Short story. Back in October 2022, I bought a 2010 Mini Cooper base for my son as a first car. It needed work so my son and I could work on it together. We did a lot on that car. Valve stem seals, timing chain, oil pan gasket, valve cover, thermostat, solenoids, and on and on. His car runs fantastic but he is actually still about 3 months from being able so I've been driving it. My family an Iovd the little thing so much and we bought my wife a 2021 Countryman S All4 in December.

I've been searching for another Mini of my own when I found THIS deal on wheels. I paid $2,500 because it was misfiring and in complete limp mode. I compression tested the motor and it held compression so I called it good enough to buy.

I bought a battery and proceeded to go over the motor with a fine tooth comb... it had dozens of trouble codes (used my Foxwell NT510 Elite) which proved to provide more questions than answers. Long story short - it needed a 50 amp fuse in the engine bay fuse box. Once replaced, the car ran just fine!

For a $7 part, the car could probably be sold 3x what I paid. But, that isn't the plan for her. We are going to build her back to pristine order.

Here is the JCW with my Son's Base in the background.


Here is another angle of the 2010 JCW



So on the list of things it NEEDS. There is a slow leak at the thermostat. I've ordered the T-state and cross pipe. I've ordered Mishimoto Silicone Collant Hoses. I plan to flush and replace the coolant with Mishimoto Liquid Chill. So that is priority 1

The rear of the valve cover is leaking all over the place. Oilly mess all over. So phase 2 will be walnut blasting the intake valves and then replacing the valve cover. Since I'll have the valve cover off, I'm going to do the timing chain and valve stem seals at the same time. At this time I'll be building my oil catch can setup (and I have questions about the PCV heater located at the intake pipe near the turbo, I want to delete the heater)

The charge piping is getting simplified with fewer connections. One piece resonator delete, one piece noise maker delete. Fewer connections means fewer points of failure.

New suspension - Either going to run genuine JCW coil overs and adjust them down a shade or I am going to switch to KW Comfort Kit.

Later down the road, we will upgrade the intercooler are replace the cat with a high-flow cat.

Looking forward to interacting with folks on this forum and learning

 

Welcome ! You are not only a duo member, but a tri member !

 

Welcome, it has the old rare sport aero kit, they used to put these on for a period and factory painted with the factory JCW cars then switched back to the JCW Aero kit.

 

I really dig this Aero Kit simply because it is 100% painted and it is more unique. I see far less of these around. I peeled off the PPF (Paint protection film) from the front end this weekend and the paint is in near-perfect condition under it so it just looks amazing.

I cannot tell if LSD was standard on this model or not, but if not, the previous owner had it added as well. It was nicely optioned from the original owner which leads me to believe it may have been a custom order.