Haha, I know Bruce... sounds like I've got my work cut out to edge him out. Friendly rival, of sorts, he's a good dude. Always a pleasure to outdo him, but I suspect we're on a shorter course than you guys are down there.
That said my Exocet is far from sorted. Still on stock suspension and bushings from an 02 donor, and pretty sure the rear shocks are blown. Still stupidly quick though.
The course yesterday was in the 50-52 second range. Slow. First time we've used that venue in several years, gotta learn how to lay it out.
If you want to beat Bruce, you're going to need functioning suspension. :) Don't judge Exocet handling until you've got a chassis under you. They work pretty well. Like a Miata that's lost 900 lbs.
Most of our courses seem to end up in the 30-40 second range since the lots are fairly small around here. I intend to refresh the chassis fully once the budget is there, no worries there apart from the time it takes to save up. =)
In reply to David S. Wallens : I'm 100% on board with seeing how much autocross fun you can coax out of it. How much battery would three .6 mile autocross runs take? I don't trailer cars to events, so getting there and home is another factor
I took my 2023 SE to my first ever autocross a few weeks back.
Owing absolutely entirely to the stock Hankooks not sticking, my timed runs were dreadful. Nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that it was my first time autocrossing and my aggression level was a touch higher than my experience...
It felt surprisingly neutral for an FWD. At the end of my faster slaloms, I may have been opposite lock. The 180s, I mostly ploughed. That was probably a little too much entry speed. I'm really not sure that I want to stick a 25mm RARB on this thing, it's my daily... A bit more maybe, but not a lot more.
Seriously, the tyres did seem rather slick to start with, but I also sucked. After the timed runs, we had some time left so we did funruns. -5s on my first of those, after the car had cooled for over an hour...
2nd funrun was done by an R53 competitor. In her first time in an EV, she ran 0.6s faster than her best recorded R53 time of the day...
Hmmm. I thought it would be quicker than an R53, which is my other car.
My last funrun sounded dirty, but it was also only 2s off the GS class winner. I was very pleased with that.
Methinks that some sticky tyres and a non-showroom alignment, it should easily hold its own in GS.
Brakes are heavily front biased. 280/54mm JustaF56on the front, 280/34mm F54 on the back. I now have some EBC red front, yellow rear to help there. Sadly, the F54 rear calipers make it unlikely that any non-custom 15" wheels can be used.
Suspension is a mongrel. Ride height is a tad higher than F56. Shocks are unique to the SE. I don't have spring part numbers, but the rear springs measure up like an F54 AWD. Fronts may be F55. I strongly suspect the shocks are slightly longer than F56, but shorter than F54. Front spring seat to knuckle distance is the same as F56, so longer spring there. Others have bolted F56 shocks on... My rear camber adjustment is almost maxed out from the factory.
10 runs used 28% of the battery.
Now, you just need someone who knows how to drive autocross to review one.
There's one of these in an autocross series I compete in, the series course designers like to squeeze drag strips into the courses and as such the Mini SE sometimes beats me in my 86 in raw time. It reaches startling speeds at the ends of the straights.
There's a guy who runs his 2022 Mini SE in our autocrosses too. Looking at the results from the last event, it seems he ran about a half-second behind my dad's stock NC Miata on summer tires. It appears to be a pretty quick little car and the guy seems to have fun with it.
In reply to wspohn :
Maybe 1X? They already have an X1. Just like they had to call another of the brand 1M.
Charging infrastructure and battery life are still not there for me. Maybe in 6-8 years when I'm ready to move on from my nearly new daily driver. An EV track car is a long way off.
Sadly I think EV track cars may even be getting further away due to more and more tracks banning them for safety reasons (because they don't have the firefighting equipment to handle a battery fire).
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