MY MINI COOPER IS STANDARD. I AM NOT A STANDARD GEEZER THOUGH. I WANT MY MINI TO BE FAST AND A LITTLE FURIOUS. I KNOW THAT A COOPER 'S' WOULD BE A BETTER STARTING POINT BUT I HAVENT GOT ONE. SO, CAN I GET A TURBO OR A SUPERCHARGER FITTED TO MY LOVLEY COOPER OR WOULD I JUST BE BEST OFF WAITING AND WAITING AND WAITING A LITTLE LONGER FOR A COOPER 'S'.

PREFERABLY I WOULD LIKE TO SORT MY COOPER OUT WITH SOME PROPER MACHINERY TO MAKE IT PUMP OUT ABOUT 170-200 BHP. HAS ANYBODY GOT ANY IDEAS. I KNOW THAT IT WILL COST ME AN ARM AND A LEG AND THE MRS WILL MOAN EVERYDAY FOR THE REST OF OUR RELATIONSHIP BUT HEY WHO CARES, I DONT AND YOU DONT, SO COME ON PEOPLE GIVE US SOME TOP NOTCH IDEAS.

CHEERS.

 

first off, welcome.

second off, all caps, no good.

Lastly, if you just got your cooper, trade up. The S is much faster, and of course, is supercharged. I purchased one of the first coopers, and am kinda dumb outta luck, so, I will not trade up (loose $). There are currently no turbo systems for sale, but M7 is almost done with one. I know you could go get nitrous installed, by pay a longevity price. There is currently one supercharger avail, and that's on the s. So, trade up.

=Danny=

 

Welcome to MCO/ NMC, but please don't use caps....

Caps=yelling

*ears hurt*

 

U beat me by 1 min Danny. Nice job

 

haha,
i typed it fast!



also, it looks like diamond racing's got a turbo (on a cvt).
check it out.

 

buy my 196hp cooper S :smile: :smile:

 

Be sneaky, buy a cooper ( the extra money can buy some nice features for the misses, adn extra sport options for you, and aftermarket then trick it out, with the turbo when it comes out, you'll have a devil in disquise.

 

Yeah...Don't do anything silly like buying an S. Get the turbo when it comes out and melt your entire MC engine and transmission in six months. It will TOTALLY be worth it!

Seriously--I have nothing against the Cooper, as I drove one for over a year before getting my S. It's a great car, but it is NOT engineered to safely/reliably run at 170+ hp. I'm sorry, that's just how it is. Buy a nice used S, if you can get a deal on it, and sell your Cooper for a good price. Then everyone (including your wife) will be happy!

 

If you don't lose much money in upgrading to an S that may be a good route to go unless there are other reasons you went for the Cooper over the S. But don't do this thinking the S will satisfy you...if your power hungry now you will be power hungry after you get an S...it doesn't go away.

 

If you build your COOPER right, no problems, big grins. You could go the bolt on route, but I suggest you beef up the driveline and lower the compression for reliability.

Chitown. I know that your comment was supposed to be sarcastic humor. Its a bunch of BS though and uncalled for. You can make a Cooper fast(er) and still have reliability if you build it right. While your assumption is close for the non-realizing, its way off for those who know.
_________________
-goin440 IB/IB MC

 

440--
All kidding aside--of course my comments were meant to be sarcastic, but I don't think that it was uncalled for. I'll gladly withdraw my comments if you (or whoever else) will do the following two things.

1) Find a Cooper that's dynoing out at 170+ hp.

2) Mark you calendar for one year from today, and show me that that Cooper is still in good shape.

I have yet to see anyone even talking about having a 170 hp Cooper, much less putting 10,000+ miles on such a car. Anything that you or anyone else writes about such a car is pure speculation. Or have I missed something to the contrary?

 

Welcome MAXIMUS

Why not give the Cooper to your wife and you get a new 2004 S. While you are waiting for you "S" you can always practice you driving on how to rally with your wife MINI hehehehheheh

 

At some point, there WILL be turbo Coopers in the streets running reliably. Just imagine, a plain Jane Cooper with little old 15" Holies, no bonnet stripes, NOTHING but a turbo underneath. Nice little sleeper there. Chitown, this is a young aftermarket here...I have no doubt there will be safe and reliable turbos for the Cooper.
I have vigourously defended the Cooper many times on this board and will continue to do so - it is far more capable than many give it credit. And there are way too many MCS owners out there ready to bash it at will, without ever driven one "THE RIGHT WAY" Now to all you MCS guys that had Coopers and traded up, that's fine, at least you can do long term comparisons. Drive the car for awhile, learn it's limits and then decide on an upgrade path. The longer you wait, the more you'll see available for the car. Whether you'll get 200 HP out of it, I doubt. 200 HP is a mark the MCS guys are shooting for right now.
And really, why stop at 200 HP? The power game is intoxicating...

 

In the same respect, we have yet to see the same from a well mod'd S.

I agree that the risk is high for Cooper. I'm saying if its done right (not nesscessarily cheaply) it will be fine. I don't think "get an MCS" should be an answer for a fast MC. I think what is already availble for the MC is a great start, but not if done without consideration to other components.

Besides, we need to blow up some first to see what they can handle. Its just not going to be mine.

_________________
-goin440 IB/IB MC

 

yes the aftermarket is young with the MINI as the car is young...but there are limiting factors in the cooper that would be extremely expensive to replace...such as the tranny...point being if he is looking at being cost effective the Cooper S would be a much better route - even with losing a bit of dosh on his new Cooper. Now if he wants his cooper to be fast and willing to spend big bucks that is great, I'd love to see it as it would be a wonderful car if done right.

The internals can be beefed up a bit, lower the compression, but you still face the tranny problem. I for one if I wanted to make a real sleeper cooper I would want to trade and get alteast a 04 cooper to have the getrag 5 speed that will replace the existing tranny that even BMW is unhappy with.

 

Welcome to the family MAX!

You guys might want to read a real experts thoughts on performance upgrades for the MC:

http://www.webbmotorsports.com/forum...topic.php?t=98

My opinion is, if you want to put the horses to the ground, you gotta go with an MCS. The engine and drive train are significantly better in the MCS besides the supercharger. If you plan to make it strictly a race car it can be done with a MC, but expect it to brake more often. However if you plan on driving it in the real world (aka need reliability), start with a solid platform that can handle the HP (read MCS) and drive it like you stole it!

 

Absolutely! At some point down the line, I'm sure that there will be great aftermarket options for the Cooper. But I live in the present, and I assume Maximus does, too. The question was for someone who's power hungry, should he keep his Cooper and put on a Turbo or should he consider getting an S. I think that at the present time, the choice is obvious. Even if you were going to spend the money on a turbo/NOS kit for a Cooper, you're still just getting into standard or slightly modded MCS territory (power-wise), and you are still starting with a softer suspension and having a tranny that may or may not be able to take the added horses. For the record, I am a huge fan of stealth, though; and I think that a 200 hp Cooper could be very very cool, and would make a fun Acura (or whatever) eater! :smile:

I completely agree! I loved my Cooper, and it was very hard to let it go when my S arrived. But I realized that I wanted more power, I *loved* the S transmission, and I saw that the currently available mods were very much targeted at the S, so that my future power options were somewhat pre-ordained. Furthermore, you can still turn around and sell a Cooper for darn near what you paid for it (I only lost about 10% over one calendar year!). This is what the final decision came down to for me. It wasn't strictly economical, but as far as bang for the buck and reliability go, the MCS is still your best long term power bet. And with the turbos (etc.) that Casey and the rest of people are working on, the MCS is only going to get more and more powerful in the aftermarket! Just please don't lump me in with your standard MCS-owning basher of MCs, OK?

Yep! But apparently it's not being done right yet. There's still a lot more guinea pigging that needs to take place before people should even consider strapping turbos onto their MCs yet!

Exactly! Once you eliminate the tranny issues, then reliability is much less of a concern. But this doesn't really help existing MC owners (like Maximus).

Final thought: I'm glad that this didn't (or hasn't yet!) turn into a MCS vs. MC flame-fest. It's nice to see that sometimes we're able to actually hold real-live adult-style conversations, that might even end up being productive!! :smile: :smile:

 

Casey, as a marketing MINI performance salesperson, what kind of options are available for aftermarket Coopers? Not much. There are owners looking to make their Coopers faster, not looking at getting an "upgrade" to an MCS.

_________________
-goin440 IB/IB MC

 

>>Casey, as a marketing MINI performance salesperson, what kind of options are available for aftermarket Coopers? Not much. There are owners looking to make their Coopers faster, not looking at getting an "upgrade" to an MCS. INNOVATE, don't of IMMITATE.... Everyone can build something thats already been done (to death).
>>
>>_________________
>>-goin440 IB/IB MC

I totally agree and if you read my post you will see I was saying if your looking for a cost effective route the MCS woudl be better, but if you want to keep your cooper it can be done...I know many people have Coopers and HATE the look or some other aspect of the S..but the originally poster seemed not to imply that. Cost effective the MCS is a better route. There is a reason that there isn't much aftermarket stuff for the Cooper, it costs too much to do it correctly, and "most" people that want tons of hp have an S. Most Cooper owners bought their car because they are not hp junkies, but realize that for them the Cooper is a better fit. The real strenghts of the Cooper is that it is lighter weight and handling...thus many of the aftermarket options for the Cooper are for that...improving on that. Sure we can make 250hp Cooper - but with the internals etc that need to be replaced, worries about the tranny etc, 2 kits may be sold, surely not enough to justify the development cost to do this. This has nothing to do with one car being better then the other so please DO NOT MAKE THIS INTO a MCS vs MC thread. It is simply there isn't enough demand yet to justify the costs. Sure there is many that would want 225-250hp in their cooper...but they also aren't willing to spend 10k to do that.

The Cooper is a great car, so please do not take it that way or imply that I am trying to say that it isn't.

 

(Manufacturers take note) It doesn't have to be "at some point down the line." This conversation is MCS vs. MC... but more MCS (aftermarket) vs. MC (aftermarket). There is just no support in the Cooper aftermarket yet.

From reading, the majority of the mod threads are usually "What can I do and still keep the warranty." This tells me that there will be more interest to mod as owners come to the end of their financing terms. 2 years already down. Its time to innovate the aftermarket.

(And the first people to innovate this market... )

 

Maximus,

From your profile it says you're from Manchester. I would suggest you post on MINI2 given that, as far as I know, the M7 Turbo would be more of a U.S. market product. Just a thought.

Dave

 

I forgot to add...

Right now, today... A tranny upgrade for the Cooper would be brilliant. You got the '02-03 owners looking at the '04 getrag, and a replacement tranny would be a cheaper alternative than a trade.

 

Your looking at 3500-4000 for a tranny upgrade...add another 1000 for install and you got 5k just into the tranny. Now add a turbo system, nos, internal engine work etc to get it up to 225 and your looking at another 3-5k not including install...figure another 1000-2000 or more for install if it involves internals and your over the 10k mark. I'm just not convinced that there is many Cooper owners that would be willing to spend that kind of money. To want it is one thing - to be willing to pay that much money for it is another.

Reasonably in the Cooper your looking at 180ish being about the max I would feel comfortable going without doing tranny/clutch upgrades not to mention internals.

If that is what your goal is then the M7 turbo kit may very well be the ticket for you.

 

Maximus,
Aloha and welcome to NAM,
Have you owned a supercharged or turbo car before? Any experience racing? How about a MINI ONE-then upgrading that? Cheaper base price. In your area don't you pay more for car insurance with a modified car?



I would agree with Casey,
$5000 for tranny upgrade after the original one breaks, $5000 for the big turbo upgrade. And that is just for starters. Now you need to upgrade wheels/tires and suspension- another $3000-4000. Seems that most MC owners are not interested in that sort of outlay of cash albeit the MC is lighter in weight.

 

I assume you have the standard transmission. If so you are set, as that transmission can handle the power you want. I would look into the Turbo being developed by Diamond Racing Group. http://www.diamondracinggroup.com

There are MANY other places for thigs to make your Mini go faster. Personally I'd have gone for an S if I wanted the fastest and then modded it out.