384 replies to this topic

[Birdman]

I got my brake lines run and the steering welded up today. Tomorrow my pedals and tank will arrive but I'm leaving for a week. Wife and I are taking two of our other Mini's down to Thunder Hill raceway in northern Calif. for an all Mini track day.

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[Monte Busa]

I'm really surpised by the picture of the rear suspension - Z-Cars have totall removed the semi-trailing aspect of the rear swing arms on your car!

I find that quite odd, as you will no have no camber gain in roll, and contact patch variation will be quite large - especially with 10" wide tires! Non semi-trialing arms work on FWD minis quite well as camber gain actually fights any oversteer tendency you'd want to have in a naturally understeering configuration, but in a rear drive car you'd be potentially inducing a lot of oversteer-causing characteristics and contact patch variation that could be pucker causing.

Also, you might want to check what sort of bump steer you have with the steering rack configured the way it is. I found I had to run a tapered washer to get the steering rack arms anything like parallel to the top A Arm and dial out bump steer.

[Monte Busa]

...also, without the tapered washer on the steering arm I couldn't get anything like full bump articulation in the suspension (to the point that the shock bump stop was compressing)....

[Birdman]

Maybe the picture dos not show it that well but there are trailing arms that are fully adjustable. I'll check the bump steer when I get the car at the correct ride height. Thanks for the tips.

[Monte Busa]

I can see that the outer mounts for the trailing arms have adjustments, but those are for STATIC camber adjustment (aka no induced roll). What I am referring to is angling the arm pivot / attachment points across the car being such that the outboard point is farther forward than the inboard point by 10 to 12 degrees.

With this arrangement (which my car and the previous Montes I've seen have) you get negative camber GAIN in roll (negative camber increases with an increase in body roll), which is important for lateral traction in high G situations in keeping a consistent contact patch. Another benefit of angling the mounting points as described is that you get a lower roll center, as the arm pivot axis intersects the wheel axis which is one of the cons of trailing arm suspension with no semi-trail characteristic - the roll center is the height of the pivot, period.

It's puzzling that they removed the semi-trailing feature on your car...maybe they found something with the handling characteristics of the car recently...I may e-mail Chris to discuss. I'll let you know what he says.

Maybe the picture dos not show it that well but there are trailing arms that are fully adjustable. I'll check the bump steer when I get the car at the correct ride height. Thanks for the tips.

Edited by Monte Busa, 18 February 2012 - 03:02 AM.

[Birdman]

Please do, I would be interested in hearing what he has to say.

[Birdman]

Looks like Z-Cars did it again. When they shipped my kit it took several extra days to clear customs because of inadequate paperwork. So now my tank and pedal assembly is being held in some UPS warehouse, can't clear customs because of inadequate paperwork.

[Birdman]

I'm back from my trip to Thunder Hill Raceway. Here's a couple of action pictures of our two Mini's.

My tank and pedals are here so I can go back to work on the new car.

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[Birdman]

I got back at thr Monte Carlo today. Installed the pedal assembly and the fuel tank. I also started some basic wiring. I wanted to get the reverse going to see how it worked.
I'm pretty much at a stand still now waiting to get the car in the paint shop.

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[Monte Busa]

Lookin' good! Do you mind me asking a favor? Could you tell me what the fully extended length of your front shocks is? Also, the free length of your front springs? It would be awesome if you could throw a tape on them and let me know.

Aric

[Birdman]

Lookin' good! Do you mind me asking a favor? Could you tell me what the fully extended length of your front shocks is? Also, the free length of your front springs? It would be awesome if you could throw a tape on them and let me know.

Aric

Will do.

[Birdman]

Lookin' good! Do you mind me asking a favor? Could you tell me what the fully extended length of your front shocks is? Also, the free length of your front springs? It would be awesome if you could throw a tape on them and let me know.

Aric

The front shocks are 15". the springs with all weight off are 8".

[Monte Busa]

The front shocks are 15". the springs with all weight off are 8".

Awesome, thanks! By the way, I e-mailed with one of Chris' guys (also Chris) about the rear geometry changes. He confirmed that they did reduce the cross car semi-trailing angle on the cars later than mine at some point, to decrease camber gain on bump - likely to increase tire footprint on straight line acceleration when running without anti-roll bars. I personally prefer the setup of my car on paper at least, with -0.7deg camber gain with 1" of bump on the rear as it closely matches the front gain (-1.0deg per 1" of bump), but if you're going to run anti-roll bars it's probably a moot point as the roll rate will be quite low (probably 0.2 to 0.4deg per 1G lateral).

By the way, are you runnng bars? If so, and you don't have them yet (I haven't seen any in your pics), I am considering upgrading to cockpit adjustables and would sell you mine if you were interested if I decide to go that route. The front one will fit your car with no mods, and the rear will fit with just a simple change in the position of the lateral location collars.

Edited by Monte Busa, 28 February 2012 - 09:22 PM.

[Birdman]

I didn't get any with my kit. To be honest it's something I hadn't given any thought to. I might be interested in yours. Can you give me a call sometime? 541-408-3317.

[Monte Busa]

I'll call sometime later in the week or this weekend - looking forward to comparing notes.

I didn't get any with my kit. To be honest it's something I hadn't given any thought to. I might be interested in yours. Can you give me a call sometime? 541-408-3317.