Ok, its about time for some mods. I’ve been eying the 19% pulley. But have some concerns. The only thing I have done so far is the Alta intake. The car is a daily driver (just over 35000 miles in 14 months. My first concern it the excess heat that I’ve heard about. I live in eastern CA where the summers get up to 110. Most (90%) of the driving is at highway speeds. So is heat an issue? If so what can be done to deal with it. Also can I just do the pulley and belt or do I need to changes plugs etc? Also looking to do some minor suspension mods. Have been looking at Alta’s stuff. Any ideas/ advice would be appreciated. Oh, we don’t need to start the debate about what actually caused Randy’s to fail.

Thanks,

Nik

 

well, up to this point, Randy's was the only 19% that has been reported as failing...

i don't think you will have any problems, there are dozens on here who run the 19%. Obviously it will ultimately take mileage off your engine's lifespan, but since they are so new, no one knows how much for sure. I have been recommended by several people that if you are going to run a 19%, it would be wise to invest money into a larger intercooler to keep temps down. This would especially hold true if you are in a hotter climate.

the fact you tagged 35000 miles in 14 months would make me say "don't do it!" right off the bat.... you drive your car a LOT, and that 19% definitely would give more power but would also definitely shorten the lifespan of that motor. If you do get a 19% and do that much daily driving, have a spare 'charger laying around!

My opinion: unless you are racing often and trying to "max" out the power available on your mini, just go with the 15%. Start small and see how that feels... if it feels inadequate, then down the road get the 19%. But then again, i am conservative

Cheers
-ABT-

 

>>Ok, its about time for some mods. I’ve been eying the 19% pulley. But have some concerns. The only thing I have done so far is the Alta intake. The car is a daily driver (just over 35000 miles in 14 months. My first concern it the excess heat that I’ve heard about. I live in eastern CA where the summers get up to 110. Most (90%) of the driving is at highway speeds. So is heat an issue? If so what can be done to deal with it. Also can I just do the pulley and belt or do I need to changes plugs etc? Also looking to do some minor suspension mods. Have been looking at Alta’s stuff. Any ideas/ advice would be appreciated. Oh, we don’t need to start the debate about what actually caused Randy’s to fail.

Nik,
Aloha and thanks for your question.
You drive alot!
Heat is a problem with any reduction pulley upgrade. Hotter air temperature is a problem. Eric at Helix13 is trying to do testing in hot climates and using the 19% on the track. Call him to find out when he'll have more data. I can tell you we have MINIs in Hawaii doing very well with the 19% pulley and no problems.

Do you need to change to colder plugs? No it is not required although some owners have done it.
Do you absolutely need a larger intercooler? No but cooler air is a good thing for power. If the air temp is quite hot then that is going to work against you. If you have long long stretches then that might be good or if you go on a track with long sweeping turns.

Minor suspension mods- Rear swaybar is good. For an MCS the 22mm bar on middle setting is a good place to start and costs less. Lowered springs do help with cornering but increase ride roughness especially on rough roads and highway expansion joints. More than those two probably you will not need unless you autocross or go on the track alot. For a daily driver the rear swaybar would be OK to start with.

If I had a daily driver MCS with alta intake that I used to drive about 30K miles in a year I'd:
Add a 15% reduction pulley (call Helix13 and ask for the version where you can swap out the outside of the pulley to change it to 19% easily). 15% is more reliable and will give most of the additional pulley upgrade power.
Add a Cat-back exhaust- if you like quiet then Milltek sport, or a little louder then UUC, if on a budget then Scorpion.
Add a rear swaybar- 22mm middle setting
And last add an ECU upgrade to tie in all the mods you have.
Enjoy.

 

I have the 19% pulley and it's awesome. I driven with it for about 5,000 miles, zero problems. I got it in December so I'll find out how it does in the summer, even hear in New Jersey we get a lot of 80 and 90 degree days in the summer months. I'm not worried, I think it will be fine. My brother greatgro has put at least 20,000 miles with his 15% and now 19% pulley and never had a problem in the summer months.

RaceCarDriver

 

I put on 30k miles a year and this is also my daily driver. I have the Helix 19% pulley, madness intake and UUC exhaust. GIAC ECU to come....Remember, the only thing you have to worry about with the heat issue is possibly a loss of power in the real hot weather. It's not a reliability issue. We're not talking about tons of power loss either, just that in extreme heat MAYBE your 19% will feel like a 15%. But then 90%+ of the time, your enjoy much more torque than the 15%.

It's only been in the 70's the last few days in NJ and I've had the A/C blasting. Absolutely no noticeable loss in power whereas in the stock form the power loss would be significant and with the 15% even it would probably be noticeable. But so far with all the torque of the 19%, blasting the A/C doesn't slow me down.

 

What all of the naysayers have forgotten is that the Mini ECU carefully monitors temperature of the intake and when it gets high it retards timing and dumps fuel to prevent detonation and to provide additional cooling. IMHO it would be impossible to overcome this safety valve in street driving conditions. Maybe on the racetrack but so far noone has.

I'd give up my wife before my 19.

 

Well said!

 

Well I Added a 17% pulley 14k miles ago and I have had Zero Problems. I know it is not 19% but hey there is a difference between the 17% and the 15% (i had the 15% for about 10k miles). I drove 32 k miles last year. It looks like I will drive less this year but that may change. Hopefully I will have only one year left of driving my Cooper S for work and then it can become the weekend toy.

My car runs very strong with just a intake, JCW exhuast and the 17% pulley. If I could shed soem more pounds it Would even be faster.

 

Thanks everyone for the input. As I expected I'm almost more uncertain than when I originally posted. It seems those who have the 19% love it, and those who don't have it want it. I know that the 15% would be the safest way to go.....But I haven't heard of any definate reasons not to. I don't go to the track (closest is 5 hours) but it would be really nice to have all of the power that I need to pass on the two lane highway I drive everday. It alot more power than my civic, but it would be nice to have more. And of course getting rid of the slow off the line starts would be a plus. So I think its going to go like this. 19%, exhaust, control arm, then maybe later lowering springs and other suspension goodies. Mods are almost as hard to decide as color was when ordering.

Thanks again,

Nik

 

Everyone seems to be talking about heat, supercharger rpm and water pump rpm as concerns when contemplating pulley reductions. Theoretically true but also influenced by other factors. Most folks seem to be missing another big one, or at least I've missed any discussion of it.

Heat - a real concern but the engine protection algorithm mentioned above helps negate this issue. A more effective charge air cooler will help too, or an efficiency change to the supercharger itself.

Supercharger rpm - increased rpm will decrease life. Period. But the duty cycle the engine sees also has an enormous impact. As long as the peak supercharger rpm stays below Easton's recommended readline (or at least very close) then duty cycle is really the driving factor. Pun intended. How long will any give supercharger last? Your guess is as good as mine, and your results WILL vary. See duty cycle comments.

Water pump rpm - another real concern. No one has reported any indications of water pump cavitation, which is a great sign. The part that I haven't heard anyone mention is that increased coolant velocity and pressure increases errosion of aluminum coolant passages. No one knows if this is a practical concern except possibly BMW if they did the testing that we do where I work (on other much-larger-than-Mini engines). It would be a long term issue anyway, and may or may not matter depending on the design of the Mini engine.

Cylinder pressure - this is the big one that I'm not hearing anyone discuss. Increased boost = increased cylinder pressure. Increased cylinder pressure applies additional loads to the power cylinder components (pistons, rods, pins, rings, bearings, crankshaft), cylinder head and its components (head bolts, valves, valve train, cam lobe loads, spark plug), and block. It also drives higher vibration levels throughout the engine. The magnitude of the change is a huge unknown on the tuner/owner end of things. I'm sure BMW measured cylinder pressure during engine development, and did it again before approving the JCW package. The fact that they offer the same warranty is reassuring but not a conclusive indication of the margins available. Any business can also decide that the durability (not the same as reliabilty, though related) will be worse but that they will make enough money to justify paying the extra warranty claims. Only they know the truth right now, and even the "truth" becomes an educated guess when you try to say how far my car will go without problems, or how far yours will go.

I know all of the above to be true, as that is what I do for a living. The more important question is how much margin was designed in to the Mini's components? Hard to say unless you work for BMW and did the endurance and abuse testing. The duty cycle of the engine and vehicle will still play an enormous role in determining the miles to failure of any components.


Having said all this, Eric is sending me a 19% pulley to replace the 15% version that is currently on my daily driver / autocross car. I'm going to take my chances and have fun while it lasts. Which may be for an awful long time. Or not. I'm pretty mechanically sympathetic and tend to get high mileage out of vehicles. Heck, I had 193K miles on my last car when I sold it and I was still on the original clutch despite averaging two autocrosses a month.

There is risk in everything, so you'll have to make up your own mind if it is worth it to you.



Scott
90SM