On Tuesday I became the proud owner of JCW Sound Kit #D174 which was installed on my 2006 Cooper Cabrio. The kit came with the all-stainless JCW exhaust, a JCW air intake, silver fuel injector cover with JCW badge, engine cover with JCW badge and serial number, JCW ECU remap flash, an exterior JCW badge and a numbered certificate of authenticity.

You can view a gallery of photos with recordings before and after the install by clicking here.

The first audio clip in the gallery was made before the install with the stock exhaust. There is a slight pause, then the second clip is after install with the JCW exhaust.

The sound is awesome. Nice, throaty tone at startup and idle, great sound when you're on the throttle and no drone at all at cruising speed. It has a nice burble on the downshift and when you come off the throttle and it makes the Cooper sound much more aggressive when accelerating. Third gear sounds so cool I may never use fourth and fifth again!

 

Congratulations!! Great choice.

 

Congrats....Believe it or not, the sound will improve as you drive more.

 

Love it, very nice indeed.

 

Very nice indeed. I have been considering it but wasnt sure if it was really worth it or not. Did you feel any difference in power at all and was this a dealer install? For the money it seems like one of the nicer mods that you can do to an MC.

 

Sounds great!

 

It's supposed to be a 3HP gain but that is such a small amount it isn't really measurable or noticeable. The engine revs very freely and shifting through all the gears is very smooth. I had the MTH basic remap installed before the JCW ECU flash, so I need to find out if the JCW file wiped out MTH or added to it. I was very happy with the MTH flash so if it's gone now I will want to add it back in.

My dealer had the sound kit for $935 plus labor. Morristown has it online for $895 but they won't ship it. I asked my dealer to match that price and they ended up knocking some off the labor costs to match it.

 

Very nicely done presentation. I also have a JCW Sound Kit on a 2006 Cooper cabrio, and like it a lot.

I've been considering an MTH flash and very interested in your comments. I think that the JCW flash would fully wipe out the MTH, and you need to send in your current JCW map for a new MTH map to match the intake/exhaust. What differences have you noticed since the update?

In case you missed it, here is a thread from someone who got MTH for a Sound Kit: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=83442

 

I just loaded the MTH file three weeks ago and it really put a smile on my face. I didn't do it for the power because I know an ECU flash can't do that much without a lot of other physical mods. I did it to smooth out the gears and MTH did that in a big way. Lots of pull everywhere and the Cooper felt really zippy. Better fuel economy too.

The JCW remap seems to have taken some of that away. So I'll be contacting Don to see if I need to send him files again for a new remap. since I bought the basic remap I think updates are supposed to be $60. I just did it though so maybe Don will be willing to help me out with an update.

 

I have the SK on my MC Hardtop and would have done the same for a Cabrio which I contemplated getting. Must be soo nice with the top down. Very nice sound review.