When we left our hero yesterday… (yeah, yeah - I know - I watched WAY too much 1970’s Batman growing up). Anyways… in part 1 of “Scooter’s New Shoes” we discussed the reason for the new shoes in the first place. While I hope you actually click the link to read part 1 if you missed it, in a nutshell, my daily drivers that I also used on the track were shot to “you know where” and I decided to mount some Toyo RA1’s (an R-comp tire) on my Enkei rims for track use only. So after searching dozens of wheel and tire sites and using Photoshop to see what each design might look like on Scooter, I finally decided on ASA’s 17 inch AR2 wheels and the Kumho Ecsta SPT’s in a 215/40/17 configuration (I really did like the wide-stanced 215/40/17 size of my Hankooks, so I figured why not get that size on the Kumho’s).

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Well after 2 track weeekends and 15,000 miles of daily driving, my Hankook Rs2 Z212’s are finally shot. Last weekend driving up to Mickey & MINI 3 was the last trip they would see. Considering that I only expected to get 12,000 miles out of them - I am tickled to reach 15,000 miles without a problem! I must admit, however, towards the end there, the Hankook’s handled like crap. To be fair though, the tread was at the point that it did not pass the “penny test” so I really can’t complain. They served me well and handled like a dream when they still had some thickness to them!

Sooooo what now? Do I go out and pick up another set of Hankooks? Or do I take this opportunity to take my on-track traction to the next level? I did some research and spoke to many people who track their cars regularly and the logical choice that sits between a street tire like the Hankooks and a slick track tire like a set of Hoosiers is the Toyo RA1’s. The RA1’s are an R-compound tire, designed strictly for track use and seem to be the best choice for someone transitioning from a street tire. They are available with minimal tread or you can have a race shop shave them to enhance their dry traction performance (essentially making them *almost* slicks). I know what you are asking - why the heck would you shave OFF tread!?!? Doesn’t that shorten the life of the tire??? Well - not really. You see by shaving the tread, you are actually helping the tire heat up more evenly when on the track. Many individuals have noticed that by not shaving their RA1’s, they were only able to get 2-3 track weekends out of a set of tires. I am hoping to double that to 4-6 weekends by shaving mine. I will keep you posted on this of course!

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A couple of weeks ago, our good friend Pete from Minspeed with the help of BahamaBart arranged to have John from Lucky Dog Garage fly down to sunny South Florida for an on-site ECU dyno tune day. Results were very promising and everyone who showed up said they noticed a definite improvement in the areas they were trying to tweak.

I personally was out of town that week so, unfortunately I could not provide Scooter as a baseline stock ECU mule. However, through the power of technology, I have gone ahead and compiled 2 graphs for each car - one with the various runs for the specific car, showing the improvements throughout the day, and a second graph showing how the last run compares to Scooter’s last dyno run from May. It is important to note that the temperatures were roughly 8 degrees warmer and humidity was slightly lower in July, so use the comparisons for illustration purposes only.

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AC Schnitzer announced its tuning package for the R56 MINI this week. Although so far the modifications include suspension, exterior and interior touches, and exhaust, engine enhancements are sure to follow. All in all I like what they have done to the R56 from a cosmetic perspective. For full details, click the link below the photo.

[ The new MINI (R56) at AC Schnitzer ]

This story broke a few weeks ago, but I think it is pretty interesting and deserves a post. BreakingNews.ie reported that intelligent wheels have been added to that 640hp electric MINI that we heard about last year. According to the report:

The “smart” wheels sense road conditions and modify the car’s performance accordingly.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will allow the wheels to communicate with each other and “learn” from experience as the car is driven.

The Mini Cooper, an early version of which was exhibited at last year’s British Motor Show, is powered by four wheel-mounted electric motors that together generate 640 brake horsepower.

As a result, the electric car performs more like a Ferrari than a milk float, with a top speed of 150 mph and the ability to accelerate from 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds.

A small 250cc petrol engine charges the car’s battery while it is being driven, giving it a range of 900 miles and fuel consumption of 80 to 100 miles to the gallon.

For more information, you can read more at the link below.

[ Electric Mini fitted with ‘thinking’ wheels ]

In this installment of the MotoringFun Suspension Project, I will cover the final improvements I made to Scooter to take an already well-handling car and turn it into what can only be described as an adult go-kart. To recap, in part one of the project, I added lighter wheels and grippier (is that even a word?) tires and brakes. In part two, I added the ALTA rear sway bar and SPC adjustable control arms to reduce understeer and prepare the car for part three – BC Racing’s fully adjustable coilovers/camber plates, Powergrid’s adjustable endlinks and M7 Tuning’s Understrut System.

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If you have not had a chance to check out “Minspeed Summer Dyno Day - Part 1“, make sure you take a moment to read it. It is just amazing how much a pulley can change a MINI Cooper S!

Like the last dyno day, I compiled all the data from the various cars that attended. For those that attended the Minspeed Winter Dyno Day, I also provided a comparison graph to show the differences between the 2 dyno days for the particular vehicle. I am still sorting through photos and will be updating this post with more pictures as soon as I can. I figured some of you were anxious for the data, regardless of pics so I wanted to get this up as soon as I could. Enjoy!

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This morning, Pete over at Minspeed hosted the Minspeed Summer Dyno Day – 2007. I will post up a complete review of the dyno runs from each of the 10 MINIs that were there later, but for now I just wanted to post a quick follow-up on Scooter’s performance gains since the last dyno day.

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I had lunch plans with a few local MINIacs today so we all met at Minspeed before heading over to the restaurant, as it is a nice central place for us locals to meet (plus we get to say hi to our good buddy Pete!). While at the shop, I was talking to a fellow MINI owner named Warren who was getting some work done on his MINI and we started chatting about the upcoming Sebring track weekend on Saturday and my recent suspension changes.

I popped my bonnet to show off my new BC Racing coilovers (more on those soon in another post) and Warren asked - “Hey, what’s all that oil coming from?”. I rushed over to see what he was talking about and my stomach about dropped! I knew exactly what was wrong from all the posts I have read on the issue - my motor mount had busted and oil had JUST started leaking out. Well I thanked Warren for the keen eye and called the good folks over at Vista MINI to see what could be done to get this situation fixed ASAP. As usual, they told me not to worry and to bring the car in so they could take care of it.
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I already covered my brake, wheel and tire upgrades in part one of “The MotoringFun Suspension Project” which shaved off a few pounds and enhanced grip and stopping power, so now it is time to take the next step - reducing the understeer characteristics of the car and improving the stability during high speed cornering.

These goals will remain constant through the remainder of the project. Others may be introduced as we go, but for this installment understeer is the main thing I wanted to correct. For this reason, the ALTA 19mm rear adjustable sway bar was selected.

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