech pads ever since. She took notes as we talked and I imparted my collective wisdom about MINIs. Go her, and I hope I helped.

I was delighted to have a guest join me at this iconic track. A fellow MINI enthusiast, Charlie Thompson, who has raced but never on a road course like this one. He has iRaced a variety of “cars” on this track, but has never experience the real thing, nor has he been to Watkins Glen. When I invited him to join me, he bit like a hungry big mouth bass who found a hapless minnow. Not only did he wander the grounds to view the on track activities, I was able to secure him a right seat ride with an instructor. A very fast ride. For anyone who has not had this experience, I draw the analogy to taking a ride on one of those old school, wooden roller coasters. A ride like Charlie had is as thrilling and as exciting as that. And the instructor told me later that Charlie was one of the most excited and appreciative guests that he has given a ride to. Charlie’s story… of this day.

The event started on Friday with clear blue sky, and, with a day of open track, the sky was the limit as to how much time one could spend on the track. Well, for me, my limit is my endurance factor, which is none too long… But trust me when I say I got plenty of track time as indicated by how exhausted I was at the end of the day. A highlight of the day was catching the Ultima coming out onto the track and being able to tail this monster track car for 3 laps while the car, tires and brakes were being warmed up. Then I quickly lost sight of him. Go figure.

While Friday was a perfect day, the hurricane brought us misting showers all day Saturday. What? That wasn’t in the forecast. Rrrrriiiight. Sometimes the mist was heavy enough to not be able to see the car in front of you and to cause pooling and rivers on the track. That was exciting. But driving in the rain provides the best learning experience. It was interesting to slide the car into the T7, the Toe, and learn where the compression causes the tires to bit into the asphalt. I also learned I have less confidence in the car’s handling in the carousel, T5, than I had in the dry. It was unnerving to think about sliding the front end of the car in that turn, so I refrained from exploring those limits. I also learned that the Falken 660 tires are much less good in the rain than others in this family of tires. I had a few unexpected hydroplaning events, which I am happy to say I survived with nothing more than a bit of an elevated heart rate.

Sunday was cool but back to a dry track and Albert was very happy to be out motoring with like kind cars. Only 2 sessions, though, as family responsibilities called me home.

Albert is always a delight to drive, whether on the road or on the track. He is very competent which has encouraged me to explore his limits and learn to be all that much quicker. One of my nemesis turns is T5, the downhill carousel that goes on for ever. It is fast and because it is going downhill, there is the feeling that the back end of the car wants to be where the front end is, if the limits of traction are exceeded. Well, Albert, being the car that he is, would never let that happen which has allowed me to explore those limits. As I should have expected, the limits of the front end are reached first. Albert is designed with a bit of “push” and on this turn, that is reassuring. And street tires are very talkative at the limits, which helps. Being able to understand the limits means that I could now match the speeds of many other cars in this turn.

While Albert is great, he is still just a street car, with street car limitations. One of those is pickup of tire slag on the rear tires, that doesn’t get worn off. And it is only on the inside half of the tire. I guess the outside half of the tire does get a workout. But what this does, over time, is to trigger the traction/dynamic control system. Yes, I drive with that fully on; I want to drive the car home at the end of an event. This is noticeably going up through the esses. It is also triggered on the back straight where this time I found that it limited my top speed to about 114 mph. While I have know about the slag issue for many years now, this is the first I have connected limited back straight speed to this issue. At first I didn’t realize what was happening until I put 2 and 2 together. This would explain the low speeds I have seen in data at times in the past. Fortunately the fix is simple; rotate the tires, front with the rear.

Another issue that I have noticed is with the rev matching while downshifting. The 4th to 3rd rev match seems to stop working after several laps. While this has happened before, this time I paid closer attention to it happening (or not happening properly). We are fortunate at these events to have a BMW senior tech who comes to these events to explore BMW car problems that may be more readily seen when the cars are on the track than on the road, but may occur on the road. He comes equipped with computer and knowledge and also admitted that he generally learns something new at these events. This issue was no exception. We couldn’t find the cause for this particular issue, but he did find several things that he didn’t know about MINIs and its many sensors. For my issue, it seems possible that it is related to me. After several laps and the car and tires are warmed up, I drive faster and I may be catching the throttle when I am braking hard. This will be something that I will need to be aware of in my driving.

While Abert’s brakes are really good, I did find them to be a little softer than I remember them being at the last event 2 months ago. For that event, I did a full change-out/flush of fluid. For this event, with the fluid being only about 2 months old, I only did a bleed. Maybe I should have done a full flush? Next time.

I have reviewed the GoPro video that I took and it looks good. I like the camera. One unexpected issue I saw was that the picture framing moves as the car corners. It is as if the camera wants to look in the straight line the car was going and not look where the car is going when in a turn. I remember reading about a lock for something like this, but it was for an airplane doing a roll. I expect I need to do that for the future. As for now, I plan to put something together for your viewing pleasure.

With all of this discussion, I don’t want you to think that it was all problems. Anything but. With Friday being open track for the day and Saturday and Sunday being scheduled HPDE school ssessions, there was plenty to do. As a bonus, This event also provide us solo drivers with shared track time with the instructors. This meant that each session was 1 hour long and there were 4 session. More than enough time to shred a set of tires and wear out a set of brake pads. And a great part of this event, like others, is the quality of drivers that I am out with. There are coaches available to work with to improve times and data coaching to take that to the next level.

I am looking forward to the next time.

It is not all about the cars. Sometimes, there is the likes of this:

A Cane Corso. Yup, as big as it looks, but so friendly


Albert at his second home


A novice MINI


Another Gen 3 JCW and a JCW Clubman



Albert’s front yard view - the Ultima


Big, bad, Benz


A great looking Porsche


A track Toyota GR Corolla


Got to be a Camaro in the mix


Caddy Black Wing


Old school Panoz


Another bad Benz

Hope you enjoyed.

 

@ECSTuning How did you all make out from the hurricane? Hope all is OK.

I have done some looking a found a coupe of charities who have gotten high marks for their efforts
and they are supporting hurricane relief efforts. Please do your own checking, but here are the 2 that I have donated to:
These can be found at “directrelief.org” and “gofundme.org” or “gofundme.com”. The gofundme.org is the nonprofit arm of gofundme.com

 

Back to the Adventures of Albert…

As noted before, I got a new GoPro for this car stuff and took a lot of video while out on the track this past weekend. some of it is pretty boring but I thought this clip of me following that 700+ Hp Ultima track car in Albert:

As I noted, this is a brand new camera to me and I am still learning it features. Don’t mind the moving framing as I go around corners. I’ll figure out how to turn that feature off in the future.

There will be more video to come. Saturday’s rain time on the track was interesting as was some of the more crowded track time.

 

Hello,

We are ok here in Ohio. Some of our vendors like Ohlins whom have offices down there are still trying to get to their place. Most of the roads are still closed.

Hopefully they will be back soon. I had personal family members in Ashville, NC that evacuated. They are safe and fine.

 

Albert has been returned to “Street Mode”. Brake pads and rotors are now stock MINI (yes, this year I changed out rotors). The wheels and tires are the ultra fun Conti DWs on the NM lightweight wheels. As for the DW tires, they are phenomenal in the rain. I talked with one of the instructors who also races an older BMW and the next generation of that tire is what he uses for his rain tire for racing. High praise indeed.

How did Albert fair this last time out? Well, some good and some less than ideal.

Tires are surprisingly evenly worn. Not sure how that happened, especially with stock MINI almost no camber. They have seen 2 track event, 6 days, at WGI. I flipped only 2 of them for this event and at the end of the 6 days they look pretty good. Better than I had seen with my R56 with -1.5 deg of camber. Something is going right with Albert

Falken 660s, 6 days old

What additional camber would help with is the roll over of the tire onto the side wall. A close inspection of the tires reveals that the edge of the tread markers have been worn off several of the tires. Also, when the rolls that far it starts to “talk” and there is a loss of grip. Yes, I know how to fix that.

Albert has received some tire slag damage to his rear wheel well liners. Nothing that can’t be fixed, but the extent of this damage was a surprise.


Tire slag damage

Ok, once again, let’s talk brakes. WGI is brutal on brakes. Albert’s brakes are good and I thought they might be immune to problems once I got the Carbotech XP20 pads. These pads were great for their first 3 days of use in early August. And they seemed to be really good for these last 3 days.

Then I found this


Carbotech XP20 front pads
The pads are arranged from left to right as driver’s side to passenger side. There were a couple of surprises here. The first was the general wear was more on the driver’s side pads, whereas I would expected the greater wear to be on the passenger’s side pair, with those being on the side where the eDLC is activated most.

The second is, clearly, the chunk of brake pad material missing from the one pad. This would have been the pad that was on the inside side of the rotor. I have used the Carbotech pads for years. I wore out 2 sets of the XP12s on this car with no issues. So what gives here? Don’t know. I will contact Carbotech and see what they think.


Now why did it chunk?

I have until next season to figure this out. I will say that I am a great fan of the Carbotech XP10 pads for novice and intermediate drivers. I have never had any issues with those pads. And I know the LAP MINI race team uses the XP24 pads. So I am not sure why I had this issue. Maybe brake cooling is needed for these harder pads? Those LAP race cars have a massive amount of cooling. And, nope, I am not going down that rabbit hole.

 

A teaser

I’ll have you know that Albert is getting some plastic surgery done in the near future. He is looking at having his chin reshaped to better match his track demeanor ….

More to come.

 

Unfortunately, I got a little ahead of myself with this teaser. When I went out to do this Mod, the temperature outside had dropped considerably and I couldn’t get the plastic pieces on the front bumper cover apart.

What am I talking about? Well, a while back ago I bought this for Albert:

F56 Front Lip Spoiler

Yup! I got this for Albert. I thought it looked a lot better than MINI’s JCW Pro front splitters that are more of just corner winglets.

When I got it, I found that it was unfinished.

Unfinished splitter

So, I have gone through the process of adding texture and painting it. All of that is documented here.

I was quite pleased with the results.

Painting holder


Post sanding and painting


Sanded and repainted and pretty well matched to the MINI trim

Oh, why could the weather not have a stayed warm for a few more days? Maybe I could have gotten this installed.

Or, better yet, why did I procrastinate so long to do this? Story of my life. Either impulsiveness or procrastination.

Fall has fallen, hard. The leaves have started to change around me and are in full colors in VT and the Adirondacks. Temperatures are headed into the 30s in the near future. This project will have to wait six months or so for the warm weather to return.

In the meantime, it is time to get some major work done on Blue. After 21 years of faithful service, the E-brake cable has decided to become cantankerous. Hmmmm, I wonder what that trail of smoke behind us? That was a clue that some work is in his future. Then back to major smiles. Blue is a joy to drive.