Quick question...

Is the reason the tunes are “safer” on a JCW because it’s only 10:1 compression as opposed to the 10.5:1 on an MCS?

Just curious.

Thanks,

Mark

 

I am certainly agreeing to much of this.

But from the consumer point of view, they see an assumed "brand" name on NAM offering a devise for power they jump at it, assuming it is "safe" to use. But in this instance, we are talking about a sizeable jumpin boost and therefore as czar put it = heat which can increase the probability of destroying an engine. I also say the vendors do not adequately convey the risks attached to the purchase decision. They are in the market to make money and sell the product knowing full well the risks can be higher than most deem exceptable.

I believe that both the sellers of HP maximizing products and the consumers of these products have some form of cupability, maybe it is moral.., but for some it is financial.

What about Mini? I think they have built an unreliable car and encouraged modding. They certainly did not put in much of a tolerance level in either their design or their manufacturer of the car. But are they to blame for overheated and blown engines which have go faster boosted parts? Who knows. Guess some people will test that as well.

Some food for thought.

 

WOW,as I have stated in previous posts, here is an example of "over modding" and its results pushing it to the max..Power crazed on a stock MCS. craziness

 

What are the average repair costs when something like this happens?

 

The dealer would want around 8k since they usually just RnR the engine.

An independent could start in the 2k range most likely and move up from there. Depends on the type of repair utilized.

 

Exactly. Pay to play, period.

 

I dont know if it had anything to do with why this motor or any motor fails on the r56 but i have noticed strong knock when in cruise at say 40mph and in like 5th or 6th then giving some gas

I dont have any tune and only CAI and catback

 

Looks like great advise but can you tell us what we can do to control the heat. I think alot of Mini owners have a limted bubget and building a complete engine is a good solution but not in the budget for most. Are there things that you can advise to reduce heat that would allow for moderate HP & torque gains with safety or do you think that NO TUNING should be done on the MCS and factory JCW?

 

I see that maps there are for 91 octane fuel... Don't you have 98 or 100 octane fuel there in USA??

 

Your 98 and 100 Octane are different than ours...you use a different rating system...RON. Ours is RON+MON/2 = AKI (anti knock index)....

98 octane in Europe is the same as 93 in the US.....(from what I recall...)

 

folks, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, this thread is a related read:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...nd-rods-1.html

 

He's basically saying....you have to pay to play. Tune the car and expect to see things break (not a definite, but good chance).

When I realized I had something wrong, I was sitting there at a stoplight....I instantly thought "oh god, it finally happened... " Then I got home, pulled my plugs...and #3 was covered in oil, and then I knew...yes it finally did happen.

I always felt it was bound to happen, especially after I put the JCW turbo on. While I agree with czar 110% on most everything he says...he does make it sound like you can't do anything to the car and not expect it to break. This shouldn't be the case, but unfortunately, this seems to be true with the R56. People with simple tunes are blowing motors...its kind of ridiculous in my opinion. Especially when you hear of stock motors seeing the same failure.

Coming from the VW/Audi world...people can run 20 psi all day long and not break pistons. I will stand by my thinking that these motors are junk....the threshold should not be that close. People should be blowing turbos before they are blowing motors. No one on here has done anything that drastic to where they should be blowing motors as much as people are. Maybe with a turbo swap it's understandable...but I don't know many people that have. You have the few and far between GT28RS guys that can't get it to work right long enough to even see if the motor can take it. And other than that you have a few people running the Alta billet turbo or other various reworked K03 based turbos...but they haven't been running long enough to see failure. I ran the JCW turbo for about 10k before I lost a piston...and about 30k miles tuned on the stock turbo prior to that.

As far as keeping things cool in the motor...the obvious are FMIC and water/meth. They both will help, but this will not cover up an inherent poor design and the fact that you are doubling the amount of boost (read:heat & stress) the motor was designed to see.

 

ahaaaa! now i understand! It seemed too strange!


On wikipedia i found the table:
98RON = 93–94AKI
95RON = 90-91AKI

Still, ALTA maps are optimized for 91AKI (95ron) On my cooper S 184hp manual it is written to use always 98ron/94aki octane fuel!

 

As czar stated at his previous post, EGT and cylinder firing temps are the most interesting info which can tell you how much heat the motor is experiencing.
Having said that I should add that my EGTs with the JCW kit software were in the 1000oC range. That was pretty much the reason for a badly cracked stock MCS turbo back then. After the addition of a DP and a FMIC the EGTs stayed merely the same. But after the software tuning, which tends to run richer than stock, the EGTs dropped to 940oC even with higher than stock boost!
So:
DP+FMIC+JCW kit tune= 1000oC (0,9bar)
DP+FMIC+custom tune= 940oC (1,3bar)

All of that is always on 100RON.

However, after 10k of the above configuration I do have slight leakage on cylinders 2,3 and 4

My compression test and leak down test showed:
No. 1 cylinder 12,5bar/181psi (no leakage)
No. 2 cylinder 12,1bar/175psi (leaks)
No. 3 cylinder 11,8bar/171psi (leaks)
No. 4 cylinder 12,0bar/174psi (leaks)

And you can noticeably hear piston slap, when cold.

So, I am assuming this is the beginning of the end...?

 

I think your statement is a little unfair in this situation because 99% of the people that want “power” simply want a tune to make the car what it should have been from the factory. The people that do “build” their engines (pistons, rods, cams, etc, etc) have all been educated enough to know “you pay to play”.

The “POWER” that these tunes produce for the most part don’t create enough “HEAT” if used properly. (thus the reason why Alta sends you Stage I, Stage II and Stage III maps)

Now, if the end users takes a more aggressive map like a stage III when they should be using a Stage I, then I believe it’s definitely the customer’s choice and they must suffer the consequences.

However, I think in this situation, the mini owner with a stock engine that wants a bit more out of it with a tune isn’t asking for anything ridiculous. It would be no different than Mini selling the Stage I JCW kit.

I think if you buy a tune from a tuner, they have some responsibility of making sure it’s “safe” (which in my opinion, they all do... it wouldn’t behoove any one of our tuners to produce a tune that would be unbelievably aggressive only to have it blow someone’s engine up... they’d be in business for a very short period of time)

The tuners know that most people that get a tune have ZERO idea of what they’re doing. They simply plug in a tool and like magic, the car is faster.



Mark

 

So you’re saying that the engine temps (EGT’s) were higher with a JCW Stage I kit?

If you’re having wear issues, I’d guess that even though the EGT’s were higher with the JCW kit, the tune was still safer.

I’ll bet that even though the EGT’s were lower with a custom tune, the tune was still too aggressive. (too much timing, too much boost, too much something and eventually took it’s toll and wore parts out prematurely)

The JCW Stage I kit is as “safe” as it gets. Mini isn’t going to put out a tune that is overly aggressive if they have to warranty the engine.

Mark

 

This is a bit scary. I have seen a few of these recently.

How likely would this failure be for a stock car or one with only the JCW tuning kit? (like mine )

 

Providing your running the correct octane suggested, I’d say highly unlikely.

The JCW Stage I tunes are very mild. Like I mentioned earlier, Mini isn’t going to produce a “performance” tune overly aggressive if they have to warranty it.

So unless there is a hidden/unknown problem with manufactured parts, I’d say you’re pretty safe.


Mark

 

My query is,how come the JCW kit software or even the stock MCS software is producing MORE HEAT with LESS BOOST than a custom tune does?

And how is that safer in terms of EGTs?
I guess that the stock tune and JCW stage 1 is running more lean together with more aggressive timing (for emission purposes) than a custom tune.
Remember, my car was bone stock with 25000km on it when I installed the JCW kit and prior installation we found out about the cracked exhaust manifold and the cracked turbo.

I don't know myself, I am a little bit confused...

 

I'm currently at work and extremely busy, however I will enlighten you all when I get time later today, as to why these engines build so much heat, and why it's also very very important to understand what this means in terms of tuning and reliability!

I will start a fresh thread with this info.

See you lot later.

 

You all should remember where this engine originated - and leave it stock....

 

Many things play a role in EGT. What I have found is and it sounds like the poster you are asking the question to has found is well.... is if you run a slightly richer mixture and set timing proper to not only maximize power but minimize egt you can drive down egt even at higher boost/power levels.

 

I currently have a DoS CAI and whenever Way gets them in stock will have a Forge FMIC installed. I'm not looking for horsepower now, just a cooler more efficient engine. Whenever Alta supports the 2011's, I plan on buying an Access Port along with a turboback (possibly Alta's 3") and only running stage 1 (maybe 2 a time or two just for the experience). With these mods and running top-tier 93 octane and discounting the possibility of flawed OEM parts, should I really expect things to break?

 

Looking forward to it.