Monday, January 5th, I'll be flying to OH to pick up my IB/W JCW MCS from Classic MINI. I'm so................ excited! :smile:

 

I don't believe specifics have been released on Dinan upgrades.

Are you looking at Dinan becuase of the supposed warranty that may be offering with all their products? It's important to remember that the warranty will be through Dinan and only servicable at Dinan authorized installers and not at most MINI dealers. Just something to keep in mind.

 

1. Intake - sounds good. A good cold air intake will add a little power and enhance the supercharger whine. Cheap and somewhat effective.
2. Throttle Body - Save your money. $400+ dollars for 2HP at best. Throttle bodies have shown to add very little power and only above 6k RPMs! So unless your MINI is going to be an exclusive track car, save your money. Here's the thread: Throttle Body

3. Exhaust Header - Mucho money, ZERO gain in power with a restrictive type exhaust like the JCW one is. So if want to keep the JCW exhaust, forget about the header. Increasing air flow with a free-flowing header and then going into a restrictive exhaust won't make you any power. In fact, NONE of the current headers on the market have made any real gains even with a good cat-back exhaust. Skip this one too.

 

Quite a few of the Mini dealerships that I have seen also install Dinan parts obviously on their BMW lines. I have talked in depth with two of them and they said that they would be carrying the Dinan line and that it carries the same warranty and in some cases a better warranty than the JCW. Given the history of Dinan, the prices will probably be pretty similiar to JCW territory, which is high priced. I think it is a good alternative to JCW and it may be suprising to see how many Mini dealerships will carry and install these products.

 

yes there will be a decent number of MINI dealerships that will be carrying Dinan products but (and I really don't mean to be Dinan negative) it's worth noting that there have been internal memos floating around BMW/MINI specifically distancing MINIUSA from Dinan and emphasizing that any aftermarket products that compete with the JCW, like the Dinan kit will eliminate any remaing MINI factory warranty.

Finally any warranty that is offered by Dinan will not be the MINI warranty that we're all used to. What that exactly means will remain to be seen but it is at least worth noting.

 

>>Monday, January 5th, I'll be flying to OH to pick up my IB/W JCW MCS from Classic MINI. I'm so................ excited! :smile:
If you wish to keep your warranty which I assume you do then consider:
Apperance upgrades-interior and exterior
Lightweight rims with sticky non runflat tires
A good 22mm rear swaybar using the center adjustable hole
Shortshifter with Whalen shift ****
Additional gauges for your dash
Schroth harnesses and a good comfortable helmet if you autocross or track your MCS.

 

Here's the official Dinan skinny:

http://dinancars.com/newsletter/news...6-10-2003.html

Looks like the Stage 2 will be similar to the JCW, except for the addition of a bored TB plus cold air intake, and the deletion of a ported and polished cylinder head.

 

Dinan is not worth the $.

It's high priced auto glitter.

buy it if it makes you feel good about tossing green, but don't look to it for performance values. Some of you people are quite gullible.

I would not waste the $ on Dinan or even the JCW, when I can get twice the performance at half the price with other aftermarket items.

- WCC

 

You may get twice the performance , but you get NO WARRANTY. And that is worth paying for, for some of us. Im looking forward to the Dinan kit.

Rob





>>Dinan is not worth the $.

>>
>>It's high priced auto glitter.
>>
>>buy it if it makes you feel good about tossing green, but don't look to it for performance values. Some of you people are quite gullible.
>>
>>I would not waste the $ on Dinan or even the JCW, when I can get twice the performance at half the price with other aftermarket items.
>>
>>- WCC :

 

warranty? is that REALLY worth paying for? For MINIMAL performance gains???

Good Luck

-WCC

 

>>warranty? is that REALLY worth paying for? For MINIMAL performance gains???

In a nutshell and for the "average buyer", yes the warranty is worth paying for. This is called being risk averse. For JCW and DINAN, the kits are not minimal- more on the moderate side (about 200 HP).

Sure you can do better with the power gains going with your own aftermarket parts but should something go wrong you'd have to consider the remedy. Also some people think that JCW and DINAN do a good job at making their upgrade components work well together.

WCC,
Just think to yourself, if you bought a MC for $18,000 with 4 year warranty then how much would you be willing to pay to get the same MC with a 12 month warranty? $1000 less? What do you think? It's a valid question that will tell you how much your warranty is worth to you. The answer will vary from person to person. Some people would never buy a car with a reduced warranty (used car!).

Personally,
I'm shootin for the stars but my wife is completely opposite. To each his/her own.

 

After I had the JCW kit installed, and driven it for several says (400 miles), I installed the Miltek header. It did make a very noticeable difference above 3,500 RPM's. The RPM's take off right up to the 6.900 limit. Very noticeable. The only add to the MINI before the kit was installed was the Madness Intake.

Would highly recommend the header. Read alot of BS on the JCW exhaust, see nothing avalable that would make a noticeable improvement, just more noise, which doesn't equate to power.

 

>>After I had the JCW kit installed, and driven it for several says (400 miles), I installed the Miltek header. It did make a very noticeable difference above 3,500 RPM's. The RPM's take off right up to the 6.900 limit. Very noticeable. The only add to the MINI before the kit was installed was the Madness Intake.
>>
>>Would highly recommend the header. Read alot of BS on the JCW exhaust, see nothing avalable that would make a noticeable improvement, just more noise, which doesn't equate to power.
>>
>>

Thank you for sharing your real-life product evaluation. Often we speculate about a product without personal experience. It's nice to learn the header does actually improve JCW performance.

I know many people feel that JCW exhaust is restrictive. I don't understand why JCW would include a restrictive exhaust in its tuning upgrade, only to hinder performance. Unlikely, IMO. On the other hand, could it be an unproven speculation that eventually became a common consensus among the MINI community? According to JCW literature, JCW exhaust is a "parallel-flow low backpressure system."

Has anyone with JCW kit upgraded to a different exhaust without upgrading header? Any noticeable performance improvement? :smile:

 

>>After I had the JCW kit installed, and driven it for several says (400 miles), I installed the Miltek header. It did make a very noticeable difference above 3,500 RPM's. The RPM's take off right up to the 6.900 limit. Very noticeable. The only add to the MINI before the kit was installed was the Madness Intake.
>>
>>Would highly recommend the header. Read alot of BS on the JCW exhaust, see nothing avalable that would make a noticeable improvement, just more noise, which doesn't equate to power.
>>
I think what you noticed is correct and I don't see any reason why it would not be the case to have some gains from the Milltek header with your setup. I have the restrictive Quicksilver exhaust and added the Milltek header and got some gains (no dyno). I don't think it was a useless mod. Perhaps with a "less restrictive" exhaust there would be even more gain from the Milltek header.

So if we go back to the dyno done on the Milltek header by RDR- if it was done with a stock MCS or MCS with restrictive cat-back exhaust we would predict no or small gains so no surprise there. A good test would be to have a stock MCS vs stock MCS with Milltek Cat-back exhaust vs Stock MCS with Milltek exhaust header and Milltek Cat-back exhaust vs MCS modded with intake/ECU/pulley/Milltek Header/Milltek Catback.

The most restrictive exhaust is the stock MCS exhaust and the JCW kit exhaust is an improvement. If you were to add the Milltek header to the stock exhaust there would be minor or minimal gains expected. More gains with a restrictive exhaust (JCW, Borla street, Quicksilver) and the most gains with the least restrictive exhausts (Milltek, Borla Race, UUC, Magnaflow, Alta Sport).

If you had a JCW kit and changed out the exhaust from the kit for a Milltek cat-back exhaust you would probably be able to tell the difference and I think Helix13 did have at least one customer that did just that.

 

I kept the original header and exhaust. In fact, their suspended from the ceiling in its garage. You can see the restrictiveness in the original header. The pre-cat and main cat, the way the four primaries merge into one, and the pinched section after the pre-cat show the ineffiency (?) in the original design. Milltek is explains to great length that its cat system passes 80% to 85% in comparison to the original at 65%.
Visually, you can see that theres a big performance between them.

The JCW exhaust system is very nicely done. Theres a small resonator after the connection flange, a nicely formed split where it goes from the single pipe and splits off into separate feeders to the two small muffler canisters, then nicely formed bends to the outlets.

This system looks no different than the Milltek exhaust or others like it. I'm confident that the John Cooper works did alot of research on on its design and integration of the total package. I personally don't believe that another system on the market will make a significant improvement.

I would like to see some dyno comparison info on this.