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Racing Your R53 MINI Cooper? You Need a Rear Chassis Brace!

    The late model R53 MINI Cooper is a very popular car.  Its size and weight make it an ideal candidate to go racing with.  Although the MINI Cooper is already a very capable machine, the factory originally designed the MINI to appeal to the broadest range of customers possible and in doing so left open a window to improve the handling characteristics.

Under hard corning the chassis on the MINI flexes. The result is less than optimum handling.  Back in the day one would install a roll bar to stiffen up the car. But that is a less than desirable option. Who want to cut up their interior and limit the use of their interior?

M7 Tuning Under Chassis Brace for the MINI Cooper

There is a simple solution; the M7 Rear Chassis Brace, designed specifically for the R53 MINI Cooper.  Besides the benefit of more predictable handling, the Rear Chassis Brace allows for comfortable use of the rear seats. Unlike a roll cage, there are no harness bars or cross members to remove to allow access to the rear seats. The position of the rear seats is also unaffected!

M7 Tuning Under Strut System for the MINI Cooper

To further stiffen the MINI Cooper, consider also adding the M7 Tuning Under Strut System and Strut Tower Brace. All three components are also available for the R56 MINI Cooper as well.

M7 Tuning Strut Tower Brace for the MINI Cooper

To learn more about the M7 Tuning Rear Chassis Brace and other chassis parts, please visit them at www.M7Tuning.com.  Improve the handling of your MINI Cooper. Order a Rear Chassis Brace today!

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Why Your MINI Cooper Needs A Strut Tower Brace

The modern MINI Cooper is a wonderful car. MINI is owned by BMW and the BMW build quality is evident throughout the car. That said the car is not perfect.  One weak area involves problems with the strut towers.

It is well documented that the modern MINI’s have a problem with the strut towers, especially on cars with low aspect ratio tires.  When using a low aspect ratio tire there is less give in the tire and any heavy impact, such as a large pot hole, will cause the energy from the impact to be transferred to the shock tower causing it to mushroom.  Mushrooming can also be caused by many small events as well. Mushrooming is a term that is used when the metal around the top of the strut tower stretches from its original shape.

Once the strut towers have mushroomed you might notice the car pulling towards one side or the other. This means the car is no longer in alignment. Once mushrooming occurs, it may be impossible to properly align the car without repairing the strut towers.

The solution to prevent mushrooming is to purchase and install a strut tower brace with an integrated anti-mushrooming plate. The anti-mushrooming plates are made from thick plate metal and attach directly to the top of the strut tower. To add even more strength, a bar is placed between the two towers to prevent them from moving sideways.

Top quality strut bars with integrated anti-ballooning plate are available from companies like M7 Tuning. Don’t wait for the strut towers to balloon on your MINI. Order and install a strut tower brace system today!

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The Importance of A Rear Wing For the MINI Cooper

The modern MINI Cooper is a fantastic handling car. It’s lite weight and compact and comes equipped with a very capable suspension. That said, there is still room for improvement. Under extreme lateral maneuvers, the rear end of the MINI can lose traction and start sliding. The best way to fix this problem is to add grip to the rear of the car. Adding grip is not easy. The simplest way is to add vertical load to the tires either by increased rear weight or aerodynamic downforce. Adding weight is not what you want to do to a racecar. So what do you do?

The solution is to add rear downforce by installing a properly designed rear wing. The wing works like an inverted airplane wing. By making the shape of the bottom of the wing different than the top, we can generate down pressure. While one side is flat, the other has a curve to it. As the air travels over the wing, it speeds up as it travels along the longer bottom surface and generates a low pressure area while the top flow generates a higher pressure area.  This creates down force on the rear of the car and on the rear tires without the negative effects of a weight penalty. The faster you go the more downforce is generated. More downforce produces more grip so it is a win/win situation. 

Not all rear wings are created equally.  Some are purely cosmetic and create very little down force, and in many cases slow you down and kill your MPG by creating tremendous amounts of drag. By far the best rear wing for the MINI Cooper is made by M7 Tuning. They offer a street/strip C-Wing and an all-out race version called the C-Wing Extreme.  Both are fully adjustable so you can trim them for maximum downforce or minimum drag or a combination of the two. For more info on the wings offered by M7 Tuning visit them at www.M7Tuning.com.

Besides being totally functional, the M7 Tuning C-Wing looks totally cool and will set your MINI apart from the other millions of MINI’s on the road. Take the handling of your MINI Cooper to a whole new level with a rear wing!

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Products Designed To Make Your MINI Cooper Handle Better

Everyone is familiar with the cute Mini Cooper. While the car may be cute, it also has the potential to be a machine with serious handling capabilities. From the factory the Mini Cooper already handles pretty good. In fact, better than most compact cars. That doesn’t mean this still isn’t a ton of room for improvements. Let’s take a look at the handling upgrades being made for the late model Minis by the premier aftermarket manufacturers.

Strut Reinforcement Plate: The M7 strut tower plates are designed to stop the strut towers from mushrooming. These plates help keep the body stiff and the result is a car that responds better to the drivers input.

Strut Tower Brace: The strut tower brace is designed to stop the strut towers from flexing under load. This makes the entire body more rigid. The car will handle and respond much butter with a strut tower brace.

Under body strut tower brace: M7 makes the R56 Under Strut System that features 3 sections of bracing. There are 2 braces for the front and 1 for the rear.  They connect together to triangulate the bottom of the vehicle for much improved chassis stiffness. This improved stiffness will give the MINI better turn-in capability and will also greatly reduce under steer.

Rear Chassis Brace: When exposed to hard cornering the Mini is prone to chassis flex. This results in poor handling characteristics and the need for the driver to compensate. The cure to this problem is installing a rear chassis brace. The M7 Rear Chassis Brace is ideal for people who want the body of their Mini to be stiffer, but don't want to deal with the fabrication and installation of a roll cage.

Rear Control Arms: If you lower your Mini you will negatively affect the suspension geometry of the vehicle. The result is more negative camber to the rear wheels which causes poor handling and uneven tire wear. While late model Mini’s have the ability to adjust camber, the range of adjustability is limited. The solution is to use the M7 adjustable Rear Control Arms along with the H-Sport Front Camber plates.  The Rear Control Arms will allow you to customize your alignment settings to fit your personal style of driving.

Lowering Springs: M7 offers a range of lowering springs. Besides making the car look great, lowering a car lowers the center of gravity. This results in a car that stays planted on the pavement.

From the factory the Mini Cooper pulls 0.87g’s. With the many options available form www.M7Tuning.com you can improve on those numbers greatly! Keep up with the exotic performance cars by upgrading your Mini’s suspension today.

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Get the scoop on a Hood Scoop for your MINI Cooper

Get the scoop on a Hood Scoop for your MINI Cooper

You’ve seen them before.  MINI hood scoops that look very different from the stock hood scoops the MINI came with when it left the factory. What prompts owners to upgrade their factory hood scoops? Where do you find these scoops? Are they difficult to install? Let’s answer these questions.

There are a couple reasons a MINI owner may choose to upgrade their hood scoop. First, they permit more air to enter the engine through the larger opening in the scoop. More air into the motor means more power. Second, the additional volume of fresh air helps drop the temperature of the air feeding the motor. This is especially important on a turbocharged or supercharged engine. Cool air means more power. Third, an aftermarket scoop provides a much more aggressive look to the front end of the car.  

The leader innovator in MINI Hood Scoop manufacturing is M7 Tuning.  They make hood scoops for both the R53 and R56 models. What I like about the M7 Tuning’s version of their hood scoops is the fit and finish of their product, along with the test proven engine performance gains. They are manufactured from high quality, hand laid and hand finished fiberglass. There are also available in a carbon fiber finish, too. The fiberglass version of their scoop comes ready to paint and is designed to fit into the factory mounting holes without any modifications. They are very simple DIY projects that any owner with minimum mechanical skills can install. They offer a number of good looking high performance scoops:

M7 Extreme Hood Scoop – This scoop comes with a very aggressive look. It provides max air flow and feeds cold air directly to the motor.

M7 Vortex 1 Scoop – This scoop is more aggressive than the stock hood scoop (less so than the Extreme) and comes equipped with vortex generators placed onto surface of the scoop to enhance airflow.

M7 Ram Hood Scoop – a less aggressive version of the Extreme Hood Scoop.

M7 DFIC Baby Scoop - The Baby Scoop is designed to take air from the front of the car and channel it under the M7 DFIC. This helps to lower the under-the-hood air temperatures. It does not feed air directly to the motor.

If you want to increase the performance of your MINI engine while at the same time differentiating the look of your MINI, look no further than a hood scoop from M7 Tuning! To learn more about M7 Tuning and their selection of hood scoops please visit www.m7tuning.com