2003 Mini Cooper S (R53) Street Touring / Prepared Build

New motor mount made it to my house despite the 'rona.  Spent this morning putting on the car, fiddling with the pulleys, and replacing the belt. Everything actually went smoothly, took the car out for a short, shelter-in-place, spring cruise. It was a good day. 

I wish we had more going on in Montgomery like you seem to in Bham.  How often is your cars n coffee? Was it in front of Hoover Tactical?  Holler at me next time yall go driving, maybe i can come hang out in my "i know it's not a Mini but it is the A.N.S.W.E.R?"

I understand there is no C&C these days.  Was i right about Midpond?

Justjim75 said:

I wish we had more going on in Montgomery like you seem to in Bham.  How often is your cars n coffee? Was it in front of Hoover Tactical?  Holler at me next time yall go driving, maybe i can come hang out in my "i know it's not a Mini but it is the A.N.S.W.E.R?"

Apparently I missed the notification on the thread.  C&C moved to the Colonnade off 280.  I've not been since the move, but there wasn't a great opportunity either.  Midpond had to cancel a few events as well.

I'd love to get out and go for a drive.  I've taken a few small drives, but if anyone gets out of the house these days we try and make it a family thing.  Hopefully things will settle down soon and we can resume some of our normal activities.

I miss my old mini. I have a build thread on here from it. Best handling car I've owned.

Things are starting opening up some.  Was able to get out to the local Cars & Coffee (parked next to a Ferrari).  Planning on heading out to the Mini's first AutoX this upcoming weekend at the Barber Motorsports Proving Ground.

That is one huge turbo. 

Had a good time back at AutoX for the first time in forever.  Mini survived without incident, that was good.  The driver was all kinds of rusty, but eventually put in a good run.  I'm still running on the tires the car came to me with, which are some un-rememberable name of economy tires, probably with 8000 treadwear rating.  That made for a lot of fun, but not a lot of speed.  Here's the best run:

And here is the rest of the runs, with varying degrees of learning the car and trying to remember what the hell I am doing:

Here's the run times:

Best time of a 47.3 wasn't great, placed me in 3rd in the Xtreme Street "group", first in my class of 1.  I ended up running XS-A class simply because I could not figure out how to make the registration site put me in the DSP.  It wouldn't have mattered, I would have been the only car in that class as well.

For comparison, there was only 1 other Mini participating.  It was a 2013 S on much nicer Toyo tires.  His best time was a 49.2.  I ended almost 2 seconds faster.  No a bad first outing.  Now, having run one... I have a much better idea of the things to fix:

1. Wheels and tires (obviously)
2. Shocks... and maybe springs
3. Shifter + knob (I ripped mine off on the second run and had to throw it in the back)

It was great to be out playing with cars again.

Barber is such a picturesque facility. Sadly, although I went there a couple of times I failed to go see the Museum and now I live in a different time zone.

In reply to T.J. :

I'm not a bike-guy but the museum is still pretty damn cool. I've been lucky and been given private access to the basement and build area.  There is some cool stuff just out of view there. 

Another fun trip to the Barber's Proving Ground for an ALSCCA AutoX.  This time I didn't run the "eco" tires that came with the car.  A friend sold his Mini and ended up with some leftovers, they found their way to my house.  Included was another set of wheels and tires.  The tires were a mismatched set with 2 P-Zeros, and 2 Potenzas.  Both were 220 treadwear, so even being mismatched they had to be better... right?  I don't know, but they weren't enough.  I need real race rubber.  I spent more time spinning tires than putting power down.  Here's the best run:

Here are some others:

Peak cornering of 1.10 G isn't bad for questionable tires.  You just need some good rubber.  That's a really nice facility for an Auto-X.  No pictures of the 'new' wheels?  Are they the same style/ size?

In reply to Argo1 :

Yes, they are the same style stock wheels. I'm going to sell a set to help cover the cost of the lightweight wheels and Hoosiers.

In reply to BradLTL :

Can you do a review of the upgrades you have done?  I'm having trouble finding them in the thread  

I saw the crank pulley. Also saw the brake calipers (but I'm not sure you installed them yet). The rest looks like maintenance. 
 

Did I miss something?  Is the crank pulley an overdrive?  Did you also do an underdrive supercharger pulley?

Thanks!

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

Sure.

M7 4% Crank and 16% Supercharger Pulleys

There is a lot of feelings out in the Mini community about M7, most of it is negative, but I was never able to find someone who would say specifics of problems or issues that were directly related to their products.  More it was just people questioning their approach and arguing as if they were mechanical engineers who spent their entire careers designing internal combustion engines.  I wanted to get the most out of my Mini, and M7 offered one of the few lightweight crank pulleys on the market.  I took a chance on their products.

Installation on both of the pulleys was a PITA.  The SC pulley I installed while the supercharger was off the car.  Getting the old pulley off was fairly straight forward, if you have the special tool.  The pulley itself is a two piece self centering one.  First part slides on, then the second goes on top, 3 bolts to hold it together and that was done.  The crank pulley was not so straight forward.  Getting the old one off was a job in itself (but that really isn't M7's fault).  The installation instructions tell you to put the pulley in the oven and heat it up, and then it "slip right on".  Yea, that crap didn't work at all.  After multiple attempts of heating and fitting, I was finally able to get it on, and almost seated.  It took more force that I was really comfortable with to get it all the way on an into position.  

I don't have before/after dynos or anything, but the pulleys did their job.  The car has a lot more power which makes it a lot better to drive (around town as much as at the track).  The only real driveability downside is from the lightweight crank pulley.  Being in gear and letting off the gas to coast isn't as smooth.  Their's no momentum in the pulley to keep the engine spinning so you get a lot more engine brake feel.  It can feel like small / quick taps on the brakes, or a small jerk.  It's fairly easy to drive around, but was noticeable when I first put the pulleys on.  I don't notice a lot of additional heat soak or anything negative from a performance perspective.  I ran 8 autox runs on Saturday in late summer Alabama heat and sun and the car never complained.  After the 6th run, the electric fans kicked on and I opened the hood to vent out the heat between runs, but the engine temp never moved.  The sound is significantly more pronounced.  Above about 3500 rpm the SC screams and sounds amazing.  At idle there is more noise as well.  I'm not sure how to describe it, not quite a grinding noise or a rattle... but somewhere in between.  Other Mini drivers tell me "it's just supercharger noise" but I'm not sold.  It's probably just self doubt on my mechanical abilities.  I've had the pulleys on for about 3000-4000 miles now and have had no issue with them.  I did have to replace the belt tensioner, but from what I have read I should have done that when I did the pulleys.

Overall, I'm happy with the product.  It performs well, and I've had no adverse side effects.

Screamin' Deamon coil and NGK Irridium Plugs

With the new pulleys, you need new (colder) plugs.  And while you are doing that you might as well do a new ignition and wires.  So I did.  I got the Out Motoring Stage 3 Ignition Kit.  The installation is really straight forward here.  Everything fit, installed easy, and most importantly worked right.  I went with the red wires, because red is a faster color right?  Each wire had the appropriate length for the plug it was going to, and frankly that was the hardest part of the install.

K&N Typhoon Cold Air Intake

This came with the car, so I can't tell you a before / after on it.  I have taken it off and put it back on the car and that isn't terrible.  There's a finicky screw here and there, but nothing too terrible (especially considering it's on a BMW).  It uses the stock airbox location and comes with a sheild to block off engine heat.  It's in two pieces, a tube that directs air from the front of the car to the airbox and the intake tube and cone filter.  I'm sure it is better than factory, but I can't tell you if it's work 1 or 10 HP.  The best part to me is blipping the throttle and being able to hear the supercharger gulp air.

I haven't done the brakes yet... I've got about 50% of the parts, and about 30% of the motivation.  I'll probably tackle that over the winter.

In reply to BradLTL :

Thanks!  That's very helpful. 
 

Sounds like the primary hp upgrade is the pulley swap. And most of that is the crank pulley, since the JCW already had a 12% underdrive on it. 
 

Very interesting. Most is the MINI pulley swaps I've heard are just the supercharger end, not the crank. 

So, you haven't done any suspension work yet?

Mine was just a S not a JCW, so I got a bunch more pep from both the pulleys.

No suspension work yet.  I'm not 100% on what I want to do there either. Any suggestions?

If you start doing more autocross, get a water sprayer.  You need to spray the intercooler until it is cool enough to touch.  Otherwise, the car pulls timing due to intake temps.  Overdriving the supercharger hurts this too.

On my mini, there was a measurable slowdown if we didn't spray.  0.5-1 second in a 60 second course.  That was with an ati super damper and jcw pulley.

I was pretty sad when I pulled off my lightweight crank pulley and lost a bunch of supercharger whine.  It wasn't worth the risk because I was driving to events instead of trailering.  The later cars had a short 2nd gear so I was always bouncing off the limiter.

Oops. I missed that. 
 

Im not an expert on the MINIS. There are lots of people around here who know more than me. That's why I'm reading your thread!

But I hear good things about the Koni FSDs. 

When you upgrade wheels and tires , are you looking at a 15" or 17" setup?

In reply to ojannen :

I am keeping the 17s.  Looking at Sparco FF1s with 225s on them. The wheels come in at 17lbs which is substantially lighter than stock and should still clear the upsized calipers once I get those installed. 

In reply to BradLTL :

If the decision isn't final, take a look at 15" wheels.  You can fit 225s front and rear.  Maybe 245s front depending on your suspension setup.  The shorter tires on the early transmission gives it a bit more pep too.

I ran advanti storms and they cleared my 12.1" big brake kit with a 15mm spacer.  949 6uls fit if you can find them and they are pretty light.  The 15x8s are less than 11lbs.

The best thing about them is running SM7s and other miata takeoffs for pennies during track days.