Earlier this Spring I was searching for a new project (and a fun car for my wife to drive) and ended up winning my first eBay auction for a 2007 MINI Cooper S with 88.8K miles- complete with the proverbial broken timing chain!
Its straight up Pepper White with 6 speed manual and came with a few mods including complete stainless steel Borla exhaust, larger intercooler, and Eibach springs - not what I consider proper way to go, but its a starting point. Got lucky - 'only' 4 bent exhaust valves with absolutely no damage to the pistons. Rebuilt the head including cleaning all that carbon gunk, all new valves/valve stems, did the timing chain cassette thing, water pump, vacuum pump.
Its back on the road now and the engine pulls very strong! Very pleased with the results.
This has been a fun project (some say therapeutic) and makes a nice addition to our 2009 Passat 1.8T (which I also rebuilt after PO broke timing belt - now has over 200K miles)
I appreciate all the good information on this site and looking forward to contributing anyway I can to the MINI community.
Thanks
-Sleepy289

 

Welcome! You're braver than I am buying a car that broke a timing chain, but it's great that it worked out for you. I just had to replace all 8 valves in mine because the stems wore out and they were dangerously close to breaking. These are great little cars, just have to keep one eye on the valvetrain...

 

Welcome! Did you DIY the rebuild? If you have any questions or need any help with future works on your MINI feel free to ask!

-Luccia

 

Yes, I pretty much do all my own work and have a great indy shop (G T Auto in Clinton, NY) that I work with.

 

We have a shop car that color. Have fun and enjoy. What part of NY?