Seen quite a few of you add this to your mod's. I've done the JCW suspension upgrade (rear/front sway bars, JCW shocks and springs) and added the strut brace. Nice! In reading all the posts around control arms I get that after market are stronger than OEM. Sounds good. Strong is good Question-Have any of you busted a OEM control arm? Circumstances? I'm a pretty 'spritied' driver, love doing the twisty back roads testing the edge of the MINI's capabilities. Wondering where/if this falls on my mod list.
The R53's had problems with their stock 2-piece rear control arms buckling under heavy load [mainly from potholes, not so much on track], so later on MINI redesigned them to be 1-piece units that were both lighter and stronger. The only real reason to swap out the 1-piece stockers is to gain camber adjustment beyond the factory eccentric bolt, which shouldn't be a problem if you lower your car under 2". HTH, Ryan
In my experience, not so. I'm on TSW springs which are dropping me about an inch or a bit more in the rear (cabrio). With the OEM camber adjustment set to minimum, I was still at -2.2deg - a good bit more than the OEM adjustment and way more than the -1.5deg or so that I wanted. So I needed control arms. But I'm happy because my H-Sports are pretty, easy to adjust and strong.
I spoke with Way of Way Motor Works about adding CAI to mine at the upcoming MITM. I brought up control arms and he said that myth about the R53's. Basiclaly a good idea to add control arms if doing and lowering wether R53 or R56 (or R55's Paul )
In my experience the R56's are able to pull the rear camber in easier with the eccentric bolt than the R53's. My R56 is lowered 2.4" and I'm able to keep my camber at about -1.5 degrees with stock eccentric and arms.
Oooops.... my bad Ryan.... somehow missed that I was in a 2nd gen thread and the OP was asking about an R56... so we're both right. I'm just in the wrong place. :lol:
Fair enough! I do remember that the R53 control arms don't allow for as much correction with lowered setups. Perhaps the R53 control arms are a touch longer? I haven't measured them.
Might also be the adjuster slot on the trailing arm or something - I haven't compared that part of the 1st gen and 2nd gen arms side-by-side.
Ryan, Sounds like you have achieved what I'm looking to do with my R56. I had the JCW suspension upgrade with a supposed 1" drop, don't think so. Witheld judgment till I installed the 18" wheels with 215/25/18 tires and while the back looks ok the front needs little help How do you have your R56 set up? Shocks, Springs, etc?
The JCW suspension for the R56 is an advertised 10mm lowering, which as you know is hardly as much as the car needs to look good. I'm running KW V1 coilovers, which are fantastic for the sporting daily driver my R56 is.
