Did anyone catch the MCS Tuner Shootout in Issue 061 of EVO Magazine? It was quite disappointing. There were 7 Tuners present for the MCS. In general I was disappointed in some of the lack of information on the tuner changes, weights of the cars were not present, and I wish that EVO had done some dyno testing to indicate whp. Also, the performance of the cars were quite bad. The GGR Cooper was claimed to produce 225hp, but was only a few tenths of a second faster than the base model. Either the testing process was poor, or the quality/performance of the tuning vehicles was quite poor. The results in a nutshell are:

Base Mini Cooper S
161 bhp
155 lb ft
0-60 7.8s
0-100 19.9s

Mini Cooper S Works
197 bhp
177 lb ft
0-60 6.9s
0-100 17.2s

AMD Cooper S
210 bhp
torque not quoted
0-60 7.0s
0-100 17.3s

Digi-Tec Cooper S
207 bhp
183 lb ft
0-60 7.5s
0-100 19.4s

BBR Cooper S
218 bhp
206 lb ft
0-60 6.5s
0-100 16.1s

GGR Cooper S
225 bhp
190 lb ft
0-60 7.2s
0-100 17.8s

Hartge Cooper S
200 bhp
184 lb ft
0-60 7.3s
0-100 18.5s

Schnitzer Cooper S
200 bhp
181 lb ft
0-60 7.0s
0-100 17.3s

The BBR MCS seems to have performed the best with a cost that was in the middle of the others. The main difference is that the BBR had a higher torque than all the others. This makes it quite interesting and makes you think what BBR is doing. BBR uses a Cosworth-made belt idler, they are also making some small changes to the boost and intercooler delivery systems. They are vague as to what these changes are. The other kits do not perform much better than the standard S, and definitely not worth the much higher price. Also some kits such as the Difi-Tec threw these massive heavy wheels on the car, which obviously has some affect on it's acceleration. Also, without whp, it is unclear how much power these cars are producing and how far off the documented hp rating is from the manufacturer. I cannot believe that no one has tested these cars. I haven't even seen a dyno for a JCW.

 

I've heard of Hartge and Schnitzer, but who the heck is BBR, GGR, Digi-Tec, and AMD? If these companies have produced MINIs with gains that high, where are they online?

 

I wonder what kind of conditions they're testing in? I haven't yet timed my S, but I know its faster than 7.8... heck, it feels like its in the 5s, lol... though I know its not true.

 

DigiTec, AMD and the others are quite well known actually. When I was haunting the Mini2.com forums folks were always talking about them and several folks had their MINIS tuned from these places. GGR and DigiTEC were very well recieved by the owners that had the mods done. I have always been jealous that the Euro crowd has so many tuning options.

 

My heavy, loaded MINI with only 173 whp beat all of their times:



Something's awry with either their testing methods or the claims from the tuners.

 

>>I've heard of Hartge and Schnitzer, but who the heck is BBR, GGR, Digi-Tec, and AMD? If these companies have produced MINIs with gains that high, where are they online?

BBR: http://www.bbrgti.demon.co.uk/mini.htm

GGR: http://www.grahamgoode.com/mini/products.php

Digi-tec: Digi-tec's MINI Page (in German!)

AMD is a UK company, and I think Stratmosphere is working with them.

 

If you have ever seen a film director "box" his shot with his hands...

I imagine that was about the extent of their "testing" complexity. I have several EVO issues on my desk at home, and their "testing" mostly constitutes the butt test. Its what matters in the end, but its definently confusing. I doubt the numbers printed were produced independantly of the manufacturers so there are liberties taken.

EVO has excellent articles, but when it comes to the comparo tests... their journalism is laughable (and quite biased).

My 2 cents.

 

BBR has the most comprehensive tuning packages out there. There 275hp kit looks really cool. Based on their claims of their 220 package and the performance that they showed in the magazine article, they look like a very serious tuner. Also, it appears that their kits can be shipped overseas as well. The items in the tuning package blow away anything that we have here in the States. It seems like we are always just seeing new packages of the same thing. Everyone has an exhaust, everyone has a pulley, there are getting to be a ton of chips out there. BBR is modifying a lot of deeper components, such as the gears, that no one else is really getting into. I wouldn't doubt that there 275hp package could get 0-60 times in the very low fives if not break into the 4's.

What is interesting is that their 220 package produced some really good numbers, but the only thing that is different from let's say a package from Randy is that they do not include an intake or exhaust and they have a Star*chips ECU, new Idler belt (more reliable) and fine tune the intercooler boost delivery system. I doubt the idler belt provides anymore horsepower, so does the intercooler fine tune and the chip that much better than the chip, intake and exhaust from Randy. Obviously the numbers don't lie. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

I can only say I WISH!!! BBR was in the USA....

 

dgszweda1 wrote: Not unless the kit includes extra drive wheels. Even VERY powerful FWD street cars don't have 0-60 times like that, simply due to lack of traction.

 

You might be right. Although they do add a LSD and Goodyear F1 tires. Front wheel drive cars are capable of 0-60 times in the 4 seconds. Check out this Integra Type-R http://www.cardomain.com/member_page...page_id=400923

There are many other front wheel drive rice rockets out there getting into the 4 seconds (but barely).

 

DGSZWEDA1, your base model S time of 7.8 sec to 60 is the slowest i have seen. that was in road and track i believe. Car and Driver says 7.0 and 6.4 for the Works Kit. I have also seen 7.4 seconds in a diff. magazine.

 

I am only posting what was in the article. But I do agree with you. The numbers are aweful.

 

yeh it was just a FYI type of thing. thanks for the info

 

>>You might be right. Although they do add a LSD and Goodyear F1 tires. Front wheel drive cars are capable of 0-60 times in the 4 seconds. Check out this Integra Type-R http://www.cardomain.com/member_page...page_id=400923
>>
>>There are many other front wheel drive rice rockets out there getting into the 4 seconds (but barely).

"Bragging Rights
Quarter Mile: 12.2 s @ 0 mph->
0-60: 4.8 s
Est. Horsepower: 300
Weight: 2400"

Riiiiiiiiiight.

Not rolling my eyes at you, but at the ITR owner's dubious stats,

 

My '02 S did a 0-60 in 6.72s with Magnaflow, intake, Kosei R1s and
Yoko AVES 100s. My pullied '03 seems faster.

 

Doesn't surprise me as I have driven the Works at my dealership and I just couldn't see that big a difference from my MCS except at like 50 to 90 on the freeway, etc, certainly hardly any difference 0-60 although the salesman told me it was a second faster than a stock MCS, just didn't feel it, but unbelievably the Works had a slight stumble like my MCS...anyway like I said, not surprised at the results based on my test drive regarding the Works...cheers

 

They don't happen to mention the weather conditions in the article, do they? If it was a little on the warm side, performance numbers will tail off drastically.
Our Mini's hate warm air

 

miniblues are you kidding me? My MCS has intake and pulley and it is a dramatic difference. Wow i am flabbergasted on how those words uttered on to these pages.

 

EVO is a British magazine, and it is quite cold over there right now, compared to most of the states. So I think the temperature for testing was on the colder side. Although I agree with everyone, the numbers look terrible. Maybe these cars had the stumble issue as well :smile:

 

Wouldnt the cold just have helped all the cars in the HP department? Maybe it was extremely windy??

 

The cold might add a few ponies by making the intercooler more efficient, but would have decreased the available traction. More ponies, less traction, a few tenths easily lost.

 

>>Doesn't surprise me as I have driven the Works at my dealership and I just couldn't see that big a difference from my MCS except at like 50 to 90 on the freeway, etc, certainly hardly any difference 0-60 although the salesman told me it was a second faster than a stock MCS, just didn't feel it, but unbelievably the Works had a slight stumble like my MCS...anyway like I said, not surprised at the results based on my test drive regarding the Works...cheers

A relative of mine who is very interested in getting a MCS drove one at the dealership and then he met up with me to discuss all the options, jcw kit, etc since he knows I know that stuff well. I had told him it is much faster with just $1200 worth of mods (intake/exhaust/pulley), so that he wouldn't spend 7g's on the JCW kit. He drove my car around, redlined it a few times and then asked me.. I dont feel the difference? This doesn't feel much faster? I know he didn't test drive a JCW MINI.. so I was quite stumped because I *know* this isn't the same thing! Maybe he was expecting some kind of a gigantic extra kick like a turbocharger or something, the MCS's smoothness might be fooling some people.

 

Gmack,
Good call... I hadnt had my 12th cup of coffee at the time of posting... That easily took a few tenths off my time

 

I enjoyed the article but felt EVO wimped out with the recommendation on the JCW even although it wasn't their favourite.

I think what they meant was for the same money spent it is better to have warrenty than not. i agree but much of the other package $$$ (no pound sign on this key board) were on things which don't directly contribute to going faster but the tests were on going faster?

The whole JCW thing has me scratching my head. I can buy a MINI Classic (A Cooper without Xenon lights, adjustable passenger seats etc) for $22,000 cdn. A JCW sitting in the same showroom retails for a few $ shy of $52,000.

OK for $30,000 I bet I could make that Classic go faster/better than the JCW and still have money left to repear it if it broke in the first couple of years.

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