Have you ever driven a hydro car?

I've got one hydro and one dry, and I can tell you the hydro car rides far, far better over rough roads - I can do 40km/h comfortably over my rough, unmade, rocky fire-track of a driveway at the building site in the hydro car, but I'd be hitting the roof (literally) if I tried that in the dry one.

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Simon

The adventures of an owner builder in the Tallarook Ranges

A mate nearby Warwick Agustin has a rally mini (genuine cooper S actually) that he runs hydrolastic in for rally and khanacross, Been runnig it and racing it longer than i have been alive. I asked him something about the hydro system or he was telling me i should build one and he said rubber donut car you would be boucing all over the place and would be shocking, so have hydro suspension (with shocks i think) and that the best set-up.

So for off road, hydrolastic

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Most Cooper S rally wins post 1965 here and Europe were with hydro cars.
Cooper S places 1-9 at Bathurst outright in 1966 all with hydro cars.

My car is a 1970 with hydro, I can drive over `wombat crossings' (wide NSW pedestrian speedhumps) @ 70kmh. I tried it with our dry car (Barney the pretend S) and it near went into orbit.

As said above, dry suspension is good for smooth track use, for anything else IMO a hydro kills it.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

well,, as you all should know pretty well by now,,, i really do love the ride that hydro give us,,, the only problems i see is with the system is reliability & avalability of bags & there`s also the "set-up',,,

as in --> to have it working well there really is a fair bit of work to get the ride heights right,,,, keeping all the massive pitching & diving to a minimum (usually with big grunt engines it`s a lot more obvious & troublesome than with p!$$y little donks)

& they really are not the best "FULL-RACE" set-up to use ,,, they are (however) really nice ride for the road.

& so on it goes...

However,,, in saying all that... i managed to regularly do 1min 4secs at Lakeside Raceway with my old Roady green "S" on hydro ,,, 1998 i actually took the SPARK club championship class A ,,, & OUTRIGHT championship with that very same mini on Hydro ... true!!! so hydro (set-up well) is really not that bad hey???

now i must admit,,, altho it was my daily drive car, road registered, used it every day,,,, BUT!!! i stuck hoosier street TDs on it to race with... Road tyres dropped that time a couple of secs per lap

So,,, to top this discussion off (for me anyways) i regularly took first place outright at Willowbank autocross meetings (Dirt track ,,, with same hydro set-up,,, didn`t change a thing) in that same Hydro roady green mini, with the occasional Lap record thrown in to boot

So Dodge & anyone else who is not such a fan of hydro,,, there`s some facts for you to munch on while you`re bouncing around in your dry minis (unless you have my "Special soft" hi-lo & donut package fitted that is


end of rant,,, sorry for dribbling on & bragging about how good my roady hydro green "S" was

did i mention how good my roady hydro green "S" was???

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

u guys are stuck in the 60s, if u got decent shocks and springs nothing will come close, also saves alot of weight when u dont have to carry all that hardware in the car

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A good friend will come and bail you out of jail...but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying "Damn...that was fun!"

dodge are talking spring springs, or rubber cones?

If springs were better than rubber on a road Mini, Issigonis would have used them.
A stock 850 on 5.20x10 stock crossplies cornered so well back in the `60s, an AH Sprite then had no chance of keeping up on twisty stuff.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

At the same time I have had a hydro and a rubber cone mini which i then converted to springs. So I have had a direct comparison between these three set ups. For comfort and general road use the hydro was best, the rubber cones (albeit old ones) were worst and the springs fell somewhere in between.

You haven't convinced me yet

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1964 998cc Cooper
1971 Mini K x 2
1972 Clubman GT

ur all soft in ur old age, they didnt use them back them becuase nobody had made a coil spring , and u know how much technology went into improving the mini over age, duck all
anyway each to there own, if u like the hydro system then use it.
i like to keep my elbows gravel rash free lol

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A good friend will come and bail you out of jail...but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying "Damn...that was fun!"

For track use, rubber is king.
Even in Sports Sedans they still use rubber at the front end.
Mine has a coil over rear end, but rubber at the front for stability.

A few that have tried front coil overs have returned to rubber.

My son's car has hydro, soooo much smoother on the road.

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Too many cars, and too little time.

Wow You must still be young enough to know everything then...

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Simon

The adventures of an owner builder in the Tallarook Ranges

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1964 998cc Cooper
1971 Mini K x 2
1972 Clubman GT

My vote is for hydro too, nothing wrong with a good, properly maintained, properly setup hydro car. Been in both and no way will I ever want to convert over to dry... Like driving a car on pogo sticks or something. They just weren't made for it. Maybe (big maybe) some of the new tech mcpherson coil over stuff might work if setup well but why bother to achieve the exact same thing as having a wet mini? They just work, don't mess with the formula.

Secret: Buy a set of second hand bags and keep them under your bed for a rainy day

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

How different is the MGF hydro or the U.K. Metro Hydro?
Can anything be used off these systems?

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WD40'll fix it!
If it don't, use a big hammer!

Looooooooove my hydro ride!

Hate working on it....

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.