Merry Christmas Chris! Hope the new year treats you well, and that coffee you sent is some great stuff!
Thanks, yes! came to work today, my boss heard me before I reached the facility, nothing wrong with that engine he said! No snow here..LOL
Ahhh this week has been nice not glued to the internet reading about all kinds of misfires and what causes them. Now I need to fix 6 months of standing outside. Some painting, cleaning and removing the wildlife that called the Mini a home!
You just endured six months electronic repair hell so six months regular maintenance work will seem like a breath of fresh air !!
Yes I'm looking forward to fitting the new kill switch and sorting some other odds and ends. We have an engineer here from MA for the week so I took him for a spin down the local roads at lunch. He was impressed with the short ratio gearbox and how fast 90mph came up! Big smiles all round today.
curious: what's the suspension travel on those rear shocks? i think stock 2013 STi ones is like 10sm (4.5 inch)? PS. i asked You same question in some other thread so it could be a double post
Hi Alex, the STI rear shocks proved to be the reason the Mini rolled but that was because I used stock 2013 shocks. The travel was ok because I had about 1 1/2 inch extra ride height. I dare say that some good gravel STI struts would be up to the job. In the end I went with Reiger which seems to work much better.
Alex is a rally chap from Canada who plans to build a rally Mini Cooper S. Looking forward to seeing how that goes.
i tried to send You a PM like 10 times but always get a "server error" crap so posting it here: hi Chris, i removed rear suspension yesterday and measured stock shock travel. a whooping 12 sm lol. if i push free hanging rear control arm down it'll go another 1,5-2 sm before noticeable resistance. i think if i push it further it'll affect bushings quite a bit. just wondering how did You manage to ad 2+ inch (aprox. 5 sm) to rear suspension travel? i was lurking around universal Bilstein shocks and struts for a while and while it's easy to chose front struts rear ones are rather tricky =o( was also exercising the idea of modifying rear rails to move mounting points further up but then again the rules require mounting points to stay factory. modifying top plates would let me accommodate slightly longer shocks. got to think about it. curious what springs do You use for rears now. and valving for Your current setup? thanks PS. Bilstein also makes Heavy Duty shocks/struts for offroading but i'm sure suspension travel is stock on those. Set de 4 amortiguadores Bilstein B6 & B8 para Mini One Cooper, S, JCW R5 /52/53/55/56/57/58/59
Sorry Alex about the PMs I got adjustable laterals to set up the camber after raising the ride height Originally I used 2013 STI rear struts which I found out were not up to the job after a few stage miles. I figure the swinging arm of the Mini put more forces on the damper than the STI. So I went the the Reiger set up which has less spring LBS but much better damper control. I would think a really good gravel damper would work. Also I made my own STI/Mini top mount. The problem with the rear suspension is the arc the wheel travels, the further up the travels goes the more negative camber you get. Just a poor design for what want to do. LOL
Dear fellow Minists I have been enjoying weeks of shameless driving around CR with no issues. Also there are 2 Mini's at work A Coupe and Gen 2 Cooper. Woooo hooooo mine is the of the bunch at work! I'm not biased lol. As a side note : I was out on the Triumph today. Yeah a mild winter