Suspension - what setup to use for bumpy roads?

[cyan]

Hi all, I'm a fellow Mini owner in Hong Kong. I've been looking up, besides others, the Moulton Smootha Ride kit on the web and a Google search brought me here.

I've been getting an increasingly uncomfy ride on the roads here because there is so much road works and poor resurfacing. I thought I might be able to get some advice on what type of rubber cones (whether standard, Minispares red or Smootharide)and dampers to use for poor (really poor) road surfaces since there are a few experts here who rallies and a few who uses the Moulton kit.

I am currently running the "Green" steel springs sold by Minispares that replaces the cones and AVO dampers front (7 clicks) and Spax rear (4 clicks). I wanted to try these since I heard the ride is better then cones, and they are quite good on average surfaces but when the car goes over a pothole it feels as though it's too stiff and the car just skips and makes a loud bang. Tried setting the dampers a couple of clicks softer, but the whole car started pitching uncontrollably. I've also seen springs that have been broken on the road, which made me nervous.

So, I'm ready to move back to rubber springs but I'm not sure which setup would be compliant enough for a good ride yet doesn't loose the superb mini handling and cornering (too much)?

Thanks in advance for any help!
Albert

[trackcar]

Sounds to me like it could be the dampers which are causing this problem .. it's quite common on cheaper dampers to find the compression resistance increases massively on high speed piston movements, so if you reduce the damping to compensate you end up underdamped at lower speed piston movements. I'm not a mini expert, but this is a damper characteristic i see a lot on other cars.

[cyan]

trackcar said:

Sounds to me like it could be the dampers which are causing this problem .. it's quite common on cheaper dampers to find the compression resistance increases massively on high speed piston movements, so if you reduce the damping to compensate you end up underdamped at lower speed piston movements. I'm not a mini expert, but this is a damper characteristic i see a lot on other cars.

Thanks trackcar, what you said does describe what's been happening. Actually when I went to the local Mini specialist last time the mechanic did recommend changing the dampers to Bilsteins, which another customer reported gives a much better ride even with the steel springs. I just couldn't imagine changing the dampers would make such a big difference.