Adjustable suspension? any thoughts?

- B
- Ben & Claire
  
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posted
18 years ago

Wed, Jan 11, 2006 9:41 PM

Ive got a track day coming up in 4 weeks on Anglesea. (Feb 18th if anyone is going to be up that way)

My friend from Liverpool who got me my 1.3 mpi for free wanted a track day for his birthday, He wanted to take his type R Civic, but his company wont let him for some strange reason! So I thought fairs fair, you got me the car the least you can do is have some fun in it.

Ive already bought some Yoko 165/60r12 tyres for it, as it was on 145s. Next I was thinking about upgrading the suspension before I take it up north.

has anyone had any experience of negative camber lower arms and/or rear radius arm brackets? Do they really impove the handling? Its pretty good anyway but the rear end does seem a little loose under high speed cornering?

Ive got access to a 40 grand tracking system that does caster/camber/toe front and rear, so if I do decide to go fully adjustable has anyone got any tried and tested settings?

Ben

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- Chris
  
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posted
18 years ago

Wed, Jan 11, 2006 10:04 PM

Good move with the tyres, What you want to do is fit 1.5 degree bottom arms, this is a sensible amount for a car that will spend most of its life on the road. While you're fitting them you should fit a set of uprated tie bars, not forgetting poly bushes for both lower arms either. The tie bars will help steady the car enormously under heavy braking. A set of decent dampers wouldn't go ammiss either - I prefer Spax adjustables but some people find them a bit too stiff even on lower settings. With my 1.3MPi, I fitted HiLo's to the back only and set the ride height to make the car sit level. I did fit rear camber brackets but removed them as I found I got horrendous rear tyre wear with them - not good when you do 8000miles a year! Apart from regular greasing of the nipples there wasn't much else worth doing.

If anything the 1.5 deg bottom arms made the car easier to steer at parking speeds aswell!? While fitting HiLo's, if you do, it cant hurt to pop in new knuckle joints aswell - even on a newer MPi car. My prefered retailer for most of these bits was minispares. I bought a set of uprated tie bars for a friend from a trader at a mini show, didn't realise till we got home that the thread for the really big nut on the front was a really obscure pattern. Took ages to get the right nuts for them!

HTH

Chris

- K
- Kelley Mascher
  
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posted
18 years ago

Fri, Jan 13, 2006 1:30 AM

Since you have the tracking measurement equipment, measure the current settings on the car. Then get the negative castor arms you need to make the two sides equal. Minis seldom are the same side to side from the factory. Vizard recommends 1.5 degree negative arms. Since the Mini usually comes from the factory with 1 degree positive camber this means you should be shooting for a final measure of 0.5 degrees negative camber.

If you plan on lowering the car, lower it first with the standard lower arm and then measure the initial camber. Lowering the car increases negative camber.

Cheers

Kelley