Hello every one. I recently bought a 2003 mini cooper S with 62K miles on it. I have a second car that I use as a daily so Im looking to do some big mods to the mini since down time is not going to be a factor nor does it need to be a daily driver.

Im getting ready to order new pistons and rods to kick things off to handle increased boost and HP gains. Once I finish this Im looking to twin charge the car. I can not seem to find a guide or any good pictures for a twin charger kit on a mini. Im guessing twin charging a car is roughly the same principle on all cars more or less, I found this picture from a VW and just wanted some feed back on the configuration.



I take my car to the drag strip on the weekends with my friends (2011 Mustang GT and 2007 Mustang GT) so Im looking to put my car inline with their 1/4 times which is 13.7 at the best. My fastest time to date with my stock S is 15.5. Any suggestions or a guide would be helpful, thanks.

 

I wouldn't recommend twincharging. While its a really cool concept, it's kind of old news and there are much better things for you to drop your $$$ on these days!

If you want to get 13.7 at the drags, you can get past that simply with pulley/head/cam/header/exhaust/tune basically. As far as crazier stuff...there are a couple different options you can go with a supercharger, or you can scrap the supercharger and go turbo only. Both work better than a twincharge setup would.

Follow the thread about the Rotrex supercharger a few threads down. Having been in a rotrex'd MINI before, I will tell you there is simply nothing else in the world like it.

 

Ok, I read... A LOT more. I do not see that many twin charged minis recently. I do not like the idea of T/C my now S/C mini I would like to keep its "roots" to make additional power, if I went with a Rotrex S/C what type of electric water pumps are people using for the 1st gen minis? Thanks.

 

Talk to Jan at Revolution (RMW). Or his most popular client, Longboard (as he's known on NAM). He's got a Rotrex supercharged R53.

 

LB's 1.8 is a mother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yeah LB has a sick mini thats for sure, I just read the entire 15 page thread. Im not looking for anything quite that intense. I will reduce weight with carbon fiber hood/hatch/doors and so on to get my power to weight ratio lower.

Im looking for 270HP-300HP, this could easily turn into a drag/track car. Im not one to half a$$ or skimp I have a harley with $7K in it to attest to that.

I sent Jan a PM, I also found this with a quick google search, 35gpm should be more than ample, its for 5.0 engines.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CMB-12-0007

 

I'm sure you know, the mini cooper isn't a drag race car, yes, it will hold it's own but if u really wanna give ur friends a can of whoopass take them to the turns.
But, Sounds like u wanna make ur mini into a beast!!
Ur making me wish I had money :(

 

the way the VW twincharge works is very different than those that have twincharged the MINI. It's more of a "first SC then Turbo" type system, whereas most (all?) of the MINI twincharge systems compress the air with a turbo first then feed the SC. This allows the SC to keep a relatively sane pressure ratio so it's thermal efficiency isn't a tuurd leaving skid-marks in the bowl.

Most of the twincharger set-ups that really have lasted have been home built or are based on kits that aren't around anymore. Those questing for really big HP have gone turbo only.

You can do really well with good head work and some other stuff, like others have said. If you want fast easy power, take a hit off the bottle! The heads that you can get now are much more optimized than early on when the car first came out.

Matt

 

Follow this thread for various opinions and experiences with people running +300HP MINIs: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ercharger.html
BTW: Twurbo kits are available and work well. Obviously everthing needs to be properly beefed, balanced and tuned well or you will ruin your engine faster than you can say "WOOT".

 

Please share with us which "twurbo" kits are working well....

Alta doesn't even sell them anymore. As Dr O said...most of the people that are still actually running twinchargers use a custom homemade setup that have a lot of money and time into them. Twincharging is more of a novelty...kinda like doing it just to brag that you have a supercharger and a turbo. If you want reliable high horsepower, there are much better routes to go. Stick with one or the other...s/c or turbo. For what the OP wants....he doesn't even need to touch the stock supercharger though.

But if he did...a $4995 rotrex kit makes a hell of a lot more sense than wasting money on twincharging. Not to mention it will actually run right

 

The more I read the more it looks like a straight turbo setup might be the way to go. As much as I would like to go with a better S/C the technology just isnt there. RMW is the only one making any real progress in this area and it seems like a lot of head aches... also very expensive. Also it seems like a straight turbo setup is going to be a bit cheaper as well... a lot of figuring out ahead of me, thats for sure. Not to mention most turbo setups run $2500~ as opposed to the $3-5000 price tag on S/C kits. I know its hard to spool a turbo with a 1.6L so I might even have to consider nitrous as much as I hate nitrous it might be the only way to get it spooling...

 

If you want to be in the 270-300 hp range like you mentioned, you do not need to change from the stock sc. There are plenty of 250-260 whp R53's running around out there with stock s/c.

If you want to be above 300 to the wheels, that's when you should consider gettin' crazy. And I promise you, you are going to spend a lot more than $2500 to get a turbo-only setup running right.

 

Im fine with spending whatever, money is not really an issue, Im not rich by any means but I dont like to **** money away like its nothing, if I can save I absolutely will. Im sure it will take a lot more than $2500 Im just looking at the base cost of kits with out adding anything else to them. S/C tend to be $1000 more than an average T/C kit from what I have looked at.

 

Here's a link to the twurbo I was referring to: http://www.motoringfile.com/2007/03/21/5666/

A "Fireball" tuned Mini will pump out anywhere from 300 to +600WHP, depending on how big your ***** and bank account are.

 

That's a turbo only car. Which coincidentally was just for sale on eBay...needing "minor repairs"


A "twurbo" refers to the twincharge kit that Alta used to produce.

 

This is a good example of a well done twin-charged MINI:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...whp-232tq.html

The owner has an up to date thread over on motoring alliance.

There were several twincharged MINIs during the earlier years (2002-2006) but most owners have either stopped posting or have moved on to other things.

 

I just thought twurbo meant "twin turbo". I didn't realize it refers to Alta parts. There's a Miniac in the KC area with a fireball-tuned MINI. He claims it has about 300WHP with a "moderate" tune. I don't know the details of the mechanical upgrades, but I do know that entire engine has been rebuilt along with the clutch, etc.

 

What? Most of the KC Mini's I know are stock with bolt-on's and I haven't heard any chatter about a 300whp MINI in the KC area.

 

Hubie from ABF performance has made 80 + manifolds with most of them ending up as twincharged.

I was very luck to have the chance in 2006 to drag race his daily terminals were in the 111 -112 range with 300whp at 2900lbs with me in the car, what was impressive was on slicks it went 1.80 60ft at that weight.

If my memory surves me right on 4 yr old 18 inch tyres it went 13.2 spinning the tyres to just before the 1000ft mark and with the slicks on it went 12.3.

On the Friday before I saw the car sit in a 2hr LA traffic jam coming back from the dyno.

Funnly enough at that dyno I first met Jan and his turbo drag car, I remember him saying that his twincharged car went 114mph in the 1/4 and what a blast it was to drive.

I know Hubie has just received another batch of manifolds so your timing is spot on.

There is another twin charged thread about, if you type in whp to the search button you'll find it.

Good luck with whatever you do.

 

That was a fun day!!

 

I really dont understand all the turbo hate that goes on here...

If you have another car as a DD then I would suggest a turbo and a stand-alone. Save yourself the headaches with the stock ECU, that way you can also tweak things yourself... And before anyone says it, converting to a stand alone can range anywhere from pretty straight forward to mildly complex depending on how much of the stock conveniences you want to keep.

If you were to complete strip it down and forgo any modern convenience (track car) stand alone would be easy.

 

In fact I just rembered that manifold and turbo on Hubies twincharge is now on Mini Morgans Cooper S over here in the UK, makes 300whp and drives every day on stock ecu.

 

Yeah apart from the loudness off your exhaust

 

was it that loud? it was quiet inside.. lol

 

while the dyno might say its 300 whp .its loosing so much power up top as the drag strip has shown.109 mph first run dropping to 104 mph after a couple of runs.its not how much you have its how much you can
keep of it


lee