On car adjustable tie bars
Turbo Mini Forums

After spending yesterday rolling around on the floor swearing at my tie bars I'm considering a set of on car adjustable ones, now as it's a road car I'm not after rose jointed ones so that limits my options a bit.

So far I've only been able to find three sets:

1) Min-its, no the upside Min-its don't sell tat, on the down side they are the most expensive and I can't find a picture of there bottom arms so I would be buying blind so to speak.

2) Avonbar, on the upside Avonbar are the cheapest and also have a good reputation, on the down side they look a bit thin.

Avonbar Items No.3

3) MiniSport, on the upside they look a bit meatier than the Avonbar ones, on the downside I've not heard the best of things about MiniSport.

MiniSport Items

Does anyone have any experience with any of these tie bars? or are there any other out that I've missed which you'd recommend?

As long as the welds are good they will be fine.

I would go with Avonbar, miglias of often use thin tie bars, i have Peter Baldwin's broken tie bar that let loose on Quarry but that is extreem racing, lots more than you will ever be giving it.

Avonbar.

JF.

These are what you want. http://www.minispares.com/Product.aspx?pid=34995

I start with these then machine them for rose joints, they are the best.

For road use, as you say use them as standard with rubber mounts.

Wil

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

I've had the Minispares items for about 6 years and no probs. I still used the front mount for jacking the car up and they haven't bent. Still I go through an unholy about of tie bar bushes though.

I use the minispares one on my sportspack for years. Every good cannot fault them

Rob,

I really don't see the point in the on-car adjustable bars for a road car, I just don't.

The type that Wil advises is perfectly ok (£23.50 from Min-Its .....)

To all intents a purposes they are on car adjustable anyway .... loosen the lock nuts, rotate the bar (protect it first with something before getting the grips out) and re-tighten lock nut.

As for bushes I clocked up over 30k miles on one set of bushes (Mini-Its uprated Comp bushes ... £4 for a car set) and only took them off because I got paint on them .... fussy sod me. They are the devil to get on though .... really nasty!

I am going up to Min-Its before the next club meet Rob. I can get them for you and give them to you there to save postage if you like.

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

oh

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

I use the minispares ones also, surely once they are adjusted you shouldnt realy need to adjust them again, use them with the c-str627 bushes also as i think these are hard to beat and make a big improvement.

'On car' ajustibles are a total waste of money. You can adjust all types when on the car, you just have to slacken the end nut off first so the rod can turn in the bush. Works even better with poly bushes, dont even need to slacken them off on mine!.

The only problem with the Minispares ones are that yiu cannot use 6 pot calipers with them should you wish

On 5th Sep, 2011 Vegard said:
I stand corrected. You should know

Rob, I think your getting a little bling'd out mate.

For a road car you'll set them once and forget them.

How often have you adjusted them on your car since the initial set-up mate???

Now for the climber it might be worth having the adjustment .... then as slater said I don't normally slacken of the front nuts ... just wrap some protective fibreglass tape around them and get the wrench on 'tm ...

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

what reasons do you adjust the tie-bars as i really dont know!

SKYLINES ARE LIKE CLITS, EVERY FLANGE SEEMS TO HAVE ONE: see this sticker on my silvia

the Search-section on this forum is blummin superb & simple to use, unlike some other forums, without the search-section & the help of this bunch of chaps on here i'll never be able to !!!Start the day with a 998cc turbo!!! :) i'm getting closer though!

Tom Fenton says: I have it all, make me an offer

Rob .... exactlty the reason you should weld them up once you've got them set upright ..... LOL .. stops the temptation to fiddle.

:)

To be fair I have never adjusted them apart from at build to get the geometry right (well as I want it).

I assume it is for the open, if you really want to improve the handling of then fit some fresh air in the boot rather than the tonne and a half of ICE you have in there :)

I'm sure you have seen my welded up "adjustable camber / tracking" bracket on the back of the 'Green ... set them right and leave them that way IMHO........

Edited by RogerM on 6th Jan, 2007.

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

what should be the baseline settings for toe-in/out, caster * what starting point should i go with for rear camber 0 or a little bit of negative, as fot these adjustible tie-bars you have made me decide to get mine on & setup & leave them, surely the heavy duty ones that are a thicker bar add some stiffness/strength to the front suspesion

SKYLINES ARE LIKE CLITS, EVERY FLANGE SEEMS TO HAVE ONE: see this sticker on my silvia

the Search-section on this forum is blummin superb & simple to use, unlike some other forums, without the search-section & the help of this bunch of chaps on here i'll never be able to !!!Start the day with a 998cc turbo!!! :) i'm getting closer though!

Tom Fenton says: I have it all, make me an offer

If you ask 100 Mini people you will get 100 different answers to that question.

I normally start with;

rear toe; std.
rear camber 0.3 degree negative

front toe; std.
front camber; 0.5 degree negative
front castor; 4.5 degrees (although personal preference, which many people don't agree with).

For front castor I'd probably recomend that you start with the standard setting then increase the castor until you find the steering feel unaceptable then go back a bit.

I know people who run upto 8 degrees of castor .... try parking that with sticky 175/50/13s on!!

Edited by RogerM on 6th Jan, 2007.

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

so caster is'nt the biggest issue on a road car that just does track days maybe 6 times a yr tops, the uprated tie-bars just give some extra strength really, my current setup is solid mounted front frame, 1.5 degree bottom arms, any other bushes are polyurathane, spax dampers & hi-lows, my tracking is'nt to good & needs setting up proporly but its hard because nowhere near me does minis running 10" wheels, the rear i'm only running hi-lows & spax but have adjustible camber brackets to fit

SKYLINES ARE LIKE CLITS, EVERY FLANGE SEEMS TO HAVE ONE: see this sticker on my silvia

the Search-section on this forum is blummin superb & simple to use, unlike some other forums, without the search-section & the help of this bunch of chaps on here i'll never be able to !!!Start the day with a 998cc turbo!!! :) i'm getting closer though!

Tom Fenton says: I have it all, make me an offer

Castor is a personal thing, depends a lot on how you drive as are most suspension settings really.

I would say on a powerful FWD car you should try and run as much castor as you can live with unless you live a skitish front end....... like I do.

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

indeed, i prefer quite a 'heavy' feel to the steering when cornering, gives me the impression the cars more sure footed etc, prob makes little to no difference performance wise, but like above, its my preference.

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

Keep increasing castor then. Most people like fairly light steering. I must admit that my friends car running 8 degrees (required mods to top arm to IIRC) is to heavy for my tastes.

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

I finally got my castor set just right after months of fiddling but now the wheels rub (badly!) on the front of the arches. Not much of a point to this post but that's another thing to consider when setting castor.

Yes, if your wanting much more castor than normal you should consider modding the top wishbones too

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

What Mods do you reccomend Roger?
Regards
Dave

It's a pain in the but but you need to move the top arm rearward by a few mm (depends on what castor you want) so as to spread the off set between top and bottom.

Depending on how much you want to remove there are several ways to do it.

Best to look at it, measure twice .. measure again and then, only after a cuppa, think about making the mods.

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...