AMVILV Banquet

Here at the basically the end of the weekend's events. Lots of people
here. What's really amazing is the reach of this event. One person
drove from Charlotte, NC - 2,604 miles. He was deemed to have driven
the furthest narowly beating the MINI Club of Calgary.

Day Two @ AMVIV VI

The day has started beautifully. It's around in the low 70s with a
mild breeze. A lot of cars here, buy not a ton of people yet. There
are some morning runs going on so I suppose things will pick-up after
noon.

Here is a picture across the valley and as you can see, beutiful
weather so far.

Large Variety of MINIs

A lot of MINIs are starting to arrive here at Palace Station. The
variety and uniqueness of MINI is quite evident. Like MINI likes to
tell people, with all the options and aftermarket choices out
there...there probably are no two MINIs that are identical.

More to come.

At Spring Mountain

Sorry about the update lag. Unfortunately I had some technical
difficulties at the track event. Consequently, I will post more
details about it some time next week.

In the meantime, I am now at the Palace Station where many MINIs have
gathered. I will post some pics and more information shortly.

Check back soon.

Early Start

Waiting on the valet to get on the road. Will be reporting from the
track shortly with updates and pictures.

Las Vegas

Just before 1:00 AM and checked-in. Time to get some sleep to leave
for the track early. Check back for updates at the track, as well as
events at the MINI Vacation in Vegas car show throughout the weekend.

State Line

Just before midnight and I've made it to State Line. I saw a few
MINI's on the highway and look forward to meeting people in the
community over the weekend.

Next stop, Las Vegas...

Liquid Energy...

Tack-on another 90 minutes of driving and I've arrived in Barstow. Not
really tired, but could use the energy boost. A Venti Iced Caramel
Macchiato should hit the spot.

Before leaving NM headquarters, we put some new shoes on the NM R56 so
I was looking forward getting aquainted with the BFG KDWs. So far the
grip is incredible and response is very crisp. As many of you already
know, switching out of run-flat tires makes a world of difference. The
ride has improved vastly.

I will have a more detailed blog about the new wheels and tires next
week.

BTW, big shout out to our friends at BF Goodrich for helping with our
project R56!

Pitstop Antelope Valley

Left Camarillo at about 6:30 and decided to stop at the sis-in-law's
house to stretch my legs and have a quick dinner - in these trying
economic times, trying to keep the company expenses down!

Driving up to the Antelope Valley was pretty drama free with only a
little bit of traffic. Driving uphill, the NM R56 still made pretty
good mileage, about 32 mpg - is there any other car out there that is
fun to drive and this frugal with fuel consumption? It's no wonder
people live their MINIs.

More updates to come.

The Road Trip Begins...

NM Engineering Product Catalog

Our first catalog is at the printers now and will be ready for mailing in the next few days. All of us here are really proud of it and want to share it with all of you MINI enthusiasts. To receive one, simply email your name and complete mailing address to catalog@nm-eng.com. We will mail you one as soon as possible.

A MINI Vacation in Vegas / North American MINI Cooper Challenge Time Trials

In conjunction with our dealer Kappasphere, I will be attending the upcoming event, "a MINI Vegas Vacation". Festivities for this event begin Thursday in Sin City and I will be there late Friday and most of Saturday. Look for Kappasphere as we will be handing out our new catalog with pretty pictures of our parts.

For more details regarding a MINI Vacation in Vegas, go here:
http://amviv.com/

Also, early Friday morning I will be at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch for the North American MINI Cooper Challenge Time Trials. So look for me there as well...will be there with the Kappasphere guys as well.

For more information about the track, go here:
http://www.springmountainmotorsports.com/

For more information about the MINI Cooper Challenge event, go here:
http://www.minidriving.com/raceseries.asp

While you're at it, visit Kappasphere's MINI Cooper sub-site here:
http://www.kappasphere.com/mini/

Looks like a lot of MINIs and Minis will be converging on Vegas, so stay tuned to this blog as I will be updating it often from both venues with lots of pictures.

Koni Sport Shocks

Koni recently released their Sport dampers for the late model MINIs. Obviously, Koni is well known by MINI enthusiast as their Sport and FSD dampers seem to be the popular choice for the R50, R52, and R53 enthusiast.

The damper install took place February 17th and I wanted to put some significant miles on them before posting an evaluation. Since then, I have driven about 1,200 miles with them installed, which includes a long excursion to Las Vegas and a Southern California sales call loop which found me motoring on several freeways, the 101, 210, 15, 91, 57, 110 and 405. If you are from Southern California, you know that those different freeways provide unique challenges for any suspension system.

PARTS AND INSTALLATION

Let's start with the dampers themselves - Koni has been around for ages now and their engineers did a fantastic job with these. Both front and rear units are twin-tube low pressure gas units that provide externally adjustable rebound damping. This is a plus as the front units can be adjusted while they remain installed on the vehicle. We drilled a small hole in the rubber upper bearing cap to facilitate adjustment. Unfortunately, the rear dampers need to be removed from the vehicle for adjustment as there is no way to reach the top of the piston rod while they are installed. There may be a way to drill through the floor of the trunk to provide access, however, I do not recommend this.

As is the norm, installation was very straightforward. The front units are complete strut assemblies and simply replace the OE units without much fanfare. The rear units require some minor mods for installation - the upper spring hat and washer needed to drilled out so to accommodate the slightly larger Koni shock rod. Also, the OE rubber stone chip guard needs to be transferred to the new units.

MOTORING IMPRESSION

Just to recap, I have been driving our company MINI daily using our RS-a lowering springs. With the OE dampers, the car, to me, actually rode better than stock...however they did lack a little rebound control when driven over rough or uneven road surface. After having significant seat time with the Koni Sports, my opinion is that any lowered MINI owner that wants to improve the ride and handling should purchase these right away. The chassis is significantly more controlled now and handling is razor sharp. With the OE units, any significant road irregularity during cornering would unsettle the chassis, whereas now they are soaked up very nicely increasing confidence when motoring at near the limit of physical adhesion.

In terms of ride quality, one of the chief complaints is the choppy ride nature of the MINI synonymous with almost any other short wheelbase car on the road. With the Koni Sports installed, the car can still feel rather choppy, especially along certain swaths of uneven concrete sections of the 101 freeway...however the "choppyness" seems a quite a bit more subdued now because of the increased rebound damping - Good job Koni!

On the several long drives I have had since installation, I found the car to be very comfortable on the wide varieties of highways here in Socal. On the drive to Lost Wages, I mean Las Vegas, most people do not drive at or near the speed limit. Cruising along at a constant 110 mph was a breeze, the car was very stable, almost unflappable. There are some nice, high-speed, long sweeping turns as you drive through the Halloran Pass before entering Nevada and again, the car performed beautifully holding its line when the occasional "whoop-dee-do" was encountered. Overall, the Koni Sport dampers are well engineered and definitely provide an upgrade over their OE counterparts.

Quick update, here we just received some Koni FSD kits for the 2nd generation MINIs. We will be installing very soon on our R55 and I will report back with some feedback. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions by emailing me.

Last but not least, I would like to send a special shout out to Koni for generously donating shocks for our project car!

NM Engineering Upper Front Tie-Bar Installed

Over the weekend, I received a few emails requesting some pictures of the bar installed on the R55/R56 with our intake and with the OE intake. In the first photo above, you will see a shot of the tie-bar installed with our Hi-Flow Induction kit on our R56. In the second shot you will see the tie-bar installed with the OE intake in place on our R55. Some have expressed concern about MAF and MAF harness clearance with our tie-bar installed on cars equipped with the OE intake - so the third shot give you an idea that there are no interference issues.

If any of you have any other questions or concerns, send me a message...I will be as responsive as possible!

NM Engineering Upper Front Tie-Bar

Our new upper front tie-bar is now available. It is available in two colors, our NM Engineering signature blue textured powder coat or in black textured powder coat. The bar is a simple bolt-on installation and will reduce front end chassis flex and unwanted geometry or alignment change during agressive motoring. The bar can be used with OEM intake or our hi-flow induction kit - no interference issues with the bonnet or other components in the engine compartment. We have not tested it in conjunction with other intakes on the market...however, if you own a competitor's intake and want to try our bar, contact me for a special deal as we are looking for feedback.

When we set out to produce this part, we wanted a highly functional bar that was aesthetically pleasing. As such, here are a few highlights:

• The mounting plates and the bar are CNC machined from 6061-T6 aluminum to be lightweight and struturally sound.
  
  
• The mounting pads are hard anodized which actually adds a protective layer for longer wear and appearance.
  
  
• Mounting pads double as strut tower reinforcement plates...to elimintate the dreaded "mushrooming" towers.
  
  
• We use two bolts on each side to secure the bar to the mounting plates. This twin-bolt design will not allow the bar to pivot making the tie-bar more effective at stiffening the chassis. Single bolt mounting systems are slightly cheaper to produce and less effective.
  
  
• To secure the thick mounting plates to the upper strut mount, we chose long-reach shouldered nuts - they actaully reach past the mounting surface so that the suspension and tie-bar are attached by more than just a few threads.
  
  
• Instead of drilling a hole straight through the mounting pad to accomodate the upper strut bearing locator pin, we simply machined a pocket on the underside of the plate to conceal it from view. Looks much nicer this way!

Here are a few pictures of the new part:

NM Hi-Flo Induction Kit for non-North American Models

Through international dealers, we found out that some Cooper S models (R55 & R56) do not come equipped with a MAF sensor. Due to requests from some of international customers, we now offer our Hi-Flow Induction kit for non-MAF equipped vehicles.

NM.658856.1
MINI Cooper S Clubman and Hardtop w/o MAF Sensor
Blue Pipe Finish

NM.658856B.1
MINI Cooper S Clubman and Hardtop w/o MAF Sensor
Black Pipe Finish

If you have a non-MAF equipped vehicle, we have an intake to meet your needs now!

NM Engineering 22mm Adjustable Rear Anti-Sway Bar

I am happy to announce that our 22mm adjustable rear anti-sway bar is now available. What makes the NM rear anti-sway bar different from others? Afterall, when I look at pictures of all the different kits out there, they all pretty much look the same. Here is the low-down:

Material:

Everything starts with material - it is the foundation of the part. Companies typically have a wide variety of material to choose from when they decide to manufacture an anti-sway bar. As such, many factors come into play (i.e. cost, availability, cost, strength and durability, cost, etc.).

During this evaluation process, our engineers chose to use 4130 chromoly. Cost was not the primary factor, as 4130 is a more expensive material. The choice was made because of 4130's superior fatigue resistance, high tolerance and zero-memory - even after repeated cycling.

Hardware:

I have seen some other kits and typically they will include polyurethane bushings, clamps and bolts. As we all know, most MINI's are driven fairly agressively. Because of this an OEM-type steel clamp would not be reliable. Looking at the original OEM clamp and clamps available from various suppliers, we quickly realized that we needed to come up with our own solution.

As you can see from the picture on the left (click to enlarge), we machined our own clamps from 6061 aluminum alloy for supperior durability. The clamps are mil-spec hard anodized for a long lasting finish and to protect the material itself from the elements. In addition, we include new grade 12.9 bolts to attach the clamp to the car (the OE bolts are grade 8.8).

Rounding out the included hardware are low-resistance, graphite impregnated poly urethane bushings and special synthetic bushing grease.

Manufacturing and Finishing:

The rear anti-sway bar features machined ends with exacting tolerances. In comparison, other manufacturers have chosen to use forged ends (where the material is heated and literally pounded into shape) or welded end (where the mounting points are welded to either end of the bar). Both those manufacturing methods are not as precise, when compared to a CNC machined end.

After the manufacturing process is complete, each bar is powder coated with an ultra-high luster finish that looks great, while protecting the bar itself from the elements.

Installation Instructions:

One of the few areas that are overlooked are the quality of the installation instructions. For parts that are a little more involved, we print full-color instructions on ledger size paper (11" x 17") to make sure all pictures and text are legible. A detailed parts list, along with a list of tools required are provided to make sure you can complete the job before you start it. Lastly, proper manufacturer's torque specifications are provided so that you can put the car back together properly after installation.

NM.258856 Installation Instructions (PDF)

If you have any questions, drop me a line...I'd love to hear any feedback you may have!

Welcome & Happy New Year!

Welcome to the NM Engineering official blog. I would like to take a moment to introduce myself and NM Engineering to you. First of all, my name is Joe and I've worked for Automotive Performance Systems, Inc (our parent company) since 1996. In total, I've been in the automotive aftermarket for over 2 decades now. I will be keeping this blog updated as regularly as possible, but since it's our company's first blog give me feedback on what you would like to see here. I am open to all suggestions. You can contact me directly by email: joe@nm-eng.com.

Since our website has been up and ads have been appearing in various publications, the email I receive most asks, "Who are you guys?" NM Engineering is a division of Automotive Performance Systems, Inc. (APS). APS has been a supplier of aftermarket parts since 1975 and was founded by Bill Neumann. Besides being a renowned hot rodder, you may recognize the brand of parts he created called NEUSPEED. Nowadays, NEUSPEED is known by many to supply some of the best parts and accessories for Audi/VW and Acura/Honda vehicles...but did you know that the very first part NEUSPEED ever produced was for a BMW? It's true, the very first NEUSPEED part was an upper front tie-bar for the 1979 BMW 320i. APS and it's NEUSPEED division sold various parts for the 320i over the years so our roots really started with BMW.

Fast forward 30 years, we are back to a BMW produced vehicle. With the R56 MINI, all of us here saw a car with a lot of potential. The car is fun as soon as it leaves the lot, but the car could be more. Parts for the MINI family of vehicles could have simply been sold under the NEUSPEED banner (quite economically), so why did we choose the costlier route of launching a new brand? The fact of the matter is Bill felt the MINI was a very special vehicle in its own niche - an affordable, premium small car with no real competitors and as such deserved its own brand and identity. Although NM Engineering shares some engineering and manufacturing resources with its sibling NEUSPEED, NM Engineering has its own budget, engineering and marketing resources. As such, NM Engineering has found new and more efficient ways to produce and package products and this will also help to improve the NEUSPEED as well! NM Engineering's mantra is to improve your motoring experience, without changing the essence of what makes a MINI a MINI.

As the new year is here, everyone at NM Engineering is excited about the parts and accessories that we will be introducing to enhance every MINI owner's motoring experience. Some parts, like our Hi-Flow Induction Kit, RS-a Performance Spring Kit, Stainless Brake Line Kit and Engine Torque Arm Insert have already made a splash in the community and you can look forward to more in the very near future. Stay tuned to the blog updates...