Brakes and Control Arms Jan 13, 2003
In preparation for the upcoming BMW CCA Winterfest events, we've installed new Rossier Dyno Research aluminum rear control arms. They use teflon lined spherical bearings which should last much longer than normal spherical bearings.
We also replaced the competent, but not competent enough, stock brake pads with some Ferodos. They were also sourced from RDR. We are in the process of bedding these in.
More negative camber, please. Jan 20, 2003
One major problem that we had during our first track sessions with the car was the lack of negative camber wreaked havoc on our tires. We quickly corded our Kumhos within a few short sessions. Obviously, the non-adjustable 0.5 degrees of negative camber was not going to do. The best solution for us was to use a camber plate and coilover system to gain much needed adjustability.
Over the weekend, we installed Ground Control camber plates and coilovers. The strut tower had to be cut out to fit the camber plates. We used a plasma cutter for this chore, as it slices easily through the fairly thick strut tower. The lower spring perches on the struts were cut off with a Sawzall, and new perches were welded back on. We also had to weld on new front anti-rollbar mounting points on the strut. This was all fairly straight forward. We are using 700 lb./in. springs in the front. The Konis can handle this rate with the rebound cranked up to 1/2-3/4 stiff. We set the front camber at 3.0 degrees with zero toe. The rear is set at 1 degree of negative camber and 1/8" toe in. This toe-in will help out trailing throttle oversteer that we had with 0 rear toe.
Winterfest Jan 28, 2003
We attended Winterfest at Sebring Raceway this past weekend. PBOC (Porsche BMW Owners Club) sanctioned the driver's ed, track sessions and club races at the 3.1 mile long race track. All of the club racing classes were in the same session, with our slow (in comparison to World Challenge-spec M3s) Cooper S running side-by-side with GT2 Porsches. Per qualified at 2:45.5 and were turning consistent 2:46-2:47 laps in traffic on Saturday. Rennie qualified at 2:48.5 on Sunday with consistent 2:49-2:50s during the race.
These times are pretty strong considering that our MINI has an open differential and essentially stock brakes. Speaking of brakes, the Ferodo pads lasted through the enduro and two sprint races, but were on their backing plates by the end of the weekend. We will be investigating big brake conversions for this track car.
The tires lasted a lot longer than at Roebling, which is impressive as Sebring's concrete is pretty rough on tires. We found that setting the fronts at about 38psi and the rears at 34 psi worked out pretty well. We went through 3 205/40/17 Kumho V700s in almost 6 hours of hot track time, nearly 500 miles of racing.
Updated graphics Feb 7, 2003
The graphics were on the MINI Cooper S were updated to take care of all of our new helpers on this project, including Safequip, Ground Control and RDR. We also had Tim at Hawkeye Signs (386 274 5885) scan in all of the required BMW CCA decals and cut them in new vinyl to match the rest of our graphics.
Big brakes and fire escapes Feb 24, 2003
We've got a Stoptech front brake upgrade kit on the way. We're hoping to solve our brake fade issues altogether with this monster upgrade. We'll have to get another set of 17" wheels as the 16"s will not clear the rotors or calipers on the new brakes.
We are going to be replacing the MINI Cooper S's lug bolts with a stud/nut combination from BBS. This will help us with quick tire changes and allow for the use of wheel spacers for our large brake fitment.
While we're getting all those pieces together, we finished the installation of the Firecharger fire system. The neat thing about this piece is that it can be recharged at home in just a few minutes with a kit that is available at a reasonable price from Firecharger We mounted the fire bottle behind the the seats, where the rear seat used to be. The system has two zones, one that sprays into the driver's footwell and the other that sprays into the engine compartment.
Since we're going to BIG brakes, our OE 16" wheels and even our BBS RKs weren't going to clear the huge Stoptech calipers. We went with a new BBS RV, a forged 17 x 7 inch wheel. They weigh in at a very nice 15 lbs. The Stoptech brake kit will be installed in our shop in a few days.
We've also gotten hold of a prototype RDR rear anti-rollbar that is even larger than the one that we installed prior to our first track event. That should help even out our handling in the dry.