5 replies to this topic

[miniallsort]

hi there as title says i want to get the best handling set up for my mini just wondering what peoples opinions where on setting up a minis suspension to get the best handling/ driving experience im running 13x7 wheels spax coilovers adjustable tie rods lowered neg camber all round whats your set up


cheers

[Cooperman]

For best road performance in a Mini take off the 13" wheels and fit 12".
With 13" wheels, the road-holding can be good in the dry, but the handling will never, IMHO, be as good on 13" as on 12" (or 10")
In the wet, the 13" will be inferior both in road-holding & handling as the tyre area on the road is too small for optimum wet-grip.

[J_AUSTIN_B]

I'll be curious to see what kind of answers pot up on this thread. I'm doing my first rebuild right now and I'm currently doing up the subframes. I've been all over the forums looking at what set up is best i.e. hi-lo's, coilovers, lowered dampers etc. The opinions are pretty much all over the place. It seems that the majorty of people though think that the original set-up is rock solid. I personally think that I'm going to go for hi-lo's and adjustable, lowered koni's all around...not real familiar with the adjustable tie-rods and neg camber kits just yet, but we'll see. How do you like those coilovers?

[Wil_h]

IMO, 13s can work perfectly well, infact better in lots of cases. My other opinion is that for best handling, use the rubber doughnuts rather than coil overs. Certinally at the front anyway, Coilovers have a chance of working at the rear.

[mike.]

I switched from 12's to 13's and found that the ride was harsher and steering heavier at parking speeds, the only other downfall was on badly rutted road it tramlined more - But only really under braking and the 12's did it on the same bit of road just not as bad.

Apart from those downfalls everything was better in terms of grip. Braking was much better in wet or dry and gave me much more confidence in the corners. Although you could say this wasn't a fair test as the 12's had falkens fitted with about 4mm tread all round and the 13's have brand new bridgestones.

As has been pointed out in the past on here, what is it you are actually looking for? Because 'handling' is how well the car responds to drivers inputs where as the actual grip and speed the car can go around a corner is 'road holding' - So which is it you want to improve?

I know of a few people who've converted to coilovers and eventually gone back to cones because they couldn't get the coilovers set right to work properly on a mini. I'm not convinced the front damper mounts of a mini are fully up to the job of carrying the weight of the car either to be honest, its only 4 1/4" bolts...

[Ethel]

You can't really say this bit is better than that bit as it all has to work together. For example stiff coil springs might work with 10 inch wheels but leave the tyres on 13" rims struggling to keep contact with the road because their low profile allows less deflection. Equally important is the car itself, how much weight it has to carry and where you'll drive it. Minis have rubber suspension because it can handle a wider range of loads, with minimal travel and never truly bottoms out - ideal for a car that can almost double in weight when fully loaded yet has even less clearance above the wheels than it has from the road. I'm not "dissing" coilovers, they can outperform rubber, but you need the correct spring rate for your application and it will be more compromised by suspension travel.