GeorgeCo.org

GeorgeCo Blue MINI is for Sale

The GeorgeCo Blue MINI is back in stock configuration and is currently for sale. You can find it listed on Cars.com. This car is fully loaded with just about every option that was available to order at the time. It has the Premium, Sport, and Winter Packages, Black Panther Leather Interior, premium stereo, and Xenon Headlights. Extremely reliable and very fun to drive. Would make an excellent daily driver. 34 MPG on the highway with an average of 29 MPG in mixed driving.

Here are all of the features: Harmon Kardon 6 Speaker Audio with Boost, single CD/AM/FM Radio with Aux input for iPod/iPhone; Cruise Control; Trip Computer; Multifunction Steering Wheel; Panther Black Leather Interior; Heated Seats and Mirrors; dualpane panorama sliding sunroof; automatic climate control; tinted windows; 17inch Wheels with new All-Season Tires. ABS Brakes with Dynamic Stability Control (DSC). Xenon headlights with washers. Upgrades: JCW Injectors; 15% reduction Supercharger Pulley; Custom Tune; Quaife Limited Slip Differential; Short Shifter; Alta 22mm 3way adjustable rear swaybar; HSport adjustable rear control arms, new clutch. MD State Inspection. CARFAX certified oneowner car. Nonsmoker.

The Doctor is In

I love it when a product actually works as advertised. The product in this case is produced by Dr. Color Chip. The good doctor produces an automotive touch-up paint kit that really works. Here’s how: Let’s say you have a car with a very blunt nose, like a MINI.

After a number of years, the entire leading edge of the hood can get really chipped as you see in the photo above. If you use regular touch-up paint, you end up with little blotches of paint where there once were chips. Almost and anti-chip and just as ugly.

With Dr. Color Chip, you dab paint on the chip, smear with a gloved finger and once dry to the touch, you buff with the secret sauce.

The key is the blending agent. It removes the excess paint, but leaves enough to cover the chip. Polish with a microfiber towel and the results are amazing.

You aren’t going to win a concourse with this, but from five feet away, it looks much better than the traditional blotch approach. In fact, most of the blotches you see in the photo above were from using the previous method. I’m a convert.

More sound, less mud

If you read any of the reviews about the first generation New MINI audio systems you know they were not well received. The base audio system is generally considered as sounding muddy and has no bass. The more expensive Harman Kardon system is a bit better with uprated speakers and an amp located in the boot, but the amp adds weight and weight is the enemy of fast, so we here at GeorgeCo wanted to see if we could make the base system sound better then the HK system without adding a significant amount of weight to the car. Remember, we do this so you don’t have to. Fortunately for us, the Blue GeorgeCo MINI has the HK system, and the Red GeorgeCo MINI has the base system. GeorgeCo often spends four hours a day commuting to work and from work, so sound is important.

We started by trolling the interwebs for various speaker reviews and finally settled upon Polk Audio component speakers in the front (DB-6501) and 6×9 inch speakers in the rear (DB-691). If you use the Crutchfield configurator, it will recommend the 6501s, but not the 691s, but don’t fear, they will fit as you’ll see. When it came time to find the best deal, we couldn’t beat Amazon with Prime shipping. You will need the speaker adapter from Crutchfield however.

Getting started. Like everything else on GeorgeCo: use at your own risk. Start by disconnecting your car battery. Did we do that? No, but you should. You know why. If you have a Bentley guide, follow it for door and interior panel removal. If you don’t have one, here’s the short version. Door panels have 4 Torx Screws. Carefully remove the small round reflector to see the one hidden behind it. If you have a 2005-2006 Cooper S, you have to remove the arm rest to see the fourth screw. The arm rest slides off once you release the hidden catch. It slides from back to front. Slide a kitchen knife along the door bar between the padding and the bar along the center axis of the bar. Apply gentle pressure to pull the pad to the front of the car. When you trip the catch, it will slide forward easily. Do not force it or you will break the plastic tabs on the door bar.

To remove the door panel, use an appropriate trim removal tool or carefully wrap a screw driver so you don’t scratch your paint or rip the panel, and begin prying the panel loos at the corner. Once you get the first tab to release, work your hand behind the panel and move around the edge of the door. To remove it from the top edge, pull straight toward you. Once the panel is free, remove the trim ring around the door handle by gently squeezing the tabs from behind to free it.

The speaker wire splits and one set of wires run up to the very inexpensive tweeter built into the door handle and the other runs to the mid-range speaker lower in the door. There was no cross-over built into the OEM base system so the tweeter just has an inline filter to filter out the mid and low ranges. Disconnect the wire to the tweeter and tie it off, it will not be reused. Remove the tweeter by gently prying it out of the plastic setting. Remove the lower speaker by removing the four screws and unplug the wire.

When you compare the old speaker to the new one, you’ll see how much you have to build up the new speaker to get it to fit correctly in the door panel. This is where the adapter from Crutchfield comes in handy. The speaker comes with one mounting ring, but it is not thick enough. You have to use that ring with the Crutchfield adapter to get the right thickness. Use your dremel tool to remove the tabs for a clean install. We used a wire adapter also from Crutchfield to retain the stock wire harness. Run that wire to the cross-over and run a wire from the cross-over to the speaker. We hid the crossover in the door cavity using automotive tape and zip-ties. (We like to avoid drilling if we can.) Be sure to run a new wire from the cross-over up to the tweeter before you mount it in the door.

If you have enough patience, I’m sure you can mount the tweeter in the door handle frame using the supplied mounting clips. This would hid the tweeter behind the stock speaker grille in the trim piece. We saw a different approach that we liked so we didn’t do that. We chose to mount it in the trim piece which meant we needed a way to disconnect it from the wiring so we added connectors to the wire running from the cross-over and left the tweeter hanging as we went to work on the trim piece.

To cut out the stock grille, we first used a hole-saw to cut a rough opening.

Then we used a dremel tool to remove an additional eighth of an inch or so to make the new tweeter fit snugly into the opening.

With a little epoxy to hold it in place, it looked like it came that way from the factory. Installation of the door panel is the reverse of removal. (We love saying that.) We made sure we had the tweeter angle correctly before setting the epoxy and put the trim piece back on the door handle. It looks like it was meant to be there and you can’t see the upgraded speaker behind the other factory grille which was our intent.

Time to switch attention to the rear speakers. The process for the rear is not as complex fabrication-wise, but it is time consuming due to the process of removing the necessary interior trim panels. Start by removing the rear seats. Fold the seats down and look between the seat backs for the clamp. Loosen the 10 mm bolt and pry up on the clamp to gain access to the pivot-point. Working on either side first, pull out the pivot point, and rotate the seatback to 45 degrees and pull out. The pin on the opposite side will release. Repeat for the other seatback. Remove the seat bottom by first lifting up on the leading edge to release it from either side. Pull up on the child seat retention blocks to release them, then lift the seat back from the front at an angle to release it where it is caught under the catch that’s part of the clamp you worked with for the seat backs. Switch your attention to the boot, and remove the rear trim panel around the boot lid latch.

There are three plastic pop-rivets to remove and then pull straight up to release the four catches. You may need to remove the carpet to get to the lateral trim pieces. The carpet has two plastic pop-rivets and then then lifts out. The lateral trim has three screws and a series of plastic catches. They appear yellow in this photo:

Start at the rear and work along the bottom edge, pulling gently to release the catches. Working from the door, pull the gasket along the lateral trim piece off the door jam along the trim piece to free the bottom. Pull the lateral trim piece straight toward you to release the top edge along the window.

Remove the old speaker by removing the four screws and the retention clips. Unplug the speaker. Because the new speakers sit higher than the old ones, we’re going to mount them from behind. Since we can’t get behind the sheet-metal to hold them in place, we have to get creative. We used three-quarter inch bolts, mounted from behind the speaker and secured with washers and nuts. We then used the spacer provided by Polk and placed it on top of the speaker to set it even further back when we mount it in the opening. We then plugged in the new speaker, held it by the tweeter stack, worked it into the opening and put the bolts through from behind and secured them with another set of washers and nuts. This way, the speaker with the tweeter stack sits behind the factory grille in the lateral trim piece.

Reverse the steps for the lateral trim installation. Line it up, press in the leading edge along the window. Start at the door and line up the yellow catches. Press in the catches. Put the screws back in and then reverse the rest of the removal steps. Larger photos here.

So how does it sound? The difference is amazing. You’re not going to rock your neighborhood, but there’s a good deal of bass now and the mid and high tones are much crisper. The muddiness is gone and the best part is I didn’t have to add an amp so the weight gain was minimal.

Early Signs of Spring

A sure sign of Spring: The UPS man bringing new competition tires. Oh yes…

Cold Winter Days

January is a great time to turn up the space heater and hunker-down in the garage, dreaming of warmer weather and open track ahead of you. We took advantage of the warmer than usual weather in December to complete most of the prep work on the Red MINI for the upcoming autocross season, so it’s time to turn our attention to back the Blue MINI.

Blue MINI is being prepped to be sold. The goals of the refresh are fairly straight forward: reduce harshness of the ride; reduce cabin noise; and install a more traffic friendly clutch. The suspension has been returned to stock; the stock flywheel has been resurfaced and is ready to go back in as soon as the clutch kit arrives; so this past weekend we turned to the issue of cabin noise.

Interior cabin noise in the Blue MINI exceeded 110 db on the highway with the old exhaust. Though not quite painful, it tended to drone and cause ringing in the ears after long drives. Not a problem with the windows down and helmet on at the track, but not conducive to conversation on the highway. The current Ireland Engineering exhaust is much quieter, but still not as quiet as stock. The road noise was a combination of factors: large tread-blocks on the max performance summer tires; the cold air intake transmitting intake noise; the single-mass flywheel rattling at idle; and the exhaust being louder than stock. A change of tires took care of the first issue. Switching back to the stock intake cured the second. When the new clutch is installed we will switch back to the stock flywheel eliminating the rattle. That just leaves the exhaust noise.

We put five sheets of Hushmat under the carpet in the boot to provide a little additional sound deadening from the rear mounted muffler. (It adds weight to the car, but it adds it low and in the back where it’s needed.) When we got out on the highway and up to speed, the overall cabin noise is down significantly. Putting a new exhaust on the car when you don’t have a lift in your garage is a literal pain in the back, one we’re hoping to avoid with the Hushmat.

Found at the Mall

I stopped by Tysons Galleria for lunch expecting to see the usual Ferrari, Maserati, and Lambos on display (not your ordinary mall…) and much to my surprise they had a Fisker Karma there too.

I’m not sure what to make of the design. It seems well built, even if the panel gaps are a bit large. I wasn’t expecting it to be this big. The proportions are just slightly wrong. I’m not sure if it’s because of the huge wheels or the fact that the wheels are pushed out to the ends of the body, but something isn’t right. It reminds me of a cross between a BMW Z4 (not a pretty parent) and a C6 Corvette. For $112K you can have a ‘lectric super-car with a 32 mile range too. I wonder if this is Colin Powell’s car…

GeorgeCo Convertible Follow-up

Longtime readers will recall we sold the GeorgeCo convertible last Spring as pictured above. We hoped to find someone who would take the time to restore it. This week we got an update: Not yet complete, but so far, nicely done. About the only bits we recognize are the seat covers.

Last Motoring Event of 2011

Saturday brought the last motoring event of the year for GeorgeCo. It was a very nice late Autumn day of sliding and sloshing on the skidpad at Summit Point with the other instructors from the local BMW club. GeorgeCo got a chance to test out the Red MINI’s new suspension and even got to drive a friend’s 911.

I’ve instructed in a Porsche a couple of times and really enjoyed the opportunity to drive it on the skidpad. I’d like to say I instantly mastered oversteer, but that would be not true. It’s a very different experience to feel the car rotating around you at a point somewhere in the middle of the rear seats. Most of my MINI tricks didn’t work (ie more power in oversteer) and the balance just feels wrong. It wasn’t until later in the session that I finally figured out to ease up on the wheel, let the wheels straighten and keep steady power and it sorts itself out. You can’t lift suddenly and more power just speeds up the spin, but steady power seems to do the trick. That was fun.

The new suspension on Red MINI proved to be a good choice. The middle setting on the Alta rear swaybar took out most of the understeer, but didn’t make the car tail happy so as to induce oversteer on sudden throttle lift. It’s very neutral with a slight bias to understeer which is the way I like it. We set up some cones and got a chance to practice a little scandinavian flick action. The IE fixed camber plates provide a much less harsh ride than the adjustable plates in the Blue MINI. I think I’m going to like this set-up.

The track was quiet all day. I don’t think I’ve been here before when there wasn’t some sort of event going on. The run-off area in turn one had a certain zen garden quality to it. Be the curve.

The Low Down

We’ve been busy here at GeorgeCo during the last few weeks of Autumn, taking advantage of the warmer than expected weather to get some projects done before the cold and snow of Winter sets in. Even as we prepare to sell the GeorgeCo Blue MINI, work continues on the Red MINI. In addition to getting the FES-Auto shift light to work in the new car, we finally made some suspension modifications. Here’s a brief recap:

We picked up a set of 17 inch R90 wheels couple of months ago and they were a little worse for wear under the previous owner. Nothing structural, but better to be straightened than to worry. A quick trip to the Rim Doctor and they look great, but they also really highlighted the fact that the car rides too high in stock configuration. (You can thank taller springs from the factory due to our crappy roads in the US for that.) Keeping in mind the performance goals of this car — faster, quieter, and smoother than the Blue MINI — we set to work on the suspension.

The stock Cooper S suspension is very competent from the factory. Optimized for occasional spirited driving, it starts to show its weaknesses when you get it on the track and really push it. The front wheels have little to no camber. The 17mm rear swaybar is undersized. The result is a serious tendency to understeer and excessive tire wear on the outer edges. The taller springs increase body roll and exaggerate the understeer.

We solved the camber problem in the Blue MINI with adjustable camber plates, but they proved too harsh for daily driving and were a major source of the uncomfortable ride. We liked the performance of the Bavarian Autosport lowering springs on the Blue MINI, but the Koni shocks just added to the harshness. To build on what we learned from the Blue MINI, we started with the parts we liked (BavAuto springs, stock shocks) and built from there.

BavAuto springs lowered the car and eliminated the raked stance that comes from the factory. We installed them over stock MINI shocks. Since the rear end picks up camber with the lowering springs, we added Hsport adjustable control arms to reset camber to negative 1.5 degrees. (Toe is set to 1/8 inch Toe-In for the rear to provide high speed stability.) We added a 22mm adjustable Alta rear swaybar to dial-out the inherent understeer. By sitting lower on the springs we also needed to reset the swaybar back to a right angle relative to the droplink, so we added adjustable drop links, also from Alta. (While we had the wheels off, we also added brass bushings to the rear brake calipers.)

Having finished the rear end, we switched our attention to the front where we installed Ireland Engineering fixed camber plates over the BavAuto springs on stock MINI struts. If you remove the wheel liners, you can actually install the springs and camber plates without removing the strut from the hub. Just disconnect the strut from the front sway bar, compress the springs, disconnect the strut tower plate from the car and you can remove the springs and reinstall the new camber plates. The IE fixed plates are supposed to provide 1.25 degrees of negative camber on stock springs. Unlike the adjustable camber plates where the bearing is set in a thin setting of urethane, the fixed plates are set in a rubber bushing. You end up trading adjust-ability for ride comfort. When we got the car back from the alignment, we were happy to see they provide 2.5 degrees of negative camber on the BavAuto springs. (Toe is set to zero in the front.)

The net result of all of these changes is pretty dramatic. The car has a nice stance; is tall enough to get out of the driveway and over speed bumps; and is firm but not harsh. We’re heading out to the skidpad on Saturday to dial-in the swaybar. For now, it’s set in the middle setting which proved the best setting on the Blue MINI in the past. The photo below shows the previous ride height superimposed on the new stance.

MINI Cooper Coupe First Impressions

I found myself getting off of the local interstate highway last Friday to avoid traffic only to discover two things: (1) The road I chose (MD 355) was also blocked in both directions because of an accident, and (2) Passport MINI of Alexandria now has a showroom in Rockville. Since I wasn’t going anywhere anyway, I decided to stop by and check out the new MINI Cooper Coupe.

The had all three flavors on the lot — Cooper, Cooper S, and JCW. I’m not sure what to make of this car. On paper it’s very interesting: Lightest, most powerful JCW car to date. Coupe hardtop means it should be a screamer on the track. The windshield is considerably more raked than the standard Hardtop, but it did not seem as claustrophobic as say an Audi TT feels. I adjusted the seat for my long upper torso and had plenty of room for a helmet. Visibility wasn’t bad. Trunk room is expansive and I like the pass-through slot. Sort of reminds me of the ski pass-through on the old E30s.

I initially hated the interior when the first R56 MINIs came out, but they have really improved the quality of materials as well as the overall feel of the interior. That quality comes at a price, however. This JCW car without all of the optional packages, came in over $32K. A well built JCW can now run north of $50K which is nuts.

And then there’s that roof. MINI describes it as a baseball cap worn backwards. I was thinking “goofy” or “incomplete” would be more descriptive. The car reminds me of the lovechild of a second generation new MINI and a Mazda MX5 cup racer with a hard top. Compare the real car, to the GeorgeCo Photoshop hack job:

Next up in the spring is a roadster. Now that will be a car to take a second look at. From behind, the goofy roof just makes the butt look huge.

So what’s the take-away? I like that MINI is making specialty cars just like the old days. I think the roadster has potential. But the Coupe? It’s a swing and a miss. Maybe I’ll think differently if I ever drive one.