I used to have an ongoing debate with meb over on NAM he was a huge fan of lowering on the stock struts. Me, not so much. The car has limited travel, and if you lower the car on the stock struts you eat a lot of that up. This has to be countered with stiffer springs to stay off the bump-stops all the time. This also moves the roll center and increases roll couple. Stiffer spring yet again. You become a cat chasing it's tail..... But there is no denying that you can up the handling with lowering, and rear bar and control arms. It's just not the way I'd do it. But many have and many are happy. I'm just not one of them. If you really want to dig into this stuff, start with "How to make your car handle" by Fred Phun, it's a standard book on handling that pretty much everyone who cares to learn the subject read at one time or another. Matt
And poor Meb ended up never having his car handle right again. I will say a lot of his issues came with those height adjustable struts from Megan and like so many have been incorrectly told how to use them.
I agree! This car has such limited travel, and such crappy OEM struts that it is very difficult for lowering springs to acutally improve anything. I also think that most (not all) lowering springs are very poorly designed and really not even intended to improve handling, just the "look." Unfortunately that seems like what a majority of the aftermarket is after for the Mini. Camber plates are not as "cool" but make the real difference. Looking forward to putting my fixed plates on soon. - Andrew