What did you do to your MINI today?

Preload is when you compress a spring more before installing. The ST design of the coilover compresses the spring to lower it unlike other coilovers where raising/lowering doesn't compress the spring at all. The ST springs are also progressive so the lower you go, the higher the spring rate so it is stiffer.

I have the ST X coilovers so I can't adjust the shocks.

 

I set the dampening to the suggested 9 out of 18 for both front and back. It feels pretty similiar to what I had before but I am no expert by any means. The front dampening is easy to adjust but the rears you will have to pull the shock out to make the adjustment.

I do feel like there is a little more vibration but it may just be feeling the road a little more because it is lower. I may try to lower it a little more before getting it aligned next week just to have something to compare it to.

 

Seasonal wheel swap from summer shoes to all-seasons.

 

It's been a long weekend!
Drove to Franklin NC on Thursday for the North Carolina Autocross Championship. Friday, there was a mountain drive arranged up to Bryson City. That was a Corvette, a Clubman and me. The Clubman guy knew of a Mini Dragon run group, so we both showed to their supermarket pre meet. Around 40 Minis there. I was the only SE. There were two GPs...

Saturday, first autocross day. I'm finally starting to get used to a really loose FWD car and didn't do as badly as usual. 2nd in class, out of 3 1.4s behind the leader. The gap is creeping down. 28th out of 70 on PAX.
Sunday. I pretty much went full send all runs. First 3 were a bit messy. But then I started playing some Deep Purple loudly and the next 5 came together better. Well, not as badly. 2nd in class again. 30th on PAX. I was less than a second behind my personal G Street nemesis for the first time ever.
We came 2nd in the club cup. I wasn't even the slowest in my club!
Today, drove home. I drove on my autocross tyres and pumped them way high to try to reduce drag. I took the scenic route from Cherokee to Asheville on the Blue ridge parkway. It can be done on a single charge. I don't know about the other way, check elevations...



1st day, I think this was my fastest.



2nd day, 2nd fastest run. The fastest still needs editing:

 

As a new two-EV family, I moved my SE's parking spot to our other garage because the new F-150 Lightning only fits where I had been parking the SE. Because of the move I programmed the additional universal garage door opener buttons for the new garage (it's got a door on both sides, so two buttons). The owner's guide isn't clear, because it talks about step two for rolling codes before step one. But the MINI programming video posted by @Cheap Sunglasses is very clear and made things easy. The only thing I did differently from the video was skip the initial clearing of programming by holding the two outer buttons down.

 

How do they do that?

 

I added liners to my door handles, great phone or wallet caddy, Added snubby antenna, floor mats, rear "boot" liner, garage door opener hook up, BUT the best thing is I discovered the rear seat forward position lock! Alalog clock display, fresnel lens to see traffic lights! LEIC35TER number plate on front!!

 

Put the winter wheels (with Hakkapeliitta R3s) on Météore today. Which means the Power Spoke wheels are now in storage in their protective tire totes. It was near 60 ºF but starting tomorrow we're heading into highs in the 30s.

 

I'm joining the club and storing the Power Spoke wheels safely in the garage for the winter. New wheels and tires installed yesterday. Wheels were from tirerack and were $120 each. Tires are Continental DWS06+. Center caps were from an online Mini dealer for $20 shipped. We don't get snow, but it was 39 F this morning. I looked for about 2 months trying to find a used set of Mini Cooper wheels, but the only ones for sale near me were a 4 bolt pattern.

 

I drove 158 miles today, round-tripping to another city. Stopped twice at the same EVgo charger briefly to collect some extra electrons, but the second stop wasn't really necessary. Drive was a mixture of state highways, surface streets, and interstate, with the A/C on roughly half the time. All in all, I used 111% of the battery capacity for the trip, translating to an overall range of 142 miles.

ETA: Looking at the segments making up this trip, it was the 3rd segment where my efficiency was the lowest. Conclusion is that multiple full-current accelerations are more costly than driving steadily at 65-70 mph in the interstate.

 

Winter (all weather) shoes and wheels put on Hooligan as well

 

Where in the photo should I look to see the Hooligan?

 

Added some fog lights to the SE:

 

I put on my winter wheels a week ago. They are JCW takeoffs so they had the red JCW center caps and valve stem caps. I swapped out the caps for the yellow ones for the SE when I installed the wheels. I didn’t like the valve caps so I ordered some yellow caps that we use on airplanes at Boeing. The yellow matches the energetic yellow of the center caps and other trim items really well!!

Here is a link to the caps: https://pilotshq.com/products/yellow-brass-aircraft-valve-cap-637?currency=USD&variant=32558816952456&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=7d9809af00ec&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwy4KqBhD0ARIsAEbCt6ijn3zvO7FGT_pJAddL7wGtRweMKSf0xIOp_Es9qgm1aqf9JSTSWiEaAoBkEALw_wcB


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I too had my winter wheels installed today. (I used to do it in my driveway, but since my floor jack doesn't fit under the SE and it didn't come with a jack, I was happy to have someone else do it for me.) There was snow in the air today, but none that stuck to the ground.

 

Some photos




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I find the Goodyears work well at just about any temperature as long as the roads are dry. First winter with my SE I did (carefully) drive on icy roads as an experiment, while waiting for my Spectre Grey Revolites to arrive from Germany, and as expected they do they not provide any traction. If not for the SE's low center of gravity and regenerative braking I might not have been able to get anywhere.