You remember your first car: some turd that seemed the greatest car on the planet. Mine was a FIAT spider. Turd. Loved it. In fact I've been spending more and more money on cars ever since, trying to re-create the love that I had for that car. The same holds true for our MINIs. I've been trying to make the R56 as enjoyable as our trusty R53 mule. Yesterday, we came a lot closer.

We have installed a beta of the Helix PowerPaq piggyback onto our R56 and are holding 17psi boost (versus brief bursts of 14psi, dropping quickly to 12 on the stock car). The drivability is as-stock, just faster. The goal is to maximize the area under the torque curve for best real-life usability, which we have started to do as you can see on the comparison graph below. We're working on quicker spool-up at tip-in and have a couple of unexplored tricks to go, but the early results are pointing the needle on the Fun-O-Meter in the right direction.

 

I just saw this on MU. Great news! glad to see some ppl are getting into the ECU. so are you only changing the boost or do you have plans to alter the other MAPs?

 

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee haw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Nice!

 

Nice curves! Can't wait to see the final products numbers.

 

o dear god not this again


will you offer a stage 2 for people with an intake/turback exhaust?

 

LOL.....When can we get one? Please dont say "in 2 weeks"

 

two weeks is the running joke around our office for project turn around time... thanks to that legendary tuning company

 

Oh, about 2 weeks.

 

Is there a way to increase the boost below 2800 rpm where it is lower than stock while retaining the boost above 3k?

Looks good though!

 

Yup, that's the next project. These maps are really conservative and as of yet simple. We struggled with the wiring for a bit so we havn't had a lot of tuning time yet. But even as it stands now, the car feels quick.

 

I am pretty sure this question has been addressed elsewhere but my searches come up with far too many results to sift through, maybe you can help me. I will shortly be taking delivery of a new MCS and am weighing the tuning options. At the front of the list on the power upgrades is the JCW tuning kit even though I think everyone will agree it will not provide the most bang for the buck. I prefer not to compromise warranty, but the direction you're going sounds WAY more fun than the factory option. The question is with something like your piggy back ECU tweak, can that be used and easily removed with no trace of it's existence in the event something goes wrong and warranty service is required?

 

I think this will start my R56 STX project :P

 

only thing i can say, "can't wait"

 

Im stoked. Any idea on price?

 

That's a helluva torque curve for stock... no wonder it's so easy to drive

 

Damn nice news for the R56 owners.

 

AWESOME!!!!! 25hp gain=fun!!! Can't wait!

 

Sounds like you need to advance the crap of the intake cam down low to get that quicker spool.

 

That's one thing we're looking at. Timing is a little different on direct injection cars.

 

do you have an air fuel read out? that is something that would be my biggest concern.

thanks.

 

Sorry for the slow response--back from a few days at the beach. We do have fuel airs, and will post everything when we are closer to an announcement. We've made more progress, and are close to needing beta testers in the Philly region. Any interested parties???

 

silly question!



too bad I live 5k miles away.

 

Rochester NY is tooooo far is it? =)

 

i'm not terribly far. little over 1.5hr away. hmmmm