10 replies to this topic

[Brooky]

Hi, i am wanting to lower my mini,what do i need to do this? Is it just adjusta rides and shock absorbers or do i need ajustable tie rods and negative camber arms ect...
Any help would be much apreciated.
Cheers Brooky

[pikey7]

you can do it with just the adjustarides & shocks, but it depends on how far you lower it. too far and you will need to correct the geometry. (don't ask me how far "too far" is though)

[Tom Sanderson]

the cheapest way is to remove the alloy cone and file it down at the bottom where the nuckle joint goes in.

i am not sure about the actual dimentions but i think for every 2mm you take off it lowers by about an inch

[Jammy]

Do a search to double check the lowering ratios, last time this advice was given out some poor guy cut his trumpets in half!! Although he then did think that botching them back together was going to work.

[Tom Sanderson]

Do a search to double check the lowering ratios, last time this advice was given out some poor guy cut his trumpets in half!! Although he then did think that botching them back together was going to work.

i thourght common scence would tell you not to do that

[Bigbudders]

If you can afford it, rather than cut the trumpets, get some Hi Los, at least it is adjustable then.

Getting the ride height wrong will affect your handling dramatically, which can be very dangerous :'(

[pikey7]

> I really wish people wouldn't offer the "advice" of cutting the trumpets. It's such a dangerous practice if you have no idea what you're doing. There are plenty of threads on here about how to lower your car, and if the topic is still being brought up, it's obvious they haven't searched, and therefore obvoius that they don't know how much to cut things. Hell yeah, we had the guy who cut 2 inches off the trumpets to lower the car two inches. He found out the hard way!

It may be the cheapest way of doing it, and it may be that a lot of Mini owners are poor students, but that's no reason to try to kill them with bad advice.

A set of cheap hilos is £30 off ebay (or even some retail shops). If £30 is out of peoples budget, then they should have push bikes, not cars. Or at least live with not having a lowered car and affording some food this month!

Sorry, if this comes over as a lecture (which I suppose it is), and I'm sorry I'm having to write this.

I appplaud Brooky for asking (even though he could have searched... but hey, he's new! ), and I applaud him for asking the RIGHT question, not asking the cheapest way to lower his car!

Here endeth the sermon for today!

[Puddings]

Argh Men

[Brooky]

cheers for the help people,i fink ill give the cutting the trumpets medhod a miss lol,i have the money to buy all the parts its jus which parts i need.once again thanks for the help
Brooky

[gsms]

Will the top of the inner arch need to be trimmed if the car is lowered? (by an inch for example)

[pikey7]

It depends.

If you look at cars like Ades and Petes, their tyres are about 10mm from th arch in a normal position!

The normal reason the arches are trimmed is for wider wheels, but that's a by-the-by. You can lower the car by a lot, and gt away with it, as long as you set your adjustable dampers to "rock hard". Of course then you're compromising on ride quality.

That about sums it up really, compromise.

As I said to Brooky at the start of the thread, at a point, you'll also need to correct the geometry aswell, so this lowering lark is all just a matter of how much you want to spend, and how good your dentist is.