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 Posted May 7th, 2007 at 4:18PMThis was the first autocross at my home region, at ACC with MoHud. My times: 41.357 The first three runs (morning heat) it was drizzly. The last two runs (afternoon heat) it was a total downpour. I placed 6th out of 14 in SM. Second place was within .7 seconds of me, first was a full 1.1 seconds faster. If it didn’t start pouring I could have placed better. Oh well. I have a lot of pics, but I’ll only post one. Click here for the full set.
 Posted April 27th, 2007 at 1:31PMApril 22nd was the first autocross anywhere close, so I went. It was with Western NY region and at Erie Community College. Results in full can be seen here. Here are the cliffnotes – I came in 8th by PAX in the novice class (I was 4th fastest but I’m in SM, so the PAX is killing me). My times: 53.464 It took me awhile to get back into the swing of things, pushing the car as far as it can handle on the autocross course. I was also only able to walk the course once, so that affected my performance. Still, not excuses. Also, I let my friend drive the MINI. He was 4th by PAX in the novice class, first in raw time, with the following times: 55.317+OFF The bastard beat me in my own car! Pics of the MINI –
The car felt great. This was the first autocross since doing all of the suspension and power mods. I’m also content with the Hankook k106 tires. As they wear and the tread wears down they should get a lot better. But they’re pretty sticky for a $53 tire with a 340 treadwear rating. Posted April 24th, 2007 at 6:16PMLast weekend was packed full of goodness. On Friday we went go-karting at the track on Rt-13. The karts are a bit slow but it was my first time ever go-karting, and we had a lot of fun. We went forty minutes straight – was sore for days. On Saturday I drove down to Helix Minisports down in Philadelphia to get my supercharger reduction pulley installed and to get dyno’d.
My car put out 188whp and 171tq. These numbers are amazing considering that I’ve only got a 15% pulley, intake, and exhaust – and it was a Mustang dyno, meaning there is resistance and the numbers are accurate (and not wildly inflated like on a DynoJet). There was a JCW with a 19% pulley and a bunch of little things that pulled only 3whp / 1tq more than my beastie. Awesome!
 Tags: car, cooper, dyno, go-karting, helix, mini, philadelphia, pulley, s | Category: Motoring  Be the first to comment! Posted March 23rd, 2007 at 7:43PMThe snow is melting and the mods are going on!
Last Monday a friend and I installed RDR/Helix camber plates, H-Sport springs, Alta 22mm rear swaybar, and replaced the lower rear control arms with Helix ones. Wednesday was the alignment: -2.2 camber in the front, -1.5 in the back (stock toe all around). Today after getting the car back from the body shop (I was backed into on Tues!) I was able to slap on the new whizzeeles, 16×7 Sportmaxx 002s shod with 205/50/16 Hankook R106s. Feels… so…. amazing… Ugh. It makes me sad, because no car ought to feel like this. Speed limits are the work of satan! I have yet to push the car, but it feels amazingly neutral, flat, and, after putting nearly 100mi on the tires today, grippy. And as a bonus to getting backed into, I got my dent and half of my paint chips pulled / sprayed. The car’s never been better! Posted March 17th, 2007 at 10:52PMI’ve been holding off on this post because I have no pictures, but what the hell. On Monday March 12th, a friend and I worked on the MINI and installed all of the suspension bits I’ve collected over the past few months. This included front RDR/Helix adjustable camber plates, Helix rear control arms (replacing the lower pair), an Alta 22mm rear anti-swaybar, and H-Sport springs all around. It took us the larger part of the day but went smoothly. We had a clunking noise that turned out to be an incorrectly placed washer in the strut assembly – quickly rectified. I got an alignment on Wednesday which really allows the new parts to shine. I ended up going with stock toe all around, -2.2 camber in the front, -1.6 in the rear, FYI. The H-Sport springs lower the MINI an 1″, and that seems just right in all ways. These specific camber plates raise the front a tad (quarter inch? I didn’t measure), so that pretty much eliminated all of my rake*. I like rake, but it still looks good! The swaybar is on the softest setting, and with everything in, the car feels SUPER planted and neutral around the curves. And to top it off, the ride isn’t significantly worse than stock – half the time it even feels a bit better! (Ride quality is pretty damn subjective in any case.) And even better, yesterday (Friday) my new wheels and tires arrived! But so did more than a foot of snow, so I didn’t get a chance to try them out. Spring is just around the corner, and then I’ll finally be able to really work this baby out. Woot!
* Rake here means the front sits slightly lower than the rear of the car, giving it that “go-fast” look, FYI. MINIs come from the factory with quite a bit of rake, so taking out a little can actually be beneficial, both aesthetically and performance-wise. Tags: aftermarket, alignment, camber-plates, car, cooper, h-sport, helix, mini, rdr, s, suspension, sway-bar | Category: Motoring Be the first to comment! Posted February 15th, 2007 at 1:07PM
This was the MINI as of 10am yesterday. I think that was about the halfway mark – it kept snowing till 8pm or so. After shoveling out right in front of it, and a bit of the bank a plow had created at the beginning of our driveway, I was able to blast out. I got stuck this morning though, trying to back out the entire way. A mistake, but I eventually rocked it out. In this weather, the MINI is less go-kart and more toboggan. Posted February 8th, 2007 at 8:29PMThe other day I finally re-recorded the new sounds of my car (after the cold air intake install). It’s quite whiny, the supercharger is the only thing you can hear now (at full throttle, it even drowns out the rattles!) Enjoy. Note all of the bother in the beginning – it’s impossible to cleanly launch the car in single-degree weather with skinny 185/65/15″ snow tires on. mini090.mov 314kb Helix Cold Air Intake post (1/18/07) |
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