I thought I knew what Checkers means about the torque converter lagging. But instead of a problem with the torque converter, it now seems that the automatic can act funny at first with significant new power. Now everything has started to smooth out and is unreal with the RMW head and this is before a header or tune.

Has anyone found a way to upgrade the automatic transmission yet?

 

Sorry for this dumb question. We just bought a 2007 MCSCa as well and it is currently bone stock. When I asked a shop about doing a pulley upgrade, they did some research and found some posts on a dinan site where a dinan rep said that putting a reduced pulley on a Mini with Auto will make it not meat EPA emission standards. Has anyone with an Auto Transmission had to take their mini for smog? Did it have any problems?

The support to this was the JCW auto packages is offered in europe and not the US because they claim it wont meet emission standards here. Help is greatly appreciated since I want to do the pulley because of the bang for the buck. But I don't want to have that much trouble down the road because of it.

-Mike

 

Mikenaron If you have 07 you don't have a pulley, it's a turbo not a supercharger.

 

Its an 07 Convertible.. so still the SC..

Nice Mods CheckerS!!!

 

Thanks. Now I'm doing some cosmetic things. Power coating and polishing some engine compartment items. When I'm done I'll try and post some pik's

 

Mike,

I see you're in California. I had Way install a 15% pulley on my MCSa in Indianapolis, and then I moved to southern California. I had to smog check my car in order to register it here, and had no issues either with the visual check or the tailpipe readings. I was well below the limits.

I wouldn't worry about possible emissions problems.

 

Hi There. I am interested to see if other MCSa owners noticing the tranny fluid pan deveolping rust from nicks and scours. Should I take any action if there are spots I see that the metal got scraped a bit. I have no clue what chipped it

Just curious what the count is out there.

 

Any updates on the dimsport tuning for the automatic? The JCW for the R56 has a lot of torque so maybe the transmission can handle the stroker. My car seems to have lost some power and I hope it's just the ecu adaptive tune and not a mechanical problem. Also has anyone performed the Level 10 transmission upgrade? They now list the mini as a transmission they can upgrade.

 

Yes, I have done a Dimsport tune in Singapore with the following hardware:
1) HKS open pod
2) Alta 17% V2 pulley
3) Cosworth big valve head
4) RMW cam
5) 380cc JCW injector
6) Supersprint header, centre pipe and exhaust

I am getting 24.7kgm (182Ibsft) of torque and a 204HP. (the tuner think the duno machine is not very accurate for the HP). I will get a 2nd dyno on another place soon.

 

Does the R56 have the same automatic gearbox as the R52/R53's? They did just release the JCW package for the Automatic R56's? The JCW does put out 206 lb-ft of torque..

-Mike

 

Same tranny

 

Yes, the R53 and R56 use the same Aisin Warner gearbox and suppose to be good up to 350nm or 258lbsft max. This is the same gearbox using the some of the Toyota 3L cars.

 

Diosdado what is the level 10 tranny upgrade? Is that something the dealer does and if so what changes does it make?

 

wow great thread. Yeah I'm awaiting the tune for the automatics. I sent Jan a message regarding the shift points, he was wondering maybe it may be mechanical instead of electrical as far as when the car automaticly shifts, there for not really being able to change the rev limiter... anybody have any new info on that? I agree that its hard to dyno the autos. My car pulled 160 somthing on a dynojet, but my car is just as fast, and some days fast then other friends of mine's manuals. their cars dyno'd 185, 190... weird?
anyway, right now i'm working on a water meth setup with N2O so we'll see how that turns out. the car seems to be doing great so far. i have no tranny issues with 32k on the car.

once again, great thread! we need MCSa badges! ha

 

Yeah, the behavior of the torque converter does make these cars hard to dyno... I developed a new skillset figuring out how to do mine on the Dyanpack when Jan was here.

They do crazy things on the dyno, also... very weird torque curves, again, probably because of the torque converter behavior... yeah, my car pulled much lower numbers than I would have expected, too. But it's the tune that counts.

As for the Aisin transmission... I'm still trying to figure out exactly WHAT controls that thing... it's electronically controlled.... but I don't know what (if any) role the ECU has in that... the shift points are very different between regular auto mode and sport auto mode... but I don't know if the tranny has it's own internal electronic controller that does that (as well as forcing upshifts at max revs, etc.) or if the car's ECU or BC1 somehow does that...

 

Level 10 performance is a company that specializes in automatic performance upgrades. I don't have any real knowledge or experience with the company except that they now advertise that they can upgrade the auto transmission for the mini cooper s.

http://www.levelten.com/index.html

It would be interesting if any automatic owners have any experience with the simulated dyno program with the iphone and its accelerometer. My car which recently has been feeling much less powerful than when I had the RMW head installed (ecu? slipping belt? boost lead) only calculated to have about 160 whp.

Has anyone tried a dynopak dyno?

 

Here's my "melted" dynapack sheet...


This is 15%, CAI, one-ball and Jan-tune. No head, header or cam.

I have Dynolicious on my iPhone, but haven't gotten a good run yet for comparison.

 

Ok I called Level 10 today and they said they have several different types of mods according to what you want the car for.They are going to send me a spec sheet to fill out and send back with what I want in the car. So we will find out what and how much it's going to cost. This could be interesting.

 

Very interested (but kinda skeptical) of what you will find from these folks...

I just don't understand what they're doing to do that significantly improves the performance or reliability of the car....

 

They talked about changing the t converter and value body and maybe sending in the tranny for a complete rebuild. I'm just interested in what they have and the cost. The spec sheet is for them to see what I'm trying to do with the car, or so they said. We will see.

 

that is very interesting... Hmmm i wonder also what they have to offer!

 

I notice our auto-box is no slouch. It engages pretty swiftly, unlike my sedan's tranny. The MINI auto-box does get jerkier comparing to other slush-box. One upgrade I can think of would be a even more aggressive shifting program and a high-perf t-con. Is there anyone offering it other than levelten?

 

Heres my wacky dyno plot.Faulty plugs and a filthy filter aside,pretty damn successful.RMW cam & shorty (to replace obx header) are in the future.

 

Yeah... cam and shorty are in my future too .... drives me a little nuts how the torque converter makes it almost unpossible to get a "clean" pull on the dyno without the crazy drop in TQ/HP in the middle of the curve... though your "before" curve looked pretty good... I wonder if you did enough pulls if you get some good smooth ones occassionally when the torque converter behaves... hmmmm.... next time I'm at the dyno, I'm going to do more pulls and test this hypothesis.

 

If I recall,we did about 5 or 6 pulls.The issue,as you probably experienced too,was the inability to go full rpm before shift.