St Louis region is where I have the most data from last year and what I’ve been most looking forward to as far as competing. Despite my best efforts last year in the old car, I ended the year 38th in PAX overall. No doubt this has a lot to do with me racing in…
With this weekend being an off weekend, thought it’d be a good chance for some overall updates: After about 4,000 miles and 60 runs of autocross, the car is averaging about 34mpg – not bad. Best tank was 38.7mpg, which includes autocross – and it was doing at least 43mpg before the event went on…
A few things worth noting before I jump into the event reviews: the MINI is running great on the Pennzoil Ultra so far – oil analysis will let me know just how good it does, but feels great – smoother than OEM MINI oil for sure. I hit a solid 43mpg at one point with…
This is somewhat of a delayed post, as I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about this. I’ve taken my car to Firestone in the past for alignments, mainly because: all I really need is for the shop to zero out the toe, and they offer lifetime alignments. I had figured in the…
Posting up some pictures from the CCSCC’s 1st event! Like seeing the suspension move, not a lot of drama here.
Changed the transmission fluid on my 2013 Mini Cooper today, I thought I’d post a quick how-to for this job. This how-to applies to all R56 MINIs, from 2007-2013, and includes the MCS. The difference with the MCS is that it takes slightly more fluid (2.0qts vs 1.8 for base) and the torque spec is…
Changed the oil @ 3027 miles today. This is the start of what I plan to be a comprehensive engine oil comparison test. OEM fluid is coming out and getting sent to Blackstone, and the next oil I am testing is Pennzoil Ultra 5w30. Also did a transmission fluid change, for which I am making…
Started this test to determine for myself what works for my driving and my Mini. Decided to test various different oils, varying amounts of autox runs and miles, to see if I could determine whether one actually is clearly better than the other. All oil samples are sent to Blackstone Laboratories for testing. I’ll upload…
Event 3 was Rantoul’s annual driver’s school, the first of CCSCC’s that I have ever attended. Overall, the event was very well run and very well organized, and I think the students and instructors were paired up well. I was paired up with my codriver from the 3/29 Rantoul event, so we were able to pick up…
The wait is finally over. This weekend was the start of what I’d been waiting for since the end of September, through the bitter cold, all the parts ordered and installed! CCSCC 3/29/2014 First event of the year was a bit of a cold one – probably never broke 40 degrees, and I ran during…
QL Motorsport & Car Journal 