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Failing Paint and Plasti-Dip
The Gen 1 MINIs had a problem with the clear-coat that was applied at the factory. Some owners were able to talk their way into getting it fixed at the dealer under the extended corrosion warranty. Given that my MINI is long past that option, I decided to pursue a two part strategy: first, I ignored it, but that didn’t work. Second, I decided to cover it up.
Since the two parts that are failing the most were the roof and rear hatch, I thought I’d start with the roof. I always wondered how my car would look (and if it would be any cooler inside) with a white roof. So why not try white plasti-dip? If I don’t like it, peel it off and I’m no worse off. Or so I thought. More later.
Don’t know plasti-dip? Start here at dipyourcar.com. Their website and associated Youtube channel is very informative. My original plan was to dip the roof white, and then apply some sort of vinyl sticker over it. (That didn’t work out either.)
So first the prep. I peeled off the loose flakes of clear-coat, sanded and repainted before applying the dip. With this step I was hoping that when the plastic-dip was removed, it wouldn’t take more of the clear-coat with it.
I masked off the roof, fixed the small flakes, applied the pre-dip treatment and started to apply the plastic-dip. Here’s where my plan veered off course. If you’re using a traditional paint gun, you want to thin the paint and apply a thin first coat. If using rattle cans — like I was — you want a thick first coat. This makes it easier to remove later on. 
I applied the paint too far from the surface and ended up with an un-even suede like finish. When I went to remove it, it wasn’t thick enough to peel in large pieces so to took several hours to rub off. And when it did come off, it took huge chunks of clear-coat with it. Lessons learned, I tried again.
This second time, I sanded and repaired a much larger area of the roof, prepped and started laying down thick, smooth layers. It helps to heat the rattle-cans in warm water for a smoother finish. 
I put down three layers of gray to get some separation from the red, and four layers of white. I was going to use a glossifier finish, but I actually liked the flat white better.
The final surface is not perfectly smooth (hence no sticker on top) but looks pretty good from 5 feet, which is all you need from a track-car. I have since cleaned up the black on the gutters, and dipped the splitter green. All in, I’m happy with the result. I think given the amount of prep work I ended up doing to have a strong enough surface to start with, I could have just painted it white with traditional paint.
Lap of the Extended Jefferson Circuit in the Rain
Continuing the theme of recent posts this soggy summer, here’s a wet lap of the Summit Point Extended Jefferson Circuit. The most challenging part was the new turn 4 which is the transition from the old circuit to the new(ish) extension. There isn’t enough grip to get enough weight transfer to turn-in, so you end up turning in early and just managing your way through the apex. You also had to be careful about getting back on the power at the top of the hill between turns 6 and 7. If you had any steering input still in when you got back on the power, the car would sort of slide off the top of the track to the outside. Some of the data inserts are a little funky, like one corner shows corner speed of zero. Still loads of fun though. Here’s the lap:
Summit Point in the Rain
Track season is just starting to get into full swing so I thought I’d share a lap of Summit Point in the rain. Newly repaved for 2018, the surface as fairly good grip and no more of the inconsistencies from water on seam sealer. The surface is less crowned than before. Water run-off is mostly good, but there are some areas where small streams of water cut across the full width of the track, especially in the exits of turn 2 and 9, both heavy acceleration zones.
Corner Weight & Cross Weight
One of the additional benefits of an adjustable suspension, besides being able to dial-in ride-height and rebound, is the ability to corner weight the car. “Corner weight” refers to the static weight at each of the four wheels. 50-50 front to rear weight distribution is ideal to maximize handling on most road cars, but a distant pipe-dream for MINI owners. “Cross-weight” compares the lateral total (Rear Left + Front Right) to the total weight. If that percentage is over 50%, that’s called “wedge” in NASCAR terms. (Reverse wedge if under 50%). Corner-weight can be changed by adding ballast if necessary to make a weight minimum, or making, adjustments to spring perches and sway-bar pre-tension in an attempt to equalize the weight at each wheel. But more importantly, what matters for handling is near 50% cross-weight in a FWD car.
Take my car as an example: I have an R53 with a rollbar, AC delete, race seats, and a gutted interior. With driver and a full tank of gas, my car weighs 2,685 pounds. 61.8% of that weight is in the front; 38.2% is in the rear. That is slightly better than stock which had a weight of 2,853 (with driver) and 62.7/37.3 weight distribution.
The first time we attempted to corner-weight my car, I only had an adjustable suspension to work with. I didn’t have adjustable drop-links on the swaybars. That resulted in a cross-weight of 52.4%. That isn’t terrible, but still helped to contribute to under-steer in left turns due to wedge. We installed Alta adjustable drop-links on both swaybars, and without adding any ballast, tried again. The results are below:
Each corner is within 5 lbs. of the target weight. Cross-weight is 50%. The car now seems very neutral in left or right corners, which for MINI means equal understeer in both directions, as opposed to excessive understeer when turning left. Result.
Read more about cross-weight at GRM. If you want someone to do the math for you, see this corner balance calculator.
MINI Electric Concept Car at LA Auto Show
I recently spent some time contemplating the Electric MINI concept car at the LA auto show. In many ways it was very old-school: The future was supposed to look different than it’s turned out. This reminds me of those concepts from the 60’s where you didn’t really believe that’s what the future would hold, but you understood some of the styling cues and how current models might evolve. There are a couple of interesting nuggets to behold.
Starting at the rear, you’ll notice a variation of the Union Jack tail lights seen on the JCW GP concept car, but done in white. But more importantly, there’s the new MINI logo in the center. Continuing the trend of recent models, it’s still huge, and now more unappealing. MINI quietly rolled out this logo over the past year, first on the website and now actually going on cars. This version is done in relief, but the actual production logo is “a visual expression known as ‘flat design'”. (You can read more about it here).
I think it’s another sign that MINI design is lost in the wilderness. Let’s review the recipe for a MINI: 1. Take an engine and put a box around it as tightly as possible. 2. Take seating for 4 adults and put a box around it as tightly as possible. 3. Take two pieces of luggage (the other two adults are SOL) and put a box around it. 4. Connect the three boxes in the right order and put a body around it. 5. Put a wheel in each corner. Motoring on with the tour now…
The sculpting of the rear is interesting. Your eye always looks for the exhaust outlet so if the lower trim were flat it wouldn’t look right. It’s hard to tell if they intend the wing to function as a diffuser or not. If there isn’t much more of an upper spoiler or wing than what’s seen here, it would be hard to get a diffuser to work anyway given the turbulence with such a small roof spoiler.
The side splitters could be interesting if they feed an air duct to the rear brake calipers. Not clear if that’s the intent here. If the duct does not feed anywhere, it would just create an air bubble ahead of the turbulence of the rear wheel. It might help reduce some of the drag, but if it doesn’t draw air through the wheel, it would actually reduce cooling to the rear brakes as well as catch debris.
The first thing I noticed from this angle was the sculpting of the fenders. Reminds me of Subarus from the last decade — not a fan. The headlight design over powers the rest of the design.
The front splitter reminds me of Toyota concept cars of recent years as well. The angle is too steep to be effective as a splitter so it just creates drag. The opening at the end is too far off center to be effective at channeling air to the brakes so perhaps they’re to be fed from the center. The headlight design works a little better from this angle, but the inner sculpting is too wide. It reminds me of a Pac-Man face-off.
So what did I like about the car? That paint is gorgeous. It would be impossible to keep clean and not show fingerprints, but it looks great. I like that it’s a small car and not a Countryman or Clubman. Maybe the future for a small MINI will be reborn as electric.
