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: