Suspension Brakes 1st Gen Most liked posts in thread: Installing Konis and Vorshlag camber plates - bumpstops?

Ride so far is nice. Very similar to stock in terms of ride quality. Responds in a non-jarring manner to bumps and road irregularities. They are definitely more communicative telling you whats happening on the road surface and what the tire is doing.

I have them set to one full turn from full soft both front and rear.

Will take measurements in the next couple of days. Need to prep the RX7 for an event at Laguna Seca next week.

 

Yes he is. The guy is saintly. I can be a prick when my blood sugar gets screwy and I get annoyed at something like I did on Friday evening.

I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about Vorshlag though after having to pay for return shipping on a product that is incorrectly marketed claiming no change in ride height. Not too mention the time I wasted.

Getting the car aligned and then road tripping to visit family for the weekend. Barely got the car back together in time.

 

Depends what your goals are. There were 4 well driven and well prepped Minis at Laguna Seca with us on Monday. Only one had coilovers.

Laguna was great even.

Will have measurements soon.

 

No I did not.

We had the car aligned at Custom Alignment of Mountain View, CA. These guys rock. The owner crews on a professional race team and they do nothing but alignment, tire mounting/balancing using the highest of high end equipment. Their alignments are spot on precise - even compared to other shops that are supposed to have 'good' Hunter and other equipment.

Front camber was more even side to side than on the past alignment. It was about -.4 on both sides. I think this was b/c the LCA bushings (dr side) was replaced). Add that -.4 to -1.25 of the IE fixed plates and that is more camber than I prefer for the way we use our Mini.

Unlike some people on here, our MCS is more of a DD that sees regular spirited driving. We really don't need a lot of camber on this car. I use the RX7 for track days and wife mostly drives the Mini. The Mini does see occasional fun - autox and he wife just did her first track day - but not enough to require that much camber up front. I'm older than some on here and have been modding and tracking cars for 20 years so I know the difference between "modding for modding's sake" vs. have a definitive need for a particular product. Chassis bracing would provide me a better benefit than camber plates right now for example IMO. I'll probably get those from Way Motor Works once I get a refund for the Vorshlag plates.

If the wife continues to want to do HPDE stuff, I might spring for some camber plates. But until then, I'll keep the money in the bank waiting for the next track day or life's regular expenses...


i'm a bit wordy today....

 

one last comment.

One full turn from full soft in the rear is a bit much for some of the roads we drive on. When I get a chance I'm going to back it off to 1/2 turn.

The car feels more balanced (less understeer) overall with just the shocks even though rear camber stayed the same at -1.2

 

^Probably. The original tires lasted ~25k miles and were worn evenly.

Current tires are worn poorly thanks to a crappy dealer alignment (Thanks Brecht Mini you bastards) that left toe aligned incorrectly. Front tires had almost 1/2" of toe in...

 

Install note:

I just installed Koni struts on my 06 MCS using this write-up as a guide. I wanted to make a couple of points on installing Koni front struts where the directions should change from the directions for stock-like front struts.

For the Koni front strut, do NOT use a "piece of wood" under the lower spring perch to try and compress the spring enough so that it can be maneuvered into the lower control arm. The spring perch on the Koni is pressed into the strut shaft. If you apply upward pressure to it using the wood and a jack procedure above, you will wind up dislodging the perch from the strut.

Notice that the strut is a "two piece" design and the spring perch is pressed in to the strut body.



Instead, loosen the 2 bolts that hold the inner ball joint to the front subframe. By loosening those 2 bolts ( I think I might have fully removed one bolt on the passenger side), the lower control arm drops a couple of inches and you can easily maneuver the strut into the lower control arm. It was actually quicker for me to do this than to try screwing around with the wood and jack routine. Safer too.

Good luck.

 

Install note:

I just installed Koni struts on my 06 MCS using this write-up as a guide. I wanted to make a couple of points on installing Koni front struts where the directions should change from the directions for stock-like front struts.

For the Koni front strut, do NOT use a "piece of wood" under the lower spring perch to try and compress the spring enough so that it can be maneuvered into the lower control arm. The spring perch on the Koni is pressed into the strut shaft. If you apply upward pressure to it using the wood and a jack procedure above, you will wind up dislodging the perch from the strut.

Notice that the strut is a "two piece" design and the spring perch is pressed in to the strut body.



Instead, loosen the 2 bolts that hold the inner ball joint to the front subframe. By loosening those 2 bolts ( I think I might have fully removed one bolt on the passenger side), the lower control arm drops a couple of inches and you can easily maneuver the strut into the lower control arm. It was actually quicker for me to do this than to try screwing around with the wood and jack routine. Safer too.

Good luck.

 

For those that were curious, I fixed the pics. You can see them on my flickr album:
Mini Cooper S Suspension - a set on Flickr