New to rallying. Hoping to get valuable suspension information

So I put the car on the ground and did some more measurements. (Not fully compressed) the rear compressed ~2 1/8" ( bottom mount to upper spring retainer ~14 7/8" The front compressed ~3 3/4" (from 22.5 to 17.75" Not sure if this helps? I will try to get my hands on a spare strut front and rear for more measurements.

Rear lower control arm is approx 21" center to center.

I have about 2" from outer fender opening to top of tire front and 1.5" rear

Have you found Chris Wilson? How about Markus Saarinen. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, people have rallied these successfully, find out what they are using.
How about just using google.
Some quick searching found:
http://www.mini2.com/forum/mini-motorsport/61800-rally-suspension.html
http://www.minisport2.com/mini-parts/Mini_Sport_Rally_Team.html
http://www.specialstage.com/forums/showthread.php?45489-The-rally-Mini-build

Start reading.

---

Grant Hughes



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2016 04:27PM by NoCoast.

Rallyists are usually nice people, and I can vouch for Saaranin, he helped me out when I got started in rally and is always a friendly guy. I can imagine he'd be very receptive to questions about their set up. I know he went through a lot of iterations on the suspension set up and had a lot of problems to start, so he could have some insight into what mini-specific things he had to change.

Quote
NoCoast
Have you found Chris Wilson? How about Markus Saarinen. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, people have rallied these successfully, find out what they are using.
How about just using google.
Some quick searching found:
http://www.mini2.com/forum/mini-motorsport/61800-rally-suspension.html
http://www.minisport2.com/mini-parts/Mini_Sport_Rally_Team.html
http://www.specialstage.com/forums/showthread.php?45489-The-rally-Mini-build

Start reading.

Say Grant, I'm sure my man thinks you're just being Mr. Henry Helpful..

You bothered to read any of the links?

Cause there's virtually zero useful information in them...
First one goes to a guy who says doing tarmac in the first line..Great! Good link..
It did mention "whatdday gonna do for the short travel?"

This is better, this guy was a Cascade "Vermont Sports Car West Wannabe" Autosport customer--which is where I first looked at a BMW Mini from below--and was horrified by the curtain rods used for links..:
http://www.mini2.com/forum/search.php?searchid=17401137

Mentions breaking control arms himself at Rim of the World 03 and then going to Merrit and seeing another Mini guy breaking suspension parts very early in..

Not surprising to anybody who has bothered to look..You have looked haven't you?
That's why I posted a piccie of the flimsy thing.




These guys were in the super fast, super competitive Production class

Got any more suggestions? Cause you're sure trying hard to lead this guy away..

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Some, not all. 4th post in the tarmac thread talks about travel issues on gravel.
Chris' 17 page thread about a lifetime rallyist documenting his build is certainly worthless. He's only rallied for like 20 years continuously on three or four continents building budget cars himself. I don't think he raced motocross though so probably has no clue on suspension.

---

Grant Hughes

John, I haven't been able to get anything further with the measurements, won't be able to until this weekend. I did have a question for everyone though. I have been reading about what others are doing to their cars of the same type and some have been adding spacers to the top of the struts to get 2" higher ride height. Would this indicate there is potentially 2" of extra travel I could get out of the suspension? I will add I don't want to add these spacers, just thinking about how travel can be increased.

Apologies, I practically never check the Construction Zone section; first actual post for this forum.

Chris and I both rally 2WD Mini R50s (first model/iteration of Mini One). I'm not sure how the R60 suspension set up is different, but it appears to bear some resemblance to that of the R50...unfortunately, the design kinda sucks for gravel rally, and one has to make a lot of mods to make it work. Even then, the travel won't be there. We're going to a custom sub-frame (for at least the rear) shortly to get more travel (right now we have a whopping 4.5" in the rear until it hits the cusp of bump stop; front is better at 6.5", but still not stellar). Also, the rear design is not ideal for gravel rally since the mounting point for the bottom of the rear strut literally is the lowest hanging point on the car. We'll get this changed sometime before next season.

Chris runs Reigers in the back and some STI-variant (I think stock) in the front. We have Reigers for front/back. Chris is a way better resource than I am since he works on his car by himself while sipping exotic drinks in Costa Rica. I don't have the talent, so have outsourced nearly all the work.

Modifications that we've made:
Rear: better rear control arms with proper heim joints, reinforced/welded rear trailing arms (stick with steel; the aluminum arms will bend) with extra protection for the main mounting bolt (bent that after a big Prescott jump), protection galore for the entire shock body
Front: reinforced strut towers

We broke our suspension (Hot Shits aka Shit Bits) a lot during our 2013 initial season; to be fair, their set-up was for Targa-style rallying (didn't have this info before; they were convinced that the suspension was for gravel). We ordered Reigers late in 2013 and were 80% there. Having a bit more ride height (since the car is inherently so stable, this won't hurt) will help.

There is no reason that one needs Reigers to make it work, so I would just work with John on a quality set-up. If you can change the mounting point on the rear and make the trailing/control arm mods, you'll save yourself grief. Believe me, we've had plenty.

How do they work? We're smooth gravel rally specialists and the Mini tends to do well at events like that (Idaho, Prescott, OTR, Mendocino when we don't break axles). Until we get more suspension travel (hopefully next season), it will be a challenge. That said, the Mini is a fun platform, but you already know that.

http://www.ewrc-results.com/profile.php?p=32292

Good luck. Let me know if you have more questions. Thanks.

-Markus

Great post Markus... I'll be sure we post up whatever we come up with..Big concern is naturally not stressing the CVs front or rear, and seeing really what travel can be safely done and "what runs into what when"...glad you too brought up the links in the back...Sometimes I feel like I'm a big worry wart but man I saw those and thought ACK!!!

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Thanks for the input Markus.
R60 is essentially an upsized R56 and are all pretty much the same design. So maybe a little more stroke and ride height and a few other bits. I have started looking at the control arms for a proper replacement. Seems everyone is pointing this out.
Wayne

Quote
loifs8
Thanks for the input Markus.
R60 is essentially an upsized R56 and are all pretty much the same design. So maybe a little more stroke and ride height and a few other bits. I have started looking at the control arms for a proper replacement. Seems everyone is pointing this out.
Wayne

We'll make control arms/linkie thangs ..Super easy and if goes smooth dirt cheap.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

John,

Yes, you're spot on about the CVs. We blew through boots left and right in terms of grease explosions, and then started destroying axles as well (you can't get true OEM axles for R50s anymore; they're all re-manufactured, and the shaft is actually slightly thicker despite the axles being represented as OEM parts) due to rub at extreme (relative term since 6.5" is definitely anything but) droop/extension. We shaved the axle cups to avoid this. Now we have a new transmission and custom-designed axles that are centered properly off the nominal center. Reiger did the best they could to get maximum suspension travel, but since the OEM travel is like 3", that resulted in the axles being well off-center (in the cups) travel-wise while in the nominal position on the ground.


Wayne,

Besides the rear control arms, the front ones also don't flap freely due to the joint design. I'm going to get this redesign done when budget permits since I'll go with longer travel suspension at the same time. That said, you have a way bigger problem in the rear in terms of durability and exposure to outright dangers/damage, but watch out for the aforementioned axle rub issue in the front if you go beyond 5-6" of travel. The Mini just wasn't made to have long suspension travel, but we will try to change that...

I've already made all the mistakes; look forward to John and you getting this right the first time.

-Markus

Quote
Sasquatch

I've already made all the mistakes; look forward to John and you getting this right the first time.

-Markus

I say "a lucky guy learns from his mistakes.
A smart guy learns from others mistakes"

You're ahead on this, already done some progress..

I wonder what could be cooked up putting 3 heads together?

I'd love to see about 200mm or 8" front and rear..
(BTW see why I heart RWD cars? POOOF! front 223" no worries. Rear a bit of the old zap zap of simple 40 year old ideas and POOOF! 236mm travel shock just open the box and fling it in..Hardly touched by human thought.)

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Yeah, I know what you mean about RWD cars. Just saw Garth Ankeny in his Starlet at OTR and will see Dave Clark in his "Sierra Cosworth" at Idaho; I love those cars. I guess I got a Mini on a whim for that Finnish 1960s/Monte Carlo connection...

As my parents always used to, and still to this day, tell me in Finnish (quite frequently, I might add): "Hyvin menee, ojassa ollaan." ["It's going well...we're in the ditch" - used to combat over-confidence when signs point to things going too well]. Growing up in Finland, I never knew that it was a saying from rallying. I certainly made those mistakes with this suspension set-up numerous times; lots of false starts.

I'm going to dream a little and propose 2 design "blocks", as we refer to them in aerospace, or stages. Block 1: the 8" front/rear = awesome. If this can be done by doing minor/medium modifications, then I'm all in, esp. for the rear. Raise bottom mounting point of strut, raise the towers, and, most importantly, get that rear trailing arm to swing freely. That would be huge. Front would take less modification: just get arm to swing freely and raise the tower just a bit.

Block 2: go to 12"+ suspension travel both front and back (I know: dream big for a FWD car). Economists say not to make decisions on sunk cost, but I'm all in on this car in terms of investment (i.e. I'll spend less on this improvement than buying another rally car...hopefully). Also, the future costs here would involve new sub-frames (or maybe just medium iterations of block 1), longer axles, slightly wider wheelbase, etc. I'm at least interested in putting together the case of "what-would-it-take?" It's really the final frontier for our 2WD Mini.

-Markus

Quote
Sasquatch
Yeah, I know what you mean about RWD cars. Just saw Garth Ankeny in his Starlet at OTR and will see Dave Clark in his "Sierra Cosworth" at Idaho; I love those cars. I guess I got a Mini on a whim for that Finnish 1960s/Monte Carlo connection...

As my parents always used to, and still to this day, tell me in Finnish (quite frequently, I might add): "Hyvin menee, ojassa ollaan." ["It's going well...we're in the ditch" - used to combat over-confidence when signs point to things going too well]. Growing up in Finland, I never knew that it was a saying from rallying. I certainly made those mistakes with this suspension set-up numerous times; lots of false starts.

I'm going to dream a little and propose 2 design "blocks", as we refer to them in aerospace, or stages. Block 1: the 8" front/rear = awesome. If this can be done by doing minor/medium modifications, then I'm all in, esp. for the rear. Raise bottom mounting point of strut, raise the towers, and, most importantly, get that rear trailing arm to swing freely. That would be huge. Front would take less modification: just get arm to swing freely and raise the tower just a bit.

Block 2: go to 12"+ suspension travel both front and back (I know: dream big for a FWD car). Economists say not to make decisions on sunk cost, but I'm all in on this car in terms of investment (i.e. I'll spend less on this improvement than buying another rally car...hopefully). Also, the future costs here would involve new sub-frames (or maybe just medium iterations of block 1), longer axles, slightly wider wheelbase, etc. I'm at least interested in putting together the case of "what-would-it-take?" It's really the final frontier for our 2WD Mini.

-Markus

Oh so you too are in flying type stuff work, so is Oh Pea...I just grew up around aircraft...Piston engine US Navy type things..

Listen the 12" (or whatever--it may very well be a bit more..I have inquiries going) only possible with pivots for control arms very close to center of car and veeeeeeeeeeeeeerrry long to make some nice gentle arcs...Also I think they use CVs with extra angulation built in and they cost big money...
I understand sunk costs really well---why did i stay in the same 1969 Saab 96 for more than 10 years? Cuase it worked and I had mountains of spares including extra close ratio box, extra gear sets extra LSD extra LSD cases and parts, shocks, doors roof windscreens--everything.. And it worked GOOD ENOUGH"

But 12"...Hmmmmmm

Some wise guy once siad
"

Maybe hard look at "Block A" and see how that goes...

And then think if the desire for so much more is sound.

(Like where even can one get inserts with 12+"...the whole front and rear knuckle design is changed to make that possible within the packaging limitation of a car with a hood on it..)
(and I ain't saying a thing about some 11.75 travel things...nothing..I don't know anything,. They're not in my garage..I deny everything.)

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I'll dream of 12 and gladly settle for 8-10. You are right in that certain levels will be $$$$ and won't translate to that much more in terms of performance...the whole economics principle of diminishing returns. Thanks for the feedback. We'll keep the ideation going here.