I did this install recently and car feels more torquey for sure and the deeper exaust tone is awesome. I have a muffler delete as well and it crackles nicely coming down the rpms. Thank you Ives Mini!!

 

My pleasure Zach! I felt this was such an incredible find since everyone said there was nothing to gain on the non-s. Imagine if someone could eek more out via tuning! I truly this this was good for 25-30 or maybe a little more hp.

 

That would wake this baby cooper up....25hp!!

 

how much will this cost to install at a shop?, looks like a lot of work!

 

Labor time is about 4 hours. You can use that to calculate labor cost from there. I recommend finding a shop that is familiar with service mode. There are clips for the wheel arches that break every time you disconnect one and I keep plenty in my home garage for my car. You want a shop that knows what is involved in placing a Mini in service mode so you aren't stuck with extra costs due to discovery of doing it for the first time. It is a job that any competent repair facility can do. Ask them if they can.

 

Found the Magnaflow 49028 part on Ebay (new) for $487. I hope it's as good as you say it is Ives! The Cylinder head is in the shop now getting all new (and deeper) valve seats.

 

You will not be disappointed! I can't wait to find a shop that can tune the car to see if gains are hiding there too. All these years of being told there is no way to boost performance, this was an incredible surprise.

Ivan

 

Well Ivan, It looks like the manifold I received was built by the shop idiot.

First, the bracket that attaches to the catalytic converter is at a much different angle than the OEM manifold. This results in about a 10 degree difference in the angle of the discharge end of the manifold where it connects to the exhaust system. This offset puts way too much strain on the flex coupling that connects to the manifold. In the thermal image below, the white lines represent the manifold lay line; you can see the angular difference at the flex joint. I also have a very nice exhaust leak here. Yes, that's a new clamp.




If that wasn't enough, I had to grind down two of the welds because the nuts would not seat properly with the manifold flange; that will result in improper tension on the stud and more exhaust leaks if not corrected.




But wait there's more:

The lower mounting point was so long, it interfered with the transmission housing, and after I cut some of the end off, I also had to remove some of the bracket material because there was no clearance between the bolt and the bracket. Additionally, you can't use the factory bolts; you must replace them with 1 1/4" bolts; the factory bolts bottom out since there are no spacers on the Magnaflow manifold.




And finally:

I had to alter the heat shield because the cylinder portion that protects the up-stream O2 sensor was hitting the weld for the O2 sensor boss. This made it impossible to get the O2 sensor socket on the sensor.






Summary:

This is probably the worst fitting aftermarket part I have ever attempted to fit to a car. I plan on removing it and installing the oem manifold unless I can figure out a way to correct the misalignment issue where it meets the exhaust system flex joint. I was even thinking about taking the car to the local dyno to see what power I'm producing now and then check it again when the OEM manifold on the car. I'll report back if I get the dyno work done. I'll bet the performance gain is <10%.

 

Wow, I can't believe that had so many issues. I had to use spacers too, and found things to use in my garage. I did not have the other issues you had. Mine fit without issue. I did have my flex joint break off my exhaust as I was getting ready to put it back together, so I found a universal flex joint that was the same size and welded everything back up. The bottom of my assembly was angled perfectly to meet up with the exhaust, and all of my shields are back in place. I can tell you the performance gain of my car is fantastic from every angle. I don't understand how yours could be so bad.

 

I can't either! When I sent all those pictures to ECS Tuning, Chris told me they have sold many of these manifolds without complaint, and he offered to refund my money. It figures I'd get the one build on Friday afternoon before the 3 day weekend; today I wanted to give it another try. In the end, I persevered! This manifold sounds a lot different than the OEM. I managed to get the exhaust system to align with the manifold, but it still sounded like I had an exhaust leak. I used my thermal imager, steam, and my mechanic's stethoscope to ensure I didn't have any exhaust leaks at the cylinder head and at the exhaust clamp, but but is sure sounds like I do with slight load on the engine. Did you have a similar experience? With the engine running at idle (AC off), everything sounds normal; as soon as I turn on the AC (and pick up the load of the compressor), it sounds like I have an exhaust leak, but I don't. More load on engine = more fuel, and a corresponding increase in noise ... makes sense to me.

Still, I shouldn't have to grind down welds and cut brackets to get the manifold to fit correctly. Good thing I'm not Magnaflow's quality engineer!

 

I wish yours could sound like mine does. It sounds completely natural but a much deeper tone. Partial load cruising, it has such a nice burble to it. Step into it and it sounds like a refined engine (not a characteristic of a N12 . I absolutely love everything about it. The other wins that came with it is consistantly 3 mpg better overall, smoother idle, and truly a bunch of new power. I even went out and bought a new emblem for the valve cover since my car never had one, and the JCW engine cover to keep the engine compartment clean. All with now 198000 miles on it.

 

I'm willing to bet that the gains will be MUCH better with a high-flow intake on top of the exhaust manifold, and maybe a wider exhaust pipe. I have a Cooper S carbon fiber hood, and I wanted to adapt the parts from the Cooper S AEM intake kit, like the functional hoodscoop funnel and airbox, and see what you can REALLY get out of this car.

I have an industrial-quality, high volume 3D printer, and I wager that I could print that funnel part in a single piece if I had a CAD drawing of it, or the dimensions, so I could make it myself.

I also have a buddy who does racing head and camwork. Maybe he can do something cool too.

 

That would be really cool! I agree, I am wondering what these cars can get to with that restriction eliminated. My car feel so good, it is absolutely amazing. And to add to that I hit 200,000 miles today!

 

Installed the Magna flow cat , definitely more power , much more fun to drive , less throttle required for launch . Magnaflow cut corners on manufacture (mine was on back order)
I had to trim the lower mount bracket and it was not a pretty piece (looked like cheap foreign manufacture). California car , installed pn. 553028 and new O2 sensors . now getting
sensor fault : ( still runs great . After two fault resets with the Torque app and fault returned I just drove the car for a day with chk eng light on and after the third trip the cel went away : )

 

Has anybody dyno checked this mod?

 

If I ever find a tuner that can handle my N12 on the east coast, I will go that route to see what the gains are. I haven't had too much luck so far. I am curious if there are gains to go along with the added gains from the manifold

 

I'll be testing my car after the 1st of the year. I just called my local performance shop to make sure they can handle a front-wheel drive car. As of now, I plan on putting the OEM manifold back on because I don't like the Magnaflow manifold. Then, I'll be able to compare the two and settle this once and for all. I'll post the actual dyno numbers once I'm finished. Keep in mind my cylinder head is missing .012" from the valve job (warped head), and my cylinder compression is running 231 (average) PSI.

 

I wanted to update. My manifold upgrade was a win, win, win. The car is definitely the strongest ever. I recently had a VANOS solenoid fail and I replaced both of them. I found using my Foxwell NT510, I could clear lots of adaptives. Of them I found a VANOS adaption reset. I did this, and It has become another level of incredible transformation. This car is so strong. It doesn't make any sense that it feels the way it does, but it runs like a freight train. One day I will find a tuner and see if there is anything more to gain.

 

Why does this seem so cheap for the unit?
Is this a knockoff, and that's why there's fitment issues with them? ECS' pricing is more, but only around $130 more. If I look anywhere else, its close to $700. The welds even look shitty on the pics that have been posted up. Certainly not what I'd expect from a Magnaflow product.

 

Amazon has a huge counterfeiting problem that they aren't really interested in fixing. This is probably such a case, because Amazon is not an authorized reseller for Magnaflow products: https://www.magnaflow.com/where-to-buy/online-dealers/

Further, the Amazon seller claims to be Magnaflow, but they do not sell direct to consumers.

TL;DR: 99% probability of fake product.

 

Just read through this thread and wanted to make a few comments.

Pollution controls are Federal, even if your state does not check. (for those talking about cat free systems)

Germans are known for their engineering expertise (plastic chain guides aside) and the diameter/length of the exhaust is not to reduce horsepower, it is calculated to give the optimal pressure wave reflectance for the best exhaust evacuation of the cylinder. I won't argue with the OP seat of pants DYNO, but would like to know if the manufacturer just made a bigger exhaust, or actually did the math and engineering to verify that this is not potentially causing future issues.

 

The exhaust system needs to be optimized across the whole RPM spectrum. Opening it up for better flow at max RPM may allow too little back pressure at mid range. This could affect fuel economy where you operate the most.

 

I am approaching 15000 miles of driving since I swapped this Magnaflow unit on. There has been no downside. Fuel mileage is up, acceleration is way up especially when cruising at highway speeds. WOT performance is much stronger. The exhaust tone is beautiful. There has been no downside. I have 207,000 miles on my car. I know how this car performs. IMO, there is no engineer that would look at the construction design of this original manifold and say that the design is optimum. I have never seen such a deliberate restriction designed into one before. This car responded like to was waiting for this change. Absolutely incredible gain in everything. If you do not what to go this way, don't, no one is going to say anything. But everyone is battling the "want more power...buy a S". I have as much power as I need for my daily driving now. I do not want to buy a S. This makes me smile every time I step on the gas. It seems unreal, but its real. Do it if you want to make a change that brings results. Don't do it if you don't want to. I know my car is stronger....by a lot! I've been driving this car for a long time. I know the changes.

 

Anecdotal evidence aside, do you have any hard cold facts? It's possible the improvements you saw were merely the result of replacing a faulty exhaust. Without a baseline to compare your post-mod car to a properly functioning car who knows if this is just getting back to baseline?

I am curious, how much cheaper was this compared to the OEM job you were quoted? I didn't see that, might have just missed it.

 

I am an Automotive Instructor, a former owner of an 8 bay repair facility, and an ASE Master Tech. I understand the use of a scan tool in depth and know how to use short term and long term fuel trim for diagnostics. This car still has it's original exhaust system. The manifold showed a hairline crack when I went to replace the oil filter adapter gaskets. No noise, no lean exhaust codes. That was the reason for the replacement. OEM manifold was over $2000. Magnaflow OEM replacement was $660. I did all the work myself. My motivation was cost. I simply was not spending 2K for the stock manifold. When I removed it, I found the terrible design and was beyond shocked at the design. When I received the Magnaflow, I was again shocked to see the improvements to the design. I called Magnaflow to ask them if they had any numbers for gains from this unit, and they said they had not dynoed it. Anyone can look at the two units and see the positive design changes. It came down to seeing how the car felt. It was instantaneous. Immense increase in torque. This should have been the result. Proof was 2 weeks later driving to New Hampshire. Driving at highway speeds and hitting a long incline on the roadway. The car accelerated without even unlocking the torque converter! No need to even downshift! It pulled like it never had before. That still remained. This has been a different car since the change. It pulls incredibly strong when pulling on to a highway. The car is a different beast and I love it. And that is with 207,000 miles! Proof is in the pudding, and daily driving is that proof.