I bought them here > https://aliexpress.com/item/4000396724738.html

Plug & Play, no resistors needed

 

It's been a cold rainy winter here in the NW but we had a glimmer of sun yesterday. So I got the mini out for a rip.
First real drive with sun and the new window tint. I like it.






My next dilemma:
I want to lower the car +/- 1 inch especially the rear but I don't want to loose any travel and be hitting the bump stop. It's not a track car (but I'll go tot he track a few days this summer) and the roads here are not great. I'm reading a lot about coilovers (get expensive quick) vs good springs (Swift). I don't really like the idea of lowering springs but haven't got enough experience to really know. I have Koni FSDs with stock springs now and they are good, no complaints. It's more the aesthetics, just want to come down a little bit.

Stiffer springs.
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...l-springs.html

Tragesaurusrex has some great info here;
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4544360

Lots more thinking... input welcome.

 

nice !

 

Lowering springs are going to reduce travel. Can't change that, unless you find shocks that will compress more, and cut your bump stops (not sure if this is even feasible on these cars, just talking theoretically).

I would like a better stance on my car as well from an aesthetic perspective, but can't justify the change in ride. Tacoma roads aren't great, and we have so little suspension travel to begin with. You also run into the added expense of needing to adjust rear camber if you go springs or coilovers.

Ive decided thst the costs don't justify the benefit of improved look.

 

Can’t use lowering springs with FSDs*. Check the Way Motorsports web for info on that. If you search you will find that Way has commented about that a number of times. Unfortunately the Koni web page is not really clear about that for MINIs, but if you dig you can find it. If you go with coilovers, plan on spend some $$ on good ones, otherwise it is not worth the money and ride can suffer.

* you can find people who have put lowering springs on FSDs, but it is not advisable.

 

The CIA has not been a high priority for me but I stumbled upon a guy here in town with a brand new DDM (which is the one I wanted) that he never got around to installing on his r53. Soooo picked it up for cheap and checked it off the list.
Install is pretty straight forward. Here's a write up I found that can help if you need it.
http://www.billswebspace.com/MiniR53DDMCAI.htm

*FYI the M7 strut tower brace goes right over the top of the DDM air box... no issues there.


DDM CAI with foam filter.

 

Not sure the CIA would be a high priority for me, either... ... ...

 

Soooo the coilover and lower springs research is stalling out due to overwhelming amounts of options, variables and $$$$$.

Next up is DIY alignment and I'm starting with camber.
So here is where I started. My current street tires are pretty roached due to the PO not rotating the tires... ever. So I am not doing this for tire wear, and I'll will get a proper alignment when I get new tires.
Coupe good videos on DIY alignment:
This YouTube I grabbed from pnwR53S - It is good for the math and alignment (BMW) but I don't like the method of camber measurement with the square because the tire bulges out on the bottom and distorts the actual measurement. (I'm going to make my measurements on the outer rim of the wheel)
This one is better over all and they have some spreadsheets on the website for doing the calculations.

Started with measuring camber. (no camber plates nor adj. control arms)
I put air in the tires, got the steering wheel straight, and got about 80 pounds of sand bags in the drivers seat. (I weigh 150 but I could't find and more weight)
I set up a level with a reference bar / distance to the bottom of the rim and then took the measurements to the top of the rim. The difference (with some math gets me a pretty good idea of the camber on each wheel.



Here's my numbers after measuring a few times.
LF -.0.31 degrees
RF -0.50 degrees
LR -0.81 degrees
RR -1.44 degrees
Hmmmm....

UPDATE (the next day)
I thought about these numbers for awhile... and it turns out my garage floor is not perfect and has a couple high spots. Soooo I re-did my calculations with more weight in the drivers seat 100+ pounds, a full tank of gas and thin pieces of plywood under the wheels where needed.
LF -0.47
RF -0.58
LR -1.36
RR -1.48
I think all three fixes helped for more accurate numbers.

 

Next up... Toe angles and Thrust.
So using the string method (same initial car setup as above)




I used this website to calculate all my angles. Super helpful.

https://robrobinette.com/DIYAlignmentCalculator.htm


Last summer I felt like the mini was pulling and I adj the toe angle of the front wheels. Based off of what I've got here looks like the over all toe and thrust aren't to bad.
Next up... figure out what angles/numbers I want to go for and see how close I can get.

UPDATE (Next day)
I did some more reading and it turns out the track length for the front and rear of the r53 is different. Found this in the Bently Service manual.
Front track: 57.4 inches
Rear track 57.7 inches
Well crap.... that will whack my toe numbers slightly, because I thought the front and rear were the same.
Also found the R53 alignment specs in the Bentley... but they are kind of incomplete. Lame.


Mini Cooper 2006 R53 Alignment

Mini Cooper 2006 R53 Alignment cont.

AND the adjustment procedures I've found.
FRONT CAMBER
None - On 2002-2006 models, there are no built-in factory adjustments for front camber or caster. The only way to adjust these angles is to purchase adjustable upper strut mounts.

REAR CAMBER
If you have an 05-06 you have a very slight adjustment for the rear camber. It's a simple eccentric at the end of the control arm.

FRONT TOE
On 2002-2006 models, front toe is adjusted by loosening the lock nut on the tie rod. You'll need 24mm, 19mm and a 13mm wrenches.

REAR TOE
On 05-06 models, rear toe is adjusted by loosening three 16mm bolts on the plate that secures the lower transverse link to the trailing arm. There is a little door that opens in the bottom trim to get the forward most bolt. The rear toe and camber angles on the Mini have a considerable amount of cross-talk. If the rear camber is in spec but at the fringes, a toe adjustment could push it over the edge.

*****If I miss spoke anywhere in here... by all means please correct me. ******

So at this point I'm planning on getting under the car and looking at the rear camber adj... probably just leave it.
After that I'm going to aim for 0 toe on the Front and about a 1/16 toe in on the Rear. Start there.

 

Yesterday was a "blow off work and go surfing day" as well as test out my DIY alignment.
Alignment was good... all said and done, I only changed the toe on the LR and RF to get closer to zero toe in the front and a very slight toe in on the rear.
The other aspect of the car that was highlighted by this drive was the suspension travel. I really do need all of it. Between the crapy roads around Portland and the winter we had...there are a lot more potholes & cracks in the roads to where I hit the bumpstop more times than I care to acknowledge. So... not going to lower the mini and going to keep the suspension (Koni FSD & stock springs) as is for now. Maybe some front camber plates.

 

My experience with the Koni FSDs is that they do really well 90+% of the time, for the street. In the NE here we have the “pot hole season”, which is now. The thing I notice with the FSDs on our R50 is that the suspension crashes more easily than other shocks on pot holes. When it first happened I thought the shocks didn’t work at all. I think it is just the nature of the shock design. I actually like the Bilstein B8s better for this. The down side is the stiffer general ride.

If you do camberplates get the IE fixed plates. They will give you -1.2 camber up front, which is really nice for the street. They have the added advantage of adding a steel plate to the underside of the shock tower, which will help protect it from mushrooming.

 

Thanks Eddie07S
More thoughts and questions on camber and RSB.
I have the 22mm solid bar on the middle setting right now. Feels great. Never felt like I was going to loose the back end... not even at the track where I have pushed it further.
With the stock springs, Koni FSDs my plan is to get IE fixed camber plates to get the negative 1.25 camber in the front.

This thread has some pretty good info on finding the sweet spot between front camber plates and a bigger rear sway bar. (post 7, 8 and 11)
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...er-plates.html

Questions:
I don't think 1.25 neg camber is going to be that significant that it will noticeably change the handling of the car? Maybe I back the 22mm sway bar back down to the softest setting?
The camber plates look to be thicker than the stock strut mounts. Am I going to raise the front end? I've read as much as 7mm higher? *I have M7 top plates already and I want to lower the car if anything, not raise it.
I'm planning to do 4-5 HPDE days this summer. Not a daily driver for sure but I would say this is still a twisty mountain road focused Mini. Should I look in to the adjustable camber plates? That way I can start small and adjust as I feel/need? Or am I over thinking it right now?

 

I have a very similar setup. I'm running stock springs, FSD's, 19mm solid sway bar, and IE fixed camber plates. I agonized for a long time between fixed vs adjustable camber plates. I eventually went with fixed mostly because I didn't want to have to deal with noise from the spherical bearings, and I don't have the tools/know how to do a good alignment in my garage.

I've done one track day since adding the fixed camber plates and the car had noticeably more front grip and less understeer. I also was able to run lower tire pressures and decrease the rolling onto the sidewalls. I'm running Hoosier R7's on track and they really need even more negative camber, but I think that most other tires would be perfect with the amount of camber that the fixed plates add.

The plates on the fixed plates are thicker so I suppose that they do raise the front end, but it's not enough to notice without a tape measure. Visually I can't tell a difference.

I'm extremely happy with the way my car handles currently, it's very neutral and predictable, but rotates well at turn in. It's also very mild mannered on the street, but very capable whenever I want to push it. I haven't run the fixed camber plates long enough to know for sure, but I think I do enough highway driving that I'm going to wear out the inner shoulder of the tires before the outer shoulder; that's not a deal breaker for me, but just a consideration.

 

What he said...

The R56 comes with slots in the shock tower that allow for a -0.3 change in front camber. That was noticeable. The fixed camber plates are a big change. The added thickness of the plate does raise the car by about 3/16”, but that is not noticeable.

As for adding the fixed camberplates with a 22mm rear swaybar, I would set the swaybar on the softest setting, and have the rear camber set to the max negative setting (I believe that is -2.5 deg). This will reduce the likelihood of the car wanting to swap ends.

Adjustable camberplates are an option. They would be good for R-Comp tires. However, with a street tire, such as the Bridgestone RE71R, the fixed plates are a good option. Also, with a MINI a change in camber requires the toe-in to be adjusted too. So, just dialing in camber is more complicated than just making the camber change. And it would take more than 4 or 5 HPDE days of testing to really know if the changes is beneficial. I would stick with the fixed plates

Simplistically, the increased negative camber up front increases traction in the front and the thicker sway bar in the rear decreases the traction in the rear. This is why increasing the size of the size of the rear sway bar increases the propensity for the car to want to swap ends (oversteer). A small change, such as moving up to a 19mm is a really good change, with little risk of oversteer, while making for a noticeable improvement in handling. Adding camberplates to the front will further increase the propensity for oversteer with the increase in traction up front. Moving up to an even larger RSB is an even further increase in the propensity. Softening the sway bar and increasing the rear camber will help to mitigate that.

 

Thanks for the explanation here!

I have a question, does the bigger RARB really lower the traction on the rearside? I added a RARB to another car (FWD) and it made sure that cornering could be done way faster (before adding it). The backend also became a lot more predictable.

 

I read through your linked post and have to say that there is a mix of good info and somewhat misinformed information. For example, a post states that a larger rear sway bar does not reduce traction in the rear. If you think about it, a large enough sway bar in the rear of a MINI will cause it to 3 wheel. That is, there less rubber on the road in the rear and therefore less traction in the rear. I know that is a bit simplistic, but that is what happens. The follow on statement in that post is somewhat true. That is, a larger RSB helps with front traction. Again, it is not as simple as just that. There are a lot of dynamics that go on and there is a lot of interconnection between parts.

Like the OP of that thread, I did a lot research into how to make a MINI handle well. Originally I followed the conventional wisdom, much of which is repeated in that thread. After issues with doing that, I decided that maybe the Millions of dollars MINI and BMW spends on each new model on designing how to make a car handle is worth much more than the free advice. So, for my next MINI I decided to buy it with their upgraded suspension. No surprised, it was much better than the conventional wisdom. I spent a lot of time learning how to drive the car with a number of in-car instructors. Once my skills reached the limits of the car as it was, I looked at mods that would match my skills and decided to retain the balance that MINI designed into the car. I did this by increasing the size of front and rear sway bars in the same proportion of stiffness front to rear as MINI designed into the car for the JCW. Hence the 27mm bar up front and the 25mm hollow bar in the rear. I also went with the IE fix camber plates which gives me the same camber as the Gen II GP. So, I know my advice is free and is worth that much, but I also think that understanding where that comes from is worth something... The most important thing I have learned in years of doing this is to learn driving skills before trying to fix things like understeer with car mods. That is like a golfer trying to fix a slice with new clubs. Learn the proper way to swing the clubs you have...

Now, I will get off my soapbox...

 

I wish there were simple answers for everything. Traction loss has to do with how much of a change you made to the overall roll stiffness and how much you changed the proportion of roll stiffness in the front vs the rear. The increase in overall roll stiffness will help with how the car feels. Less roll in the rear will cut down on the geometry changes the suspension will go through. In particular the outside rear tire will loose less negative camber which is better for the tire and helps with feel. The increase in overall roll stiffness will improve transition from side to side, which will help the handling and feel.

A larger RSB is not all good and it is not all bad. It is just one piece in a very large and complex puzzle. And that is further complicated by driving skills. If you only drive to 80% of the car’s limits, you will never reach the point at which a large RSB might give you issues. For example if the setup of the car is to achieve 0.9 g in the rear and 1 g in the front, you will never get to the point of swapping ends if you never get to 0.9 g in the rear. If you are on an exit ramp doing 80% of what the car will do and you find that you have to suddenly get off the gas, the weight transfer to the front will increase the traction there and decrease the traction in the rear. If that change is such that the rear drops to less than 0.8 g, then the car will want to swap ends. If you don’t get fully off the gas and have enough driving skill you can use that potential loss of traction to your benefit. If you over brake for a corner and are on the gas before the apex, the car will understeer. If you trail brake heavily into a corner, this will increase the propensity for the car to oversteer. If you are doing autocross, you will want a car that is very loose in the rear, but that may not be so good for a few days doing HPDEs (guardrails are very unforgiving).

Then there is the complexity of how spring and shocks enter into all of this.

It is complicated... which is why I stayed in line with what the factor designed....

 

Preach! Sometimes the crazy old man on the corner really is a prophet!

 

Hey, I resemble that remark...
At least that part of it...

 

Your whole explanation resulted in myself coming to this conclusion. It really is a puzzle with a lot of variables

Thx again!

 

While it is complicated, please don’t think I am against making suspension mods. I have done plenty of my own and have more planned. I just want people to be cautious, and truly understand what they are getting into. From what I have seen sway bars are the least understood mod with respect to the consequences it can have.

There are few simple generalities that people can work with.
Make one or 2 moderate changes at a time. This way you will know what did what.
1) Stiffen the front end and/or soften the rear will move the balance of the car towards more understeer.
2) Stiffen the back end and/or soften the front will move the balance of the car towards less understeer (oversteeer).
- Increased roll stiffness can be achieved with springs and/or sway bars. Some people will match stiff front springs with a stiff RSB because they want to retain the side to side independence in the front that springs allow, some of which would be lost with stiff front sway bar. Also it is easy to do on a MINI unlike changing the front sway bar. Down side with springs is a worse ride and it is harder to increase negative camber with trail braking.
- Increasing the roll stiffness up front, along with the rear, will decrease the overall body roll and thereby decrease the negative camber loss in a turn. This is what MINI does in their suspension designs.
- Lowering the car a little is good. Lowering the car a lot can be detrimental to handling because the change in roll center can be below ground level which is detrimental to handling. Around a inch or so, or less.
- Lowering the front, raising the rear is in the direction of less understeer (oversteer). Raising the front, lowering the rear is in the direction of more understeer. A good place to start is the front and rear heights at the wheel well with the stock suspension.
- Buy quality parts, that list specs. Coilovers come to mind. Some list the spring rates, some don’t. This is important because some come with front springs that are stiffer than rear and some come with springs that are stiffer in the rear than front. The former would be good to pair with a large RSB. The latter, maybe try on its own as it will stiffen the rear and maybe a large RSB will be too much. For coilovers Bilstein and Ohlins come to mind.
- Adjustable shocks can help with creating good balance using (1) and (2) above. This was done by a friend who put Ohlins on a R56 along with a 22mm RSB. The car was undrivable on the track at first (testing done on a safe autocross course). The car seemed ok on the road, but when pushed to the limits with his initial settings, it wanted to swap ends. We reset the shocks to full hard in front and fill soft in the rear, which fixed the issue. Then slightly softened the front slightly to dial out some of the understeer the car then had. He later softened the swaybar so he could have both shocks set closer to mid range to allow for more room for adjustment on the shocks.

Hope this helps...

 

Eddie... by ‘full hard’ or ‘full soft’ are you referring to bypass valving... or spring preload ... or maybe swaybar-link position ??

 

A lot of constructive info for me to digest. I will probably read over this multiple times before I understand most of it (but hopefully all )

[edit]
Damping in the shock, as they are probably adjustable

 

I really like your presentation ...

if it’s driven on the street ... what is your willingness to tolerate less than ideal handling when encountering stutters, rocks, unevenness, pine cones, holes, dips etc. that can tend to ‘buck’ the car when you’ve removed 1/4 or 1/3 of available travel in lowering ... there are compromises...
where does your threshold on those start ?

or

Stiff, track-focused, springs that may not be able to comply with these ‘real world’ obstacles and the owner/modifier can find the a tire leaving the surface of the road??

all sincere questions




.

 

This would have been the shock bypass valve setting. I seem to remember that, at the time, the swaybar was set at the mid setting. By going full hard and soft on the shock adjustments he was able to compensate for the large RSB at the setting it was at. However, this left little room for further adjustment at a later date, if needed. So he later reset the RSB to the softest setting and the shocks were reset accordingly. That is, the front shock was softened and the rear was stiffened. Both were then at a more of a middle setting. This would then allow for differs settings for different tracks or conditions. If the RSB was left in its mid setting and the shocks were set at the ends (or close to) of their range, further adjustment might not be possible. Also, a bypass valve that is close to being fully closed is going to wear faster than one that is is more fully open.

A side note... The bypass valve on the Koni yellows at “fully closed” is actually is fully closed, and there is no bypass flow. If used this way the shock will be locked up and damaged. This is not the case with all adjustable shock, such as the Ohlins.

There are a lot of options here and it depends on what your objectives are. For example, is the car going to be a street car that is occasionally driven on the track or is a track car that is going to be occasionally driven on the street.

My R56 is a street car driven occasionally on the track. I live in the NE, Pothole City, USA. I opted to stay with the MINI springs for compliance and ride height. I took a chance on the Bilstein B8s and found their valving to be amazing. Stiff enough for the track, yet compliant over our patch work roads (much better than the MINI shocks). I tried the FSDs and found them to be too soft for the track. I went with stiffer sway bars as they don’t stiffen the ride as much as stiffer springs do.

Options I could have done would have been the Koni yellows, which are adjustable, with the stock springs, or coilovers with adjustable shocks. Even with stiffer springs on the coilovers, a softer setting on shock does a lot for ride in these conditions. But it is important to buy quality to get valving that actually does control what is going on through out the adjustment range. This means spend the big bucks. Also, know what springs come on the coilovers. For example the Ohlins come with fixed rate springs, whereas at least some of the Bilsteins come with variable rate springs, which might be a good compromise over fixed rate.

Lowering comes in different ways. For example, the JCW Pro coilovers I have on my Gen III MINI, have the same stroke length as the original shocks and the sweet spot is about 20mm of drop. These, however, adjust height by preload, which means travel will be lost at one end or the other depending on where they are set. There are other coilovers that have separate ride height adjustment vs preload. With these, there is no compromise on stroke with a change in ride height. It is important to know what you are getting and what your options are.