I am new to the mini game so forgive my ignorance withthe following questions.

Will 13 inch rims fit on a round nose without modification of suspension or guards ? i.e will i need flares bigger than the cooper s style ?

Are there rims from other cars that are compatible ? i.e that bolt straight on ?

What is a good suspension set up for road use ?

I have heard of Hi Los/Spax ??

ask asmany Q's as you want, everybody learns about cars at somestage and its good that your interested in mini's.
13inch wheels (i assume your talking about 13x7 or 13x7) will fit your roundnose, but you wont be able to go over bumps or turn the front wheels without them hitting and rubbing your gaurds (unless you have a rover which had 13's on it to begin with)
i dont know of any other car that had the same stud pattern of a mini
a good suspension setup for road use is the standard suspension. either dry (rubber cone)
or wet (hydrolastic) suspenion is good, if your going for 13's you should have dry.
hi-los are added to dry suspension to let you raise and lower the cars ride height.
if you lower the car alot, you will have to get shortened dampers...which is where spac come in. spax make shockers (or dampers whatever you feel like calling them) and they also make coil overs for mini's.
what type of mini do you have?
10 inch and 12 inch are best for handling in my opinion,

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real men race downhill - keiichi tsuchiya

I can be done. I doubt you'll get much wider than 13x5.5 or 6" on, but its all relative to the offset of the rim. And by cooper s style they would have to be the wide type.

For suspension, mods may not be necessary, as long as the suspension and bearings are in top condition for safety.

Designer,
if you can, get yourself up to the Muster here in Bris this sunday, you will meet some of us and get to see a stack of minis in one place. If you need somewhere to crash there are plenty of people here who will offer you a roof over your head.

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1970 Cooper S ex-Bathurst & ATCC
1964 Austin Cooper S ex-Group C race car
1967 Morris Cooper S ex-Group B
1962 Mini Speed sports sedan
1968-71 ex-Peter Manton Shell car

Designer,
As mentioned, you'll have to "adjust" your guards to get 13's under them, and as far as I'm aware you will need bigger flares.
As to wheels from other cars, there are other cars with the same stud pattern. It's not that rare. But you'd be best advised to stick with Mini wheels, to ensure that you get something with the correct offset.
In terms of road suspension... You're talking about something to run in the car with the Elder 8 port? Is the car hydro or dry..? Or not yet decided..? Hi-Los are pretty useful for getting your suspension at the ride height you want, Spax do shocks, but they're not the only brand out there. What's your background with Minis..? Might help people figure out exactly what you're after...

I had a peek at shocks on subframes at brickworx. Much Spax.... and konis and kyb and so on....

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1964 Morris 850, 1330 Supercharged - 81.8hp atws.
1975 Leyland Mini S 1100S powered - Nice and reliable.
1977 Leyland Mini LS - Project LS-T

thanks for all the info guys.
to answer question regarding background.

i am looking at building from scratch a round nose mini ( dry suspension)using the bmw bike cylinder head or elder alloy head.want it to have 4 wheel discs,so was after info on wheels/suspension set up,fibreglass body panels,perspex rear glass ,etc

car is to be used for pretty much road use only and maybe some occasional trackuse ? really after any info at all i these areas.

cheers

welcome to ausmini,

fibreglass panels, not really necessary for a street car, possibly a fibreglass bonnet, but that would be about it.

perspex windows, also a waste of time for street use, not sure about leaglity, i dont think tehy would like it.

i think KAD make 4 wheel disk systems for minis.

also i hope ur in the money game as all of these modifications are extremely expensive to do.

cheers and good luck
jamie

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-jamie-
1963morris 850
1965 solid side van
1994 rover racecar

Mad-Mk1's right, there's a KAD rear disc conversion, available here: http://www.minisport.com.au/prod34.htm - note that it states that the conversion is purely for a reduction in weight, not for improvement in braking capacity. Although, being disc, it'd also be handy for those who don't like adjusting their drums every few weeks (like me - maybe one day, a long time from now...),
As Mad-Mk1 says, it's probably not worth going to fibreglass and perspex for a street car, and I'd imagine that there could be legality issues for the fibreglass as well, especially if you were thinking of a flip front or something like that. At the end of the day, it'd probably pay to look at just how much weight you're going to save with changing those things, and then figure out how much performance gain you'll get for it. If you're fitting a crossflow head (BMW or Elder), I'd suggest that you won't be short of poke, and won't notice a couple of kilos extra. Although you will notice the difference in cost and the extra work.
For the rest of the suspension setup, the best thing I could suggest would be to get along to a club event and see if you could go for a ride with some experienced people. Low'n'Blown's pointed out the Mini Muster up here (Brisbane) this weekend, I think there's some small do at Hay, as well. But even if you made it along to the local MCC meetings and get to know a few people there... Everyone's got their own ideas on setup, but only you know what you can deal with on the street, and how you want the car to behave. If you're spending the sort of money we're thinking you will be, it would pay to have test driven the gear, not just taken someone else's word for it.

is the issue the height or the width of the rims that is the problem. I want to run 13X6 rims on a round nose

13" rims with low profile tyres (40 is the norm ???) aren't that much bigger than 10" with normal profile tyres , I believe you can run the mini slightly higher and the wheels won't foul the guards but if you want it to sit at normal or lower than normal ride height you have to cut a bitof the front edge of the guards to allow them to turn full lock when going over bumps without scraping the guards . It's a combination of the extra diameter of the wheel and the width .

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It's mainly the width - you will not getaway with 13x6 or more without cutting the guards if you want it to look right. (it will have to sit way too high to clear)

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Starlet Conversion:
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