What do you guys think?Me and my brother just finished it this weekend.We made a custom 3" suspension lift for the front and a 1.5" in the back.
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Your front tires when you hit the slightest bump are going to rub and wear on the inner wheel well. Just saying. Unless you made your custom suspension tight.. Rear looks close too in my opinion. >> BMW Tech. <<
Inner wheel wells have been removed and trim has been trimmed.Nothing rubs,surprisingly even with 4 adults in it.And it's all stock suspension.
please tell me you tear up some fine ass dirt trails
do a jump
Oh man you best believe I'm gonna.We just finished the thing so we're gonna test it this weekend.The ground clearance is the most surprising thing,stock ride height I'm surprised I never got the damn car hung up on a speed bump.
[QUOTE=moby911;34611072]Inner wheel wells have been removed and trim has been trimmed.Nothing rubs,surprisingly even with 4 adults in it.[b]And it's all stock suspension.[/b][/QUOTE]
Wat?
So you made lift spindles for it and left the springs/shocks stock?
Pics?
I think he means its "lifted" as in the taller wheels/tires have increased the ride height.
Ideally you would give it a small lift and cut out the fenders and add some flares so you can get some more suspension travel. If you wnated to get real serious you could make longer A-arms and axles so you can get more travel and more tire.
I always thought it was funny when guys modify their trucks for "off-roading" by dramatically increasing ride height with blocks, which is basically just raising the center of gravity without adding any suspension travel. If they were actually going off-road and not just playing in the mud they wouldnt be doing such foolish things.
[QUOTE=Disco_Potato;34612910]I think he means its "lifted" as in the taller wheels/tires have increased the ride height.
Ideally you would give it a small lift and cut out the fenders and add some flares so you can get some more suspension travel. If you wnated to get real serious you could make longer A-arms and axles so you can get more travel and more tire.
I always thought it was funny when guys modify their trucks for "off-roading" by dramatically increasing ride height with blocks, which is basically just raising the center of gravity without adding any suspension travel. If they were actually going off-road and not just playing in the mud they wouldnt be doing such foolish things.[/QUOTE]
[b]We made a custom 3" suspension lift for the front and a 1.5" in the back[/b]
I dunno I'm lost.
They are essentially these things [url]http://new.minimania.com/web/Item/G2NMS2500/InvDetail.cfm[/url] but I had to make them myself out of 1/4" plate because they don't make em for the normal mini cooper,just the countryman.They mount on top of the struts.I've got a total of around 8" of lift from the tire size difference and the suspension lift.
Ahhhh, I see now.
Cool!
I'll probably take a video this weekend of it slinging some mud around...hopefully.
i have such a soft spot for lifted cars with big tires, but that exhaust blows
It's stock :(
[QUOTE=propan;34613641]i have such a soft spot for lifted cars with big tires, but that exhaust blows[/QUOTE]
is that a pun
Awesome, just make some wheel spacers so the wheels poke out and it would be perfect
[editline]9th February 2012[/editline]
Oh and wheel flares
[QUOTE=Road Safari;34613883]is that a pun[/QUOTE]
It'd work better as a turbo pun.
I kinda like the idea. But man those tires need to be wider.
And you need a bigger exhaust.
Other than that it's a perfect "Lifted Mini".
Cat delete, No muffler, straight pipe that beast.
If I could have fit wider tires I would have.But I already have 1.5" wheel spacers on there already.
I love small cars with huge tires. It looks awesome man.
Please for the love of all things gearbox put different gears in that thing. If it had a 3.55 gearset it should have a 3.73, if it had a 3.73(Normal for most FWDs), it should be a 4.10, etc etc. Those bigger tires are going to make an already overworked engine even more overworked and may very well damage the transmission if you don't regear it appropriately.
If you're curious the reason is twofold. First of all, larger diameter tires travel farther per revolution, thus they will rotate slower for a given speed. This shifts the powerband around on the speedo and can put the engine in a place where it's lugging and struggling to pull the car along. Secondly, because of the increased diameter and weight of the tires, the transmission has to cope with stresses for which it wasn't designed. It's going to get very hot, and that doesn't bode well for it living long. Especially if it's an automatic.
[editline]11th February 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=moby911;34626110]If I could have fit wider tires I would have.But I already have 1.5" wheel spacers on there already.[/QUOTE]
...and get rid of these. They make your wheel lugs weaker and make it far more likely to break a wheel completely off. If you need to shift the wheels out, do so by buying offset rims.
I know it costs more to do this properly, but half-assing it is only going to lead to broken parts and tow bills.
I like what you're going for here, but I hate to see it done in a way that makes the car worse. I want to see you succeed, and to succeed you need to build this thing right. It looks awesome now, but I have my doubts it will work for very long.
The tranny thing is unfortunately going to have to be a road I cross when I come to it.If it were to actually fail eventually it would just be a good chance for me to put a beefed up 6 speed manual in it (not a big fan of autos).I haven't half assed anything on it,I've done plenty of research before buying a single part to do this,and I've built everything with a nice sense of overkill when it comes to strength.The wheel adapters I know have numerous horror stories about studs breaking off or the entire hub shearing off.But I've also read and asked people who have run them for years,even on there track cars and they haven't had a complaint with them.I had to use the wheel spacers because 4x100 is a fwd car lug pattern so they will only come up to a certain backspacing and offset,unless I were to purchase custom offset rims,but that would be waaaay out of my budget.I'm actually running 4x108 saab rims to correct this situation,but they would rub the sidewall on the shock tower without any spacers.So everything I have done has had much thought put into it.The car still drives fantastic and there are no weird clicks or clunks.But it is still in it's baby stages so we'll see if things start to deteriorate faster or not.
How high is the whole thing. Inches wise.
Thanks for reminding me I've been meaning to measure it.It's 11.5" in the front and 12" in the back.Huge compared to the 4" of ground clearance I used to have.I actually took it for a test on some back roads today and took a video.It was only a test so I went nice and slow.When I find a nice place I'll get some high speed shots of her.[video=youtube;e_Xc0iDDxMo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Xc0iDDxMo&feature=share[/video]
[QUOTE=moby911;34651476]The tranny thing is unfortunately going to have to be a road I cross when I come to it.If it were to actually fail eventually it would just be a good chance for me to put a beefed up 6 speed manual in it (not a big fan of autos).I haven't half assed anything on it,I've done plenty of research before buying a single part to do this,and I've built everything with a nice sense of overkill when it comes to strength.The wheel adapters I know have numerous horror stories about studs breaking off or the entire hub shearing off.But I've also read and asked people who have run them for years,even on there track cars and they haven't had a complaint with them.I had to use the wheel spacers because 4x100 is a fwd car lug pattern so they will only come up to a certain backspacing and offset,unless I were to purchase custom offset rims,but that would be waaaay out of my budget.I'm actually running 4x108 saab rims to correct this situation,but they would rub the sidewall on the shock tower without any spacers.So everything I have done has had much thought put into it.The car still drives fantastic and there are no weird clicks or clunks.But it is still in it's baby stages so we'll see if things start to deteriorate faster or not.[/QUOTE]
Good to see you've actually thought it through and not just threw parts at something. You may be able to buy the tranny some time if you fit a trans cooler, or if it already has one a better one.
[QUOTE=TestECull;34661549]Good to see you've actually thought it through and not just threw parts at something. You may be able to buy the tranny some time if you fit a trans cooler, or if it already has one a better one.[/QUOTE]That's actually a really good idea.I'll be sure to look into it.I appreciate the suggestion good sir.
A Mini seems like an odd car to lift.. unless you had one of the AWD ones.
Considering the time and money you've put into that, you probably would have been better off buying a stock Subaru Impreza.
The kind of terrain you went on in the video is the kind of roads I used to go on with the summer tires on my Subaru
^^^ I doubt it cost a whole lot... a little bit of steel and welding wire to make the spacer plates on the top, wheel spacers, and however much the rims/tires cost. And by the looks of it I'd assume those are just normal steel rims.. so those would be cheap.
Plus it's not something you see every day. Kinda like a lifted beetle.. equally as cool.
[QUOTE=clutch2;34676441]^^^ I doubt it cost a whole lot... a little bit of steel and welding wire to make the spacer plates on the top, wheel spacers, and however much the rims/tires cost. And by the looks of it I'd assume those are just normal steel rims.. so those would be cheap.
Plus it's not something you see every day. Kinda like a lifted beetle.. equally as cool.[/QUOTE]
The tires would be the big cost on that. They're what, $100 a piece new? I spent $75 on my two brand new M+S rated tires for my Impreza and will be spending about as much to replace my worn out rear tires.
Sure, it's something that's interesting and unique, but it's more of a 'all show no go' kind of thing. It looks like it can go offroad, but with FWD and as far as I know, an open diff with unequal shaft lengths (correct me if I'm wrong on that. Last I knew, most FWD cars had unequal shaft lengths) it won't make it too far
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