My story. New comer from Philadephia
 

Hey guys my name is Dan (17 years old) and I am finally doing this. I've read so much about mini's in general and found out awesome and very useful things from you guys. I just want to thank you all for the hard work you guys put into helping me out and other new comers. Anyways I currently have a 2004 r50. I never intended to buy an r50 because I was looking for a mazda 3 hatch for a good 3 months. My dad was a mechanic for around 5 years and knows how to work with cars. In general, all of my dads 7 brothers worked with cars around the same amount of years. So i was leaned into buying a car from the auction that had been in some sort of accident that my dad and I could repair for my first car. So i could say that i have experience wth fixing cars and am really looking into investing time into engine stuff. A thing I learned from the auction is that you are very limited to your preference when buying a car from an auction lets say an auction like copart or iaai. Hard to find interior you like, color of car, and many other things. I learned to go with something that i was able to deal with. So my dad told me to try to find a mini. Same general area as a mazda 3 hatch. I didn't really want to, but i did look into mini's that were on the auction. With in one week i bought an r50 with 68k that had a cracked front bumper, but had a clean title which is good for reselling later. We fixed up the bumper with some pop rib-its and my uncle put some bondo on it and painted it british green (original color). The whole car came out $4000. The point of getting a car off the auction is that you save big money when buying, but you do have preference limitations and you also have to have a dealers licence to bid on the cars. My other uncle is still in the car shop business and bought the car for us. My dad used to also buy cars off the auction so he knew all the people who were still in the business and was familiar with the process. Since i got my r50 all i wanted is a mini. It just stuck to me. Yes its small, but its enough for me and for a first car.

I will be posting more stuff about my mini in detail, also i just purchased an 2004 r53 with 44k off copart, will also follow up with posts of my r53.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/ml...-Qwc=s197-p-nohttps://lh4.googleusercontent.com/7z...0EYU=s197-p-no

Welcome to NAM. Congratulations on your R53. Now let the mods begin... Lots of great people and vendors on here. Recently picked my MCSa as well.

Thanks, the r53 will be my first manual car. So im thinking of waiting a bit till i get really comfortable with a manual. I tried out my cousins 328i and i loved it, i got the hang of it, a bit. I have a manual quad so i understand the concept, i just have to transfer it to a car. Did a lot of research and love how intakes amplify the whinging of the supercharger. I really like you bonnet graphics, where did you get them?

A CAI was my first mod. A reduction pulley, colder plugs Are next on the list.

Nice, what reduction pulley did you use? by how much?

I will be going with a 15% followed by a catback. But you can get them in 15 through 19%. Just do a little research and decide for yourself.