I have a 2006 MCSCa. Only upgrades are a rear sway bar, the JCW air intake, an M7 strut bar and M7 under strut system. I am thinking of finally getting a 15% reduction pulley from Helix.

My big concern about the upgrade is torque steer. I know the 15% upgrade will introduce torque steer, and that is one thing I can't live with. So is there anything I could do to eliminate it? I've seen some mention of upgrading engine mounts or something other things... which makes me worry that a "cheap" pulley upgrade will lead me to many other expensive upgrades.

I know this has been discussed before (there is a very long thread from 2004) but I thought I'd just ask to see what the general consenus is these days.

 

R53's don't have any appreciable torque steer. I've put down over 250wLb-Ft with my R53 with no torque steer issues at all. No really, I'm serious. The 212wLb-Ft that I had in my R56 however, that was a handful. Slightly different geometries bring havok.

Short story shorter, just install the pulley and enjoy.

 

my recommendation would be don't do it if you already "know" you can't live with it.

IMO you are not going to get tq steer from what mods you have.

 

What Ryephile said +1

Looks like your already on that road

Just go to Helix and get the pulley you know you want it.

 

Interesting comments so far. Thanks everyone. From what I had read in past threads, it sounded like at least a few people got some noticable torque steer after just the 15% pulley install. But perhaps they had done more that I hadn't realized.

And I suppose if it does create torque steer, I could always have the stock pulley re-installed. But I feel a little less worried that this'll happen.

 

My advice would be to try & find someone local to you with a 15% pulley. Drive that car & see what you think.

My opinion is the 15% didn't give me any additional torque steer. My car is a 2006 6 speed, with LSD.

 

Key word -> "appreciable." These things have torque steer. The question is how much you're willing to put up with.

 

Any front wheel drive car has the potential to exhibit torque steer. If its a problem then get a rear wheel drive car. The mini is great because in straight line it really has no torque steer (if on a level road). In the turns you will feel it more. The R53 needs the pulley. Probably the only reason its not on there from the factory is so Mini can charge for a JCW upgrade that has about a 14%ish pulley on it.

 

I was reading recently that torque steer occurs when the half shafts are not horizontal. This might happen if the car were lowered. If torque steer were a problem I'd think you'd have experienced it with the stock suspension. A 15% doesn't make that much more power than stock.

 

Normal suspension movement would cause the half shafts to move away from horizontal. Torque steer is reduced if the angles are the same, they don't have to be horizontal. The main cause in front engine cars is half shafts being of unequal length.

I had more torque steer with the OEM setup then I do now with a highly modded engine and a Quaife. The LSD really helps with torque steer.

 

I agree with Crashton's remarks,i have never experienced this problem with my 05 MCS.Q

 

Go drive any other front driver and you'll come back saying that "appreciable = relatively none". Dodge Omni GLHS, R56, and Neon's all have marked to violent torque steer. If you want to nit pick how negligible the R53's torque steer is, you're better off in a RWD setup.

 

I know my mods are not "crazy" but I feel hardly any tq steer, and that's with needing an alignment! Just do it and you won't regret it... and if you can't deal with little issues, I'm not sure if the MINI is the right car for you.

-Cody

 

I have a 2006 S Auto with a 15%, 380 JCW Injectors, Borla exhaust, lowered, camber plates, etc and I have very little if any torque steer.

That is one of the many things I like about the Mini very little torque steer, at least before the 07's. They are a different story.

 

PUT THE PULLEY ON!

 

I wasn't nitpicking, I was countering your asinine claim.

 

I have very similar mods (less the strut bar) on the same car and tranny... I haven't noticed significant / objectionable torque steer before or after the pulley... It's just pure bliss. You'll be so busy grinning you won't care. Oh yeah, I have MTH tune now also... which does make a bit of difference in smoothness over just the pulley...

 

Yeah, I never noticed it on my MINI with the 15%, but my little POS Civic that I use as a daily driver has it with it's whopping 127hp.

 

The only time I notice any torque steer is during, extremly hard acceleration from a stop, and and extremely hard braking, but it's only at the very begining of the operation and fades quickly.

 

Here is another with no torque steer. As was posted earlier, torque steer comes from unequal length driveshafts (or, manufacturing sample variations creating a pseudo unequal driveshaft situation). It manifests itself in a turn when you get on the go pedal. I have a 17% s/c reduction pulley on my 2005 MCSa and there is no torque steer. In a previous life, I owned a 1986 VW GTI and it had a serious case of torque steer - get on the go pedal in a turn with that car, and you had a knock down drag-out fight with the steering wheel.

Further edit: If the OP doesn't have torque steer without the s/c reduction pulley, adding the s/c reduction pulley will not in-and-of-itself add torque steer.

 

The thing is, torque steer is not all about drive shaft lengths. I'm no mechanical expert but if you Google or Wikipedia torque steer you will find many technical explanations that include lots of other factors that contribute to torque steer besides drive shaft lengths.

If you put enough power in the MINI, you will get torque steer.

But it does seem that the common consensus from the board (and from experts like the people at Helix) is that a 15% pulley upgrade won't introduce an appreciable amount of torque steer on a car with few other performance modifications.

 

Claiming my claim is asinine is asinine in itself, ironically.

 

Just for fun, I Wikipedia'd torque steer. Here is what came back:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque_steer

Under Root causes, the first bullet lists different driveshaft length.

Under Ways to reduce the effect of torque steer, the first bullet lists using an intermediate shaft to get both driveshafts to be equal in length.

What do you propose as an alternative source for torque steer in the MINI?

 

Did you just read the first bullet point of each section? The list of causes has driveshaft length as the first item. But there are more. And the list of remedies includes equal driveshaft length as well as others.

Plus it's Wikipedia. I'm sure at some point that article probably claimed that torque steer was caused by gremlins.

Read the entire article. And Google the issue and look at other sources. At the very least, read the posts here from people with MINIs that do exhibit torque steer. If drive shaft length was the only factor, there should be no way to get a first gen MINI to exhibit torque steer - but lots of people can testify that you can get torque steer on a MINI. Even in stock form you get some torque steer, just very very minimally and only under extreme circumstances.

 

PS - also take note of this line in Wikipedia:

So the equal length of the driveshafts reduce the torque steer effect.

Notice the word REDUCE not eliminate.

And again, take notice of all the other bullet items in Causes and Remedies.

I knew this thread was going to end this way. Ugh.