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Canadian Pro-motive


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#1 cad13

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Posted 19 October 2009 - 10:41 PM

Hello everyone,
I am new to the forum, my name is Daniel and I am from Montreal Canada.

After years of drooling at the Z-cars projects and lately the Pro-Motive I have finally last summer got my hands on a clean Rover for my project. I have decided to go the Pro-motive way. As I am new to the MINI scene I will be looking for your advice on some issues I might be oblivious to. The kit has been ordered (6 weeks waiting time) I have started stripping the MINI getting it ready for the body shop.
The first subject I will be asking advice on is suspension setup. I planned on running 13x7 wheels and have purchased spax coil overs (lowered height) Just getting worried about my choice since I have been reading coil overs are not the best way to go.

What are you ProMotive guys running as basic setup? ride height, camber, castor, toe, anti-roll bar?

I also purchased barnett clutch springs but see that mostly everyone is using the complete clutch assembly, would springs be enough? and how is the pedal feel (I hate a soft clutch pedal)

As for the sump baffle, is it really a must if the car is mostly for daily driving with occasional track days?

Cheers,

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Edited by cad13, 27 April 2010 - 11:17 PM.


#2 roofless

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Posted 19 October 2009 - 11:13 PM

welcome to the pro-mo club >_< barnett clutch is a good addition, pedal feel is better than factory clutch, but its still quite soft compared to regular A series clutches.

sump baffle has people divided - personally I think its a good idea.

I'm running spax adjustables, not coilovers, with doughnuts and hi-lo's.

Wheels on mine are 7 x 14 with 185 95 14 yokohamas

rose jointed front end, but couldnt guess at settings - just adjusted till it felt right.

the cabriolet is more show than go, one of the lightweight sprint boys will be along soon with better info :w00t:

keep us posted on progress :teehee:

#3 Monte Busa

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Posted 20 October 2009 - 04:32 AM

What are you ProMotive guys running as basic setup? ride height, camber, castor, toe, anti-roll bar?


I'm running regular height GAZ adjustable coilovers and they are not that bad - Darren is trying to talk me into going back to cones, but I still have a bunch of things to try before I do that. I'm also running an adjustable Minispares rear competition anti-roll bar. The car is on Force racing 10 X 6 with Yoko A032 165 width rubber with fully rose jointed front arms / track rods. I'm currently running zero toe front, with -1.8deg to -2.0deg camber front, 4deg caster, and 0 toe rear with -0.8deg negative camber. I'm also running almost full front brake bias as the car is so light (beam axle rear with KAD ally arms) it wants to lift the rear under braking - I'm running 8.4" ventered KAD 4 pots in the front, so have no issues with stopping power on an 1000lb (plus me) car so the rear brakes are not really that useful (as most Miglia drivers will tell you).

I'm currently playing a little with ride height to sort out the last remaining rear arch rubbing issues (better than the hard bottoming issues I had before though when i was trying to run too low), and am glad I got the std length GAZ coilovers - plenty of movement in bump and droop for reasonable ride heights, and allows you to set up the car a bit softer damped for uneven surfaces...right now the ride quality on B roads and pock marked roads is better than my 2006 WRX STI, , so other than maybe a bit too much front caster (makes catching the steering wheel during torque steer occurence a bear) and the rear arch rubbing issues on full tilt track days, I'm really happy with the car setup.

Aric

Edited by Monte Busa, 20 October 2009 - 04:34 AM.


#4 alexcrosse

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Posted 20 October 2009 - 07:12 AM

always cones :w00t: i ran coil overs on my promotive, major mistake, couldnt pull out of he corners, plus, draw a pictures of the subframe, body, and coil over and you will see that with cones the body is resting on the subframe which is resting on the upper arm. With a coil over the body is resting on the upper arm and the subframe is 'hanging' mainly from the 2 tower bolts, with a small effort from the bulkhead, the tower bolts ofcourse were never designed for this, nor was the design of the bulkhead and inner wings, so the coil overs proceed to bend and rip these appart.

If you want a comfortable ride, awsome performance, good progression... and something that looks a bit 'bling' then get the mintastics coil springs to go in place of the original doughnuts!

as for set up, mine was -1.8 camber front, 3-4 deg caster (played with it all the time), 12x6 wheels (mistake), and falkens (longevity). Ride height was minimal, just enough so your not bottoming out round corners, if you do, increase height.

as for the other points, wait until your clutch goes, and then shove a barnett in, best thing i ever did to mine... and roofless's. If you've only got the springs they wouldnt fit in a standard clutch plate, you want the complete plate and 'car' springs, and also a set of kevlar plates with barnett steels.

Put a baffle plate in the sump, stops surging, i never had any adverse affects from it, but I found it obvious that something had to be done when using the engine in a car.

Edited by alexcrosse, 20 October 2009 - 07:18 AM.


#5 Monte Busa

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Posted 20 October 2009 - 01:07 PM

Put a baffle plate in the sump, stops surging, i never had any adverse affects from it, but I found it obvious that something had to be done when using the engine in a car.


I did full data logging of oil pressure during two track days without a baffle, pulling 1.5G peak laterally and never saw the oil pressure dip below 40lbs, and that was only off throttle - otherwise, mid to full throttle through corners always was 60lbs + pressure. The key is keeping the oil level just above the sight glass when at rest / on level ground. If oil pressure surge were an issue, I'd agree with a baffle, but in my experience it's not, and is therefore just something else to go wrong - i've heard nightmare stories of baffles breakign and chewing up oil pumps and bottom ends in Fireblade BECs......

Also, I hear what you're saying about the coilovers and mechanical stress, that's why I built a set of brace bars and reinforced the pick-up pts for the coils in addition to adding another bolt / nut (for a total of 6 per side) through the coil mounts. If teh loads are distrubuted right, the body will take the stress of coils.

Also , on being able to put down power - that's all due to the amount of droop you have in concert with damping rate...I've iproved torque steer quite a bit by softening up the damping rate on the shocks and moving to teh lower upper coil mount spring position to allow more droop travel.

I too am playing with my caster constantly to balance steering effort / torque steer kickback, and feel >_<

Edited by Monte Busa, 20 October 2009 - 01:09 PM.


#6 alexcrosse

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Posted 20 October 2009 - 03:45 PM

yer, i never bothered logging anything on the R1, because it just worked, i couldnt see how a flat plate of steel could break up really (probably different in the fireblade?) But mine was just a flat plate made of mild steel so not prone to fracture, i think i put it in there for peace of mind more than anything else.

just above the site glass when running yer? thats what i used to do on mine, and have done on martins.

Good reinforcement ideas, i didnt think of that, just strapped it all together and then realised it was shocking! lol. It was the droop issue, but no amount of dampening change could do it, i had the GAZ coil overs... i think, which were 48 point or so, and nowhere between 0 and 48 was there a point where I could pin in through the last half of corners.

I had to stop myself from playing with caster in the end, became an obsession, lol, each and every time after trip to and from work!

Al

#7 cad13

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Posted 20 October 2009 - 05:34 PM

All the feedback is very much appreciated!
Have a lot of thinking to do >_< Still undecided but like Aric's reinforcement idea for the coilovers. Also good to know you monitored your oil pressures at the track and had no issues, a little worried myself about the nightmare stories going around about sump baffles.

#8 1stpromotive1275gt

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Posted 20 October 2009 - 06:02 PM

My car has standard mini donuts, standard hieght gaz adjustables shocks but with lower shock mounting brackets at the front.
The rear has adjusta rides and a fixed anti roll bar, supa minifin drums and standard shoes. Adjustable camber brackets set at maximum. It's as low as I dare go with no rubbing ever due to only having 4.5 wide 10s.

On the front I have hi Los and fixed 1.5 deg neg camber and adjustable tie bars. Car was set up very low when it had a mini engine in but has risen due to the bike engine being lighter but I've not had reason to adjust it. Has 7.5 mini sport 4 pots and all was set up just as it says in the chart on the wall in the tracking bay.

To date I've found the car to be nice and neutral and have not mucked about with it.

Have the baffle and full barnett clutch set up with car springs and all the plates etc that alex mentioned. Made a big differance!

All our cars are differant in lots of ways so really it all comes down to personal preferance I surpose.

Bill solis did say in one of the DVDs that had darrens first mini in that the coilovers were not very good on track and caused a lot of problems coming out of slow speed corners.

Good luck and hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

#9 Monte Busa

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Posted 21 October 2009 - 12:15 AM

Bill Sollis did say in one of the DVDs that had darrens first mini in that the coilovers were not very good on track and caused a lot of problems coming out of slow speed corners.


I remember that too - I considered this when I was spec'ing suspension for my car, and the weight difference between the coilover system and the donuts (especially considering I am running a beam axle, so no rear subby) was the tipping pt for me - this and custom rate coils are very easy to come by in Detroit Motor City >_<

I just don't buy it that donuts vs coils have to have that much difference, beyond the obvious strength advantage ofthe subframes as was described earlier - the resultant handling (or in our cases, controlling torque steer and traction) is down to damper setup, spring rate, and ensuring enough travel in droop, as the front gets unloaded during acceleration, which is compounded by cornering, which uloads the outer front corner even more. I'm running a Quaife LSD, which I'm sure helps in both respects, but with a Quaife you have to keep the driven wheels both planted, which is why I went with a rear bar... to ensure that.

to be honest, I never had a problem out of corners, only with straight line torque steer at very high revs in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears ...and that's what I'm trying to get rid of the remnants of now. If I had it all to do over again, I may not have gone with as high of an offset wheel combo, as the scrub radius is pretty laughable really, which is the reason why torque steer and steering wheel forces are what they are at what would normally be quite a typical Mini caster angle (4deg)...I'd venture to guess that your car with the narrow track and more reasonable scrub radius doesn't torque steer that badly, or at least if it does, it doesn't take a Gorilla to recover when the car wants to hop lanes of traffic on you....

#10 cad13

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Posted 22 October 2009 - 11:59 AM

Does anybody know if the Z-Cars vented bonnet fits. How much clearance do you guys have. I wanted to create some kind of ram air with the air flowing trough the grill and at the same time keep the engine bay cool bye getting the trapped hot air out.

#11 cad13

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Posted 10 November 2009 - 05:46 PM

Just received some goodies in the mail and am also waiting for a shipment from minispares including trims, wheel/tire package, suspension components etc. Love the quality of the wilwood calipers and pedal box... Stopped by my local bike shop and picked up the power commander, quick shifter, wideband o2 sensor, lcd display and barnett clutch. Found a mercedes 124 body fuse box that I will use for my electrical.

That's the update for now still waiting on the body shop to send the car over, should be this week hopefully.
The pro-mo kit should be shipped within the next 2 weeks,
Can't Wait!

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Edited by cad13, 27 April 2010 - 11:35 PM.


#12 cad13

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Posted 25 January 2010 - 03:42 AM

Finally managed to get more work done,
roll cage fabrication in process...

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Edited by cad13, 27 April 2010 - 11:39 PM.


#13 roofless

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Posted 25 January 2010 - 09:30 AM

looking good - I'll be keen to see how welll the quickshifter andf multi hub works with the dyno jet - quick word to the wise, my dyno jet was barand new, straight out of the box, and they had 2 wires in the dynojet loom the wrong way round - I dont imagine for a minute they make that mistake too often, but if for any reason it doesnt fire up first time, disconnect the commander and make sure its not at fault. :lol:

#14 cad13

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Posted 08 February 2010 - 09:55 PM

looking good - I'll be keen to see how welll the quickshifter andf multi hub works with the dyno jet - quick word to the wise, my dyno jet was barand new, straight out of the box, and they had 2 wires in the dynojet loom the wrong way round - I dont imagine for a minute they make that mistake too often, but if for any reason it doesnt fire up first time, disconnect the commander and make sure its not at fault. :)


Thank you for the heads up.
I will keep that in mind.
I will let you know how well the quickshifter works.

#15 cad13

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Posted 08 February 2010 - 10:19 PM

Here is some more pictures of the fabrication work.
Canadian M.O.T does not allow a full roll cage to be installed in the vehicle therefore this is what we came up with to help reinforce the shell.
Special thanks to mates at www.canadiankustoms.com for all the help.

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Edited by cad13, 27 April 2010 - 11:45 PM.





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