Hey everyone. I just bought this MCS yesterday http://stlouis.craigslist.org/ctd/1750342102.html It's replacing my beloved 1999 Audi A4 that got T-boned and totaled last wednesday :( It had a PES G2 supercharger kit with about 300hp to the crank. Although the Mini is a great car and pretty quick, I miss that power.

Basically, I want to know what the best bang for my buck is when it comes to power adders for the MCS. Im not looking for 300hp again out of the Mini. It weighs a few hundred less than my A4 so it wont take that much power to get it as fast. AND the MCS is not AWD like my A4 was so there isn't nearly as much drivetrain loss. So 240-250 is ideally what I would like to see.

Is the Invidia N1 exhaust decent? It seems like a great price for a full catback exhaust.

Does a header provide a worthwhile boost in power? I know with my A4, new headers were expensive, PITA to install, and only yielded a 5-8 gain in hp.

How much cold air do most of the "cold air" intakes actually get? Again, with my A4, most of the CAI kits provided very little performance gains when compared to a stock and actually less than a modified stock intake.

So, having said that, are there modifications you can do to the stock intake to get some more power/better air flow?

although I am new, these are some more technical questions. Would this be better suited in the modification section? would I get better answers there?

 

congrats!

I'm new to the cooper scene myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt... but chipping and upgrading your supercharger pulley should provide you with some very nice gains.

Keep us updated!

 

Yes.

 

If you get a good CAI with a heat shield, 15% supercharger pulley, and exhaust (I did the one ball mod.. was cheap as heck and is great! I paid only $150 for it today, and it was a GREAT improvement in power and sound)... and heck, maybe even new headers, your car will literally transform. You will not believe how fast your MINI has become! I just finished my mods, and I can tell you that it's night and day. You'll go from a decently fast car to quite the little monster .

On the left toolbar here at the site, you will see a Vendors link.. click that. All those vendors are trusted. CAI, theres a few out there that are great and are specifically designed for our cars. I have an ALTA, and I recommend it. You can get an Alta pulley, but I got Craven as it was a bit cheaper and I liked it better (besides, Craven made Alta's pulleys in the past anyway, so they must be good). They're not very expensive.. can't remember, but $150-200 ish or so.

So now that you have some kick in your car, I'd suggest getting an M7 strut bar and some pads. Our strut towers have a tendency of mushrooming if you hit a bad pothole, and those will protect against that and the bar with keeping the car firm. Also an under strut system from M7 will reduce roll as well.


At that point, you'll have a very fast car that does very very very well around turns. You can do weight reduction mods as well to help, like the rear seat delete which I plan on doing, or new wheels. That's not even the beginning really, but it's a freakin great start to the mod bug cure!



Your MINI looks very nice, and I'd suggest some black out trim pieces for your headlamp, door handles, gas cap ect from Aesthetic Creations. It'd look beautiful against your black mirrors and roof. Maybe replace the grille too, if you want. Then again, I'm just kinda making you do what I did.. but that's why I'm suggesting it, because I love it hahaha.

Anywho, welcome, and enjoy the process of modding . If you ever need specific help, check the search function, and if you still can't find it, ask away.

 

Short answer: If you want well over 200 you are going to need a head. Do a 15% pulley, first for ~100 and see how you like that, that's 10hp right there easy. Much like your A4 a CAI wont do you much good, maybe 2-3hp and a lot of supercharger noise.


Long answer to your last question:

Just about everything from the air filter to the head is pretty good on this car, and there isnt much cheap effective power to be had aside from spinning the supercharger faster. There are a plenty of ways to spend a lot of money in that area and only gain a little however. When you do forced induction on something like a FSAE car and a design judge asks you "what did you do to optimize induction" you can pretty much get away with saying "not much" because forced induction is generally going to be about 90% power at a given boost level without doing much.

 

At least you got the Leather

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...t/11977/cat/21

 

if your wanting that power you will NEED
pulley (wmw makes a good on with a high level of quality control)

camshaft (id say the MegaMini Camshaft, you can get it through mynes)

exhaust (milltek/stratmosphere probably give the best hp and torque as it has the right amount of back pressure...)

header (mynes or talk to jason out of atl)

wheels!!! (the stockers are ~26 lbs... bang for buck get some kosei's from tire rack. they are 17" and 15lbs)

ditch the runflats! (the wheels and no runflats will increase some power to the ground as well as make the handling more nimble)

injectors (get some jcw 380's )

and if its really hot where you live you may want to look into a methanol/water kit...

then a dyno tune to pull it all together (mynes or WMW are both good)

if your runnng that much power i would say your also going to need a new clutch and probably a diff (cusco or quaife) and the handling to use it all (sway bars plus some coil-overs. oh, and if you ever plan on stopping id suggest some willwood's up front, and if you ever plan on doing hard high speed braking you may want to get a new track style spoiler and possible ditch the strat and talk to jason out of atl about a straight back exhaust, relocate the battery and get some rear diffuser tunnels... (i mean like braking all out at 130mph though...) the way out car is shaped stock provides a lot of lift, especially in the back :P

oorrr for the quick and dirty, call up way motor works.
im not sure how much they cost but he can sell you a fully built race motor that will put out 260-280whp :P

 

Welcome. Sorry about the Audi but glad you're okay. Here's wishing you many years of blissful MINI motoring.

 

Hands down you need to do the Supercharger Pulley first, that will be the biggest bang for your buck. Then add an intake and catback exhaust those will work will together giving you nice power, and reliability.

Feel free to call our shop and we'll discuss options and real hp gain numbers.

WAY
317.201.8670

 

lol yep... I decided to cheap out. I wanted on 07+ to throw on a bigger turbo but then I realized I wouldnt need that much power so I thought I would save some money.

thanks to everyone else for the responses and for moving this to the appropriate section.

Im still currently learning to drive a stick and so far the power has been plenty. So, before the big stuff, I'll probably just do some simple and cheaper upgrades like the pulley, exhaust, and intake. Then do some work to improve the handling. I looked at the M7 strut tower brace and I think Im gonna do that. Wheels, head, cam, and other stuff will be later on down the road as they are all expensive and/or require a bit of disassembly. I do like the suggestion of ditching the chrome accents. That may be something I do in the near future.

One more thing. Anyone know a place to get the OEM fogs that sit on top of the bumper? I really wanted those when I was looking, but I didnt get them obviously :(

 

Save the money, tower brace doesn't really do much on our cars.

 

"OEM fogs" aren't actually fogs they are optional Hi-beams in case you need to be able to see better than the normal Hi's. The real OEM fogs are in the lowest hole in the front bumper. not on top of it.
http://www.outmotoring.com/mini-coop...light-kit.html

A good set of Kosei or Konig wheels will be a great investment, and pretty cheap comparably. Wish Tirerack carried Konigs .

If you decide to go without a tower brace, consider Strut plates at least. Mushrooming is quite common, and bad.

 

The M7 tower brace comes with the plates, correct?

 

Yes, the m7 brace is one of the few that does.