65 replies to this topic

[NE-Matt]

Ahhhhhhh the Holy Grail that is a slammed mini!! I have been lusting for such a beast for a long time now and it still remains elusive!!

For some people it's sourcing original retro parts for a build, for others it's ringing the neck of the a-series for me the part of car modification that "gets" me it's lowering. After years of researching, fiddling and damn right stupidity I've come to the conclusion, if you want to slam a mini, and I mean proper slam it, not just lower than stock then it's pretty near impossible in my eyes. Yes pretty much anything is possible with the right mix of skill, knowledge and of course money but most people just accept it's not worth it.

Like a lot of you here I've managed to get them pretty low but with a mini your greeted with a load of limitations, mainly I found upfront. Out back is fairly simple to get down, the best results I've seen is the pre mentioned tubbed rear arches and coilovers, it can be done with hi-los but of course these have there own limitations, wind them too short and you risk them dropping out. Upfront, again coilovers are where I've seen the best results but then your met by a load of ride height issues, the sump becomes exposed (sump guards and option but that gives you even less clearence) aswell as the exhaust manifold (I soon became a pro at swapping manifolds!). I found the freeflow manifolds didn't hang as low as an LCB which helped, a full length sump/underguard was an idea I toyed with. Whilst on exhausts you can't really have a twin box system, so a straight thru to backbox is best, even then I had to "raise" the back box. Back to the front, the front wings need to be chopped out which is fairly basic stuff, I also ditched the bumpstops (silly I know), also silly was swapping the cones for pretty much dead ones to get a bit lower, I wouldn't recommend either of these however. Of course if staying hi-lo based you'll need "lowered" dampers. Don't be sucked in by 10"s will make it lower, although a 10" wheel is smaller than a 13", the rolling radius isn't that different when you have a 10" with a chunky tyres and a 13" with a skinny tyre.

Basically you can drop it a fair bit but would it be useable, nope! Don't sacrifice a car to try and get "scene points", having a low car is great untill you can't got for that Sunday morning blast with the crew because it'd shred yuor car up, or your spending money your trying to save on yet another set of rear tyres as yours have spent the last month being ploughed by your arches.

So what are your options? Cheat!

Getting that slammed look in my opinion is a lot more than just how much you can lower it, how your wheels and arches fit is crucial. If your wheels don't fill your arch extensions it's never gonna look nice and squat. Low and fat is the key in my eyes, running 12x4.5's and mini special arches isn't going to look as impressive as some 13x7 in say a sportpack arch. A lot of mini arch extensions sit quite high in my opinion, why not fit them a bit lower, yeah it'll take some modding. Why not think about other cosmetic touches like extending the sills to give the appearence of it sitting lower to the ground. I even went silly once and lowered the rear lights to help the illusion. Theres loadsa little bits that you'll be able to come up with.

I eventually got out of minis as I didn't think I could achieve what I wanted, after 2 years away I'm back in and have the urge to try and find that holy grail I missed out on last time. There's the adjustable suspension route such as air ride or hydraulics, I've looked into air and there just isn't the room on a mini, especially upfront. Hydraulics wise, Rayvern do a kit for the mini, in my opinion it doesn't go particuarly low, however I've got my hands on one and am going to give it a try with a few other ideas floating round my head. The aim is to build it so it's sat as low as possible then use the juice to raise it to a useable and safe driving height. We'll see how it goes!! lol

[Sprocket]

There is a neat trick the racers use to lower the car a bit more on the front, without the extra sacrifice on suspension. They remove the mounts between the subframe and the bulkhead cross member and then re fabricate the toeboard and front panel mounts.

[Timinichelsea]

To get it really low it has to be built from the ground up to be low.

Subframes have to come out and both need modifications, arches tubbed, then loads of custom stuff built for it.

You cant really buy parts to get it low, most of them will need custom building for your car.

[rosco454]

To get it really low it has to be built from the ground up to be low.

Subframes have to come out and both need modifications, arches tubbed, then loads of custom stuff built for it.

You cant really buy parts to get it low, most of them will need custom building for your car.

What he said^^ Having seen the stuff first hand I cant think of many suspension parts on mine that are as you can buy them off the shelf.

Cheers Ross.

[maggies_minder]

i think this is one thing we should leave the "dubbers" too,

riding low with such diddy wheels and such poorly maintained roads with potholes you can bathe in is asking for trouble.

[NE-Matt]

I try not to see it as replcating what the dub scene, in my opinion pretty much every car looks better closer to the tarmac. I think the only thing we should be stealing from the dub crowd is the more open minded a lot are to things that are a bit different to the norm. At the end of the day if I wanted a slammed dub I wouldn't be wasting my time and cash trying to slam a mini, to me it's a bit of a challenge, a useable/safe car that gets somewhere close to the ride height that makes me happy. Will I get there, I dunno.....

[SolarB]

Glad I've seen this pic. I've just fitted the same with 10" wheels and was beginning to think I'd done something wrong because it was sitting so high.
What's the opposite of slamming?

[NE-Matt]

What's the opposite of slamming?

Blasphemy!!!

Having just put new cones on the rear of mine it's looking far from the slammed dream at the moment!! However my arse definatly appreciates them!!

[chazzybaby]

just been reading through this and really interesting stuff. i have lowered miner and managed to make it still look high off the ground on the fronts.

how much can you cut out of the wings to lower the front as i have about 2" of metal visible under the arch. the arches are group 5's and they seem to scrub if mounted any lower than i have them. are you guy's using steering limiters or just not turning to full lock?

[Bungle]

the problem is not how much you can cut away on the wings it's how far you can go before your suspension run out of travel

hence if you read above people are talking about raising the subframe

[Shiver]

Edited by Shiver, 12 March 2011 - 02:34 AM.

[Bungle]

not really slammed is it ?

[Boothy]

This how low mine is but needs to go a tad higher as it scrubs on the arches when going round corners with one passenger.

Attached Files

•  DSCF1471.JPG   2.38MB   34 downloads

[Jayme 1275]

That's very nice

[Timinichelsea]

Heres a few of mine I took today to show some of the issues.

Back is very low, although it doesn't look it as its been tubbed, the ride height is good just need to fit the arches and it'll look really low.

Front is a different issue. Currently its sitting too low, but even when its raised a bit there still wont be much travel in the dampers, i'm going to have to remake the shock brackets to raise the dampers up. Theres also a less than ideal angle on the upper bal joint.

Also note the bottom spacer on the subframe has been removed, but this caused issues with the top spacer so that had to be remade.

Attached Files

•  Slammed_2.jpg   151.07K   21 downloads
•  Slammed_1.jpg   198.14K   29 downloads