In July I'm planning on getting either a 15% or 17% pulley and do the install "myself".

Well, sorta myself, I'm looking for someone close who has done it before and has the puller. I'm a bit anxious about pulling motor mounts and such, so if you've done one before, and wouldn't mind stopping over at my dad's place (he's got a bitchin set of tools, lol) and helping me out, that would be great. Or if you want I can come around to your place.

I'll provide lunch or dinner and anything else you need. I'm not mechanically inept or anything, just nervous about trying this myself. So if there's someone who's done it before that can help, let me know. I'm looking to do this towards the middle of July sometime.

 

I've done a 15% before in my garage. It's pretty straight forward. About 3-4 hours + a test drive. Where are you located? What dates are you looking at? What parts/brand of pulley do you have?

 

I'm on the southwest side of Chicago, in Lyons.

I don't have any specific dates down yet. Just seeing if anyone would want to give me a hand. Probably sometime next month, unless I get anxious and decide I have to get it done before the Michigan trip.

I haven't purchased anything yet. I'm still seeing which would be best, 15, 16, or 17 percent.

 

Well I'm a fan of 15%. My schedule is super busy this summer. PM for my # and we can figure something out. I'm willing to help. Six Star Motorsports in Schaumburg was also contemplating having a MINI event to do mods and pulley installs one day. I can talk to them about getting the ball rolling on that if you'd prefer a shop environment to work.

 

I don't have an environment preference. I know that good work can be done in either.

Plus I'm sure they'd be a bit more expensive.

I'm currently remodeling a hour with my fiancé, so time is tight for me also. As is money, but she doesn't hate the mini, yet. Lol

 

No, I'm pretty sure they were gonna do like a DIY type day. Open the shop up to MINIs to do maintenance or mods. I could check to be sure... but Lyons is kinda far from Schaumburg anyway.

If I could make a recommendation, I got a pulley kit from Way Motor Works. They were great. Call their shop, ask for Way, tell him exactly what you want and he'll recommend what to get. Shipping is fast and easy. Good kit too.

 

Oh interesting. Well if they were gonna do that and there were gonna be a group of people, a good time could be had by all. Lol. It wold be fun to help everyone work on their minis and such. Depending on the day, you could count me in.

I was thinking of ways kit. I thought it looked good.

 

His kit is solid, and proven. I've tracked the car. 15% puts out a solid 15-16 psi between 5-6.4k. Be sure to get the JCW plugs and other sparky components too. That's what I did at least.

 

I'm still debating. I've looked at his kit and I'm almost leaning towards 16%... something in the middle. I've got a little more research to do and then I'll make the purchase. Maybe next week, maybe at the end of this month. Depends on how much I can scrape together.

 

If you're going to track the car, every recommendation I've ever read is go with a 15%. The supercharger generates too much heat with a pulley that is any smaller (eg. 16%, 17%, 19%).

If you're just driving it on the street, everything I've read is that a 17% is pretty safe.

That being said, even though I never tracked my R53, I installed a 15% pulley. Since it was my daily driver, I wanted to play it safe, and the 15% is considered to be a VERY safe mod.

Also, +1 on doing a kit from Way.

 

One more things as an aside...because I am one of those paranoid types, when I did my pulley I actually had the supercharger off the car...I was doing a cooling system overhaul at the time, and I had to pull the s/c to replace the water pump. I figured that if the supercharger would be working harder due to the smaller pulley, I should make sure it was in good working order...so I changed the supercharger oil and did a visual inspection of the supercharger itself.

Granted I had 122k miles on my R53 when I did the pulley swap, and I was already in there doing the cooling system, but depending on your mileage it might be something to think about. It's definitely more than a day's work, and it'll up the cost if you go that route, but as the R53's get into the higher mileage territory, a little extra TLC and preventative maintenance is a good thing...as is the peace of mind.

 

I'm at about 69,xxx right now, just about to roll over to 70k...

I'm sure that'll be fine, but I'll keep it in mind moving forward.

Right now Way has the kit for 179.00 + 11.00 shipping... soooo tempting.