With relation to the Pulley upgrade, MINI nor any OEM would consider doing the pulley reduction upgrade, not because of warranty, or risk, but for the simple fact that the supercharger is made by Eaton, and is rated only for the OEM pulley.
What aftermarket is doing is "overclocking" the supercharger. While the supercharger is robust, Eaton built it to reliabily run with the OEM pulley. Consider the similarities with PC modders overclocking Processors.. the OEM does not tolerate overclocking, and it voids warranties, but the aftermarket (Motherboard manufacturers) encourages it.

In regards to the Muffler, the stock muffler is actually very good, which explains why there is little HP increase with a aftermarket muffler.

The ECU aftermarket is a MOD whereby the values are tweaked for performance. Often, these values exceed federal mandated values for new vehicles. By Law, MINI and other OEM's are bound to these federal rules. take for instance, the speed limiters in larger sports cars... why?

Air Intake... The high performance intakes are high maintanence. Due to preferences to those who what reliability over performance, manually cleaning a filter every so many miles would not be tolerated well. for us who choose to MOD, we look forward to having to do so.

The JCW ... The cost is about 2 things.. Cost to extend the warranty, and the badging.
Note that the JCW modifies the supercharger in other ways than just the pulley. They place it closer to spec to the Eaton 62. This is how they get around Eaton's limitation.

So with this said, why does MINI need to assume the responsibility for aftermarket parts. They make enough money on the replacement parts as it is, without the headaches of less-tested aftermarket parts.
bottom line, Automobile OEM's make the most money in parts, not vehicles. They make less money on aftermarket parts because they can't buy in large bulk.

Now dealers are another thing. For instance our wonderful dealer here in Portland installs cold-air Intakes, the Alta Pulley, and aftermarket mufflers, along with the JCW. They make good money at that but not more than expected (small markup for the parts + standard labor charge).
Chad

 

his quote has a lot of bad info in it. The supercharger pulley reduction does not "overclock" the supercharger. In fact, the 15% reduction pulley is STILL WITHIN tolerances set by Eaton. It was MINI that chose not to have the supercharger put out 100% of its power, not Eaton. The supercharger is built for more. One of the reasons MINI "detuned" it was probably so a JCW kit could be offered very easily and without risk by using a smaller pulley.

No, not really. The JCW's supercharger uses a different coating than the regular S supercharger but it is not for reliability. Eaton AS WELL AS JCW admits this coating slightly improves efficiency, it DOES NOT increase reliability of the supercharger one bit. And again, there is no "Eaton limitation" to get around. Yes there is a limit to the supercharger but an S with an aftermarket 15% pulley reduction at an ECU enhanced redline of 7200 RPMs will still be BELOW Eaton's recommendations.

Please do not post erroneous information. Thank you.

 

I've always liked sports cars and have owned several Mustangs, but like you, I have never modded or even had the urge to mod a car before. I'd just purchase the best engine from the factory and enjoy that. It wasn't until I read this board for a number of months that I started getting the itch. And when I went to my first MINI Meet and saw all the different things that people were doing to their MINIs, both performance and other, I decided to try an intake. After that, well, i became hooked!

 

minimc - you are absolutely right! That's what I'm talking about as well.

 

>>his quote has a lot of bad info in it. The supercharger pulley reduction does not "overclock" the supercharger. In fact, the 15% reduction pulley is STILL WITHIN tolerances set by Eaton. It was MINI that chose not to have the supercharger put out 100% of its power, not Eaton. The supercharger is built for more. One of the reasons MINI "detuned" it was probably so a JCW kit could be offered very easily and without risk by using a smaller pulley.
>>

>>No, not really. The JCW's supercharger uses a different coating than the regular S supercharger but it is not for reliability. Eaton AS WELL AS JCW admits this coating slightly improves efficiency, it DOES NOT increase reliability of the supercharger one bit. And again, there is no "Eaton limitation" to get around. Yes there is a limit to the supercharger but an S with an aftermarket 15% pulley reduction at an ECU enhanced redline of 7200 RPMs will still be BELOW Eaton's recommendations.
>>
>>Please do not post erroneous information. Thank you.







That's all nice to say, but do you have specs/data to back that up? It may even be true, but to just throw it out there, state it as fact, and also accuse someone else as being wrong, without data to back it up is pretty strong.

I'm an engineer for a company that makes OEM auto components, including turbo systems, and I can tell you that one thing that happens with every component on every car is EXTENSIVE durability and life testing. Try 1000 cycles of 125C to -40C thermo cycles (one hour at each temp) with the part cycling the entire time. Then each part is tested, dissassembled, measured, and before and after results are examined. And that is just one of about 20 tests each design has to go through.

The pulley ratio selected by BMW is there for a reason. Sure, you can push it, and maybe you'll not notice any harmful side effects. But you have to admit, you'll need to be more careful. Never get low octane fuel, be careful in hot driving conditions. But I'd wager many people are out there right now running 87 octane in their S, because they really don't know any better or think the requirement for better gas is a bunch of hooey. These people would be the same ones blowing up motors and complaining about bad quality if the car came standard with higher boost.

There is also the wear issue. Simply put, running the supercharger 15% faster will make it wear out faster. Maybe that means it fails at 200,000 miles instead of 230,000 miles, or maybe it fails at 85,000 instead of 100,000.


This isn't meant as a personal attack, just another side of the discussion.

 

YellowMINIS - you make good points. No, I don't have hard data. But I did read MIKE COOPER himself in a Euro mag talking about the JCW kit and the coating. He said that they were basically the same form a reliabilty standpoint (the different coatings, that is) but that the new coating improved efficiency.

I agree and can't argue about the wear issue. It's no guarantee that the supercharger will wear out earlier or ever wear out (before the rest of the car). But the odds are certainly there that your supercharger might fail earlier than it would have otherwise. No doubt about it that there is that chance/possibility.