Now that Cobb has killed the accesport for Mini there are few affordable alternatives left. I am currently in talks with Burger motorshports to do a JB4 for the R56. JB4 is a very popular tuning system for BMW N54 and N55 engines.

If any of you are interested in a new and affordable tuning solution for our cars I encourage you to shoot Burger an e-mail. There website is here.

JB4 has been a big hit with 335i and 135i community, the tuner costs $500 and supports changing maps on the fly!

 

Are talking about the N18 as well not just N14? Meaning can we N18ers out there, send our ECU to him and get similar numbers to the N14(since N14 has more options for tuning).

 

I'm trying to "go for the low hanging fruit" here and ask for N14 first. This company has been able to tune the 2013 3 series BMW, so I don't think the N18 is a problem beyond their ability.

 

holy ****, if you could get burger tuning or even vishnu on the MINI side of the tuning world, i think this would be HUGE.

I had the JB4 on my E92 335i before I lemoned it and it was fun as hell and now with those guys pumping out tunes for E85, those guys are putting down 500hp easily. Then again, no tuner has made as impressive tune as AP has. To be able to make the tune feel like a NA car is what makes me love the AP so much compared to the slim list of tuners on the R56

 

Burger's solid reputation with the N54/55 crowd is a real plus. If you like the idea, I encourage you te shoot them an e-mail. If enough interest (potential $) is generated, it could happen.

 

Im interested. Can we get a petition going then send it over to them showing interest?

Do we even know they can get into the N14 ECUs and tune them?

 

Burger is an excellent company, and if anybody can produce a good tuner for the R56 gen cars, they can. We played with a tuner for both the R56 cars and N54. We were able to produce and sell a very successful one for the N54 but could not make the N14 tuner work consistently without codes. The MINI DME is more finicky than the N54 DME.

Let's hope Burger can do it--as I said, if anyone can, it's them. There's a real vacuum in the 2nd Gen (canned) tuning market. We'd be front and center selling those bad boys.

 

So what do we as an enthusiast community need do to make something like this happen? Can we team up with Helix and make some sort of more organized proposal/request to Burger?

 

Both Burger and Vishnu were in the works to produce tuning options for the R56 way back when....search the forum circa 2008.

They both abandoned their plans......

 

Thumpers right....

Here's their response to an email:

"Thanks for the note. We had a MINI for awhile but decided against
releasing anything for it for several reasons. Sorry we can't help."

 

I would be all over this if we could make it happen. Just sent an email.

 

The OP says he's in talked with them, but you're saying they are out? When did you receive that email?

 

Watching this thread with interest.

 

^ditto

 

I spoke with Jeff at Burger as recently as Jan 24, 2013. Below is my question and his response.

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 12:29 PM

Hi, Cobb has recently cased support for their Accesport for the r56 (2007-2011) mini cooper line. Would you guys be interested in adapting the jb4 tune for use in the Mini? There is a considerable market demand for a product like yours and currently few companies willing to fill that void.

Not sure how similar the BMW/MINI ECU’s are but I believe many mini users would be interested in your product.

Thanks in advance.

We are an official Cobb tuner, however we do not offer support for the Mini. I passed your email to our programmer and let him know about Cobb currently offering support. If anything changes I will email you. We mainly tune the BMW's as you know and offer Cobb's for both with our specific tuning on it however if anything becomes available for the Mini I can let you know. Thank you for the info and I have stored your email and made a note to contact you if we are going to do anything for the Mini's. The turbo's seem to be more tunable then the older supercharged versions.

Jeff T.
BurgerTuning.com
Email: Jeff@BurgerTuning.com

BMW Wheel Spacers = Better Handling, More Aggressive Looks!
http://www.burgertuning.com/BMW_wheel_spacers.html

 

It seems as though they are open to the idea. Companies will go where the money is so we need to show them that R56 aftermarket tuning is a viable option.

 

That would be awesome. I'd be interested - Cobb discontinuing the Accessport for us could be the best thing that happened for the Mini's aftermarket!

 

It seems we are at something of a crossroads. I will touch base with Burger and see what they have to say.

These people have figured out on-the-fly maps for the N54 and N55, I thought the little R56 which has been mastered by several tuners by now would be no problem. We'll see.

 

When I was working for bavauto who sells Burger products. I talked to Burger about offering MINI tuners and OCCs and the answer was that they were not interested in offering MINI parts. That was two months ago.

 

I'm kind of not surprised they would say that. The tuning/enthusiast crowd is just different than then dynamics found on the BMW side of things. While the BMW side is huge on modding and tracking their cars, the MINI crowd is older and more interested on being frugal on their gas mileage.

Don't be me wrong I love the MINI and all that it offers but just like how we saw the AP lose its support, I don't see many tuners are excited to delve into the MINI ECU because honestly why tune for enthusiast that think $1k is a lot when you can tune for another brand that'll spend $5k on an exhaust or a set of wheels. The payout/reward is greater and promising there...

 

Actually Burger's JB4 costs less than the Accesport. JDM's have open source (free) and cheap tuning alternatives. The mini community is smaller and older, but "cheapness" of mini owners has nothing to do with it.

Subaru Accesport for 12' WRX $595.00

Ford Focus St 2013 Accessport $449.00

Alta Accesport for r56 $895.00

Alta accesport was the same price as Cobb accesport for a Nissan GTR $895, they could charge whatever they wanted and mini owners without any other option would pay it...

 

There is also ridiculous competition on the BMW side of things. More customers yes, but also much more competition.

 

I would love JB style tune to come into the MINI scene. The N14/N18 is just a N54/N55 is kinda the same engine but chop in half. I think the ability to change map on the fly is a lot better than what AP and other tuners are offering out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...=HDjD4OcDIGU#!

 

Count me in for a 2013 N18...when a list needs to get sent along you have my 100% support and desire.

 

I am still waiting to heard back from Burger, it seems they were unaware that Cobb had killed the accesport for MINI.