14 SCMM members spent Saturday morning at a dyno shop, the results were surprising. Each car had three runs on the DynoJet dyno, some of the results are listed below.

All MINIs listed are MCS models.
All numbers are at the front wheels.
Temp 75 degrees, humidity 43%, altitude 52ft

1. 169HP, Pully, Miltek Ex, Mandness In, Evotech ++
2. 147HP, Pully, wires, plugs
3. 162HP, Magnaflow Ex, Alta In --- (this is mine)
4. 153HP, Magnaflow Ex, Mandness In
5. 170HP, Pully, Magnaflow Ex, Mandness In, Evotech ++
6. 167HP, JCW
7. 163HP, Pully, K&N In, Shark, wires, plugs, coil pak
8. 162HP, K&N In, Powerchip
9. 175HP, JCW, K&N In
10. 178HP, JCW, Alta In

Not scientific, but interesting.


_________________

MINI COOPER S = Miles of Smiles!!!!

 

Wow, JCW owns all! That's neat, haven't seen dyno #'s for a while.. Thanks!

 

those numbers don't make any sense.
Car #2 pulley and only 147 hp? stock is usually 145!?
Car #3 vs. #4-alta intake vs madness intake 9 hp difference? I don't think so...
Car #6 vs. #10 JCW vs JCW with alta intake 11hp difference at the wheels?!

These numbers are all over the place.
I heard that a MCS with just intake, exhaust, and pulley has been shown to have more HP than the JCW car. (maybe not everytime but the point is made that they are close) From someone that owns a dyno. Sheesh strange numbers, very strange.

 

Seems that the one uncommon factor between the MCS and the JCW package
used for the dyno pulls is the cylinder head.Hot Rod 101 good air in good air out
Might be wrong but i don't think so.Even if the pull numbers are all over the place.

 

i think that dynamometer may be sick.

Those are some extremely low numbers, and they are all over the place. an intake doesn't make 11 horsepower. The 200 horsepower JCW kit WITH intake making well below advertised claims. (by my calculations for driveline loss, the K&N JCW actually LOSES several horsepower and the Alta JCW loses 1~2 hp).... this is not to mention the stock JCW car, which is making 10 horsies below advertised claims (accounting for 11% driveline loss....)

Most of those mods apparently don't do anything for the car..... OR the ONE dyno you guys were on was giving erratic readings. I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Although it is interesting you post that for us - thanks! Its nice to know that dynos can screw up sometimes too!

 

These numbers may be all over the place, but I believe it does indicate what these cars were capable of on this day. Remember dynos are for relative comparisons not absolute numbers.

These runs were all done over a three hour period, all cars were cool before the runs, all runs were done by the same dyno operator. To the casual observer all runs appeared to have been done the same way. These were the best of each cars three back to back runs. The spread wasn't all that much. Most of the best runs were the third of three runs after the cars got up to temperature. All runs were with the bonnet open and a very large fan blowing from the front.

Not included in the list were two MC runs that came in at 107HP, both had after market intakes and exhaust. These numbers add an even more interesting baseline.

To address some of weaverpsu's questions,

The 147HP pulley car had just been done the week before by Randy and was just not producing any horsepower yet.

The 9HP difference between the Alta & Madness cars was certainly not the intakes, but an overall difference in the cars. Randy has said that 1 out of 10 MCSs will run circles around others, just the luck of the build. I am lucky to own that 1 out of 10.
The seat of the pants dyno says the same thing, pulley car owners who drive this car ask if it is a JCW, it just runs well.

There was clearly a difference between the JCW's with an intake and the stock one.
The 175HP JCW is only 3 or 4 weeks old with just barely break-in miles on it.
Just listening on the back side of these runs, you could tell from the exhaust output there was more going on than in the stock JCW car.

_________________

MINI COOPER S = Miles of Smiles!!!!

 

Thanks for your post.

A caveat on dyno numbers.

Numbers are hard to interpret without baseline values done on the stock MCS with the same dynojet done at the same shop with the same person and under the same conditions. Otherwise forget the comparison.

First, baseline values for the MCS are variable. So low numbers with mods installed could mean the stock values were low to begin with. How low is anyone's guess.

2nd, The numbers generated are highly dependent on the person doing the tests- was it the same person for all of the tests? If not then forget the data.

3rd, The ECU mods except the Powerchip didn't really do a whole lot compared to what might be expected.
In #8 there was only the intake and Powerchip and it did as well as #3 and #7 both which were quite different set ups.

 

You are right minihune.

As i mentioned in my previous post all these runs were by the same operator under the same conditions in a relatively short period of time.

Dyno numbers can look strange if taken as absolute.

Each dyno will produce different numbers, all you can hope for is that subsequent visits to the same dyno will give comparable results. That is all a dyno is for is to give differential readings as you make changes.

We all had a good time and got some idea of how our cars compare to each other. Street reality and seat of the pants feel support a lot of what we saw on the dyno. These cars running together on club runs mirror these results pretty closely.


_________________

MINI COOPER S = Miles of Smiles!!!!

 

minihune,
My MINI is #8, what you can't see from those numbers is the Air/Fuel ratios. Most of them where well below 10. Thats VERY rich. Mine thanks to the PowerChip was dam near perfect. When they where recoding my car they said they where making it much more lean. This worried me but it looks like they knew exactly what they where doing.


Im going to take this data to Powerchip so they can fine tune the timing of my car to make the 12.2 I want. The first and third runs look like they had the knock detection go off at 6700rpm. I want to ask if there is anything they can do about that. Those two runs where on a pace to best the 161.74 wHP I got on run 2.

I have to say I was suprised by how much power just the chip made. It pulled more above 4500 rpm. I'm not talking about pully levels of power here but It I felt it. Once I got the K&N in, the car felt so good. Next up is Pully and Exhaust and another dyno.

 

I know how some people around here love to see the numbers

I wanted to post one more graph tonight. I have the Dyno Files for car #1 as well as mine.

#1 - Header, Pully, Miltek Exhaust, Madness Intake, Evotech ++, Nology wires, coil
(Blue)

#8 - K&N Typhoon Intake, PowerChip ECU
(Red)

He had 7.25 wHP and 16.25 ft/lb torque more than me. That's a heck of a lot of torque, I want that much more torque . His Air/Fuel in the powerband (4500 and up) was under 10 and mine ran steady at around 11.5. A number of people at the dyno asked me where they could get the Powerchip. I would be realy intrested to see what car #1 would pull with the Powerchip instead of the Evotech.

 

"The 147HP pulley car had just been done the week before by Randy and was just not producing any horsepower yet."

what do you mean by "yet"?

every pulley car I have heard of worked right away.

 

Cooper SS,

Your sig really slows down the web page. I know this is just a hair off topic, but is everyone else seeing this as well. It is hard to scroll the page when his sig is on screen. Once it is scrolled off screen IE behaves properly.

Yeah, and the pulley will work right away. There isn't anything such as setting in.

 

>>"The 147HP pulley car had just been done the week before by Randy and was just not producing any horsepower yet."
>>
>>what do you mean by "yet"?
>>
>>every pulley car I have heard of worked right away.

jlm, you beat me to it. This doesn't make sense to me either????? I have a feeling he/she is refering to the ECU "learning" the change....but this is done very quickly.

 

Very interesting, but puzzling data. Did the dyno operator monitor ECT and IAT temps for each run?

 

I pulled my sig, sorry if I was slowing things down, I hadn't seen that behavior on my machines.

I was trying to be kind to the 147HP guy as he is holding out hope his ECU wakes up.
I think we were seeing that a pulley on a stock vehicle, without any other intake or
exhaust mods doesn't make the kind of horsepower improvement we are used to
seeing from a pulley, if the air can't get in or out puffing it up more doesn't help that much.

_________________
MINI COOPER S = Miles of Smiles!!!!

 

>>Cooper SS,
>>
>>Your sig really slows down the web page. I know this is just a hair off topic, but is everyone else seeing this as well. It is hard to scroll the page when his sig is on screen. Once it is scrolled off screen IE behaves properly.
>>

Apparently your computer is weaker than some of the cars listed here. No problems from my chair.

 

I don't see what the problem is with these numbers as long as you only use them compare the cars that were tested. Don't compare them to other posted numbers or as a reflection of how much the mods are performing.

The exception being #2 (low) and #3 (high) they all seem pretty consistent. #1,5 and 7 are almost identical mods and ratngs with the JCW being slightly lower. That compares to what we've seen before, just the numbers are lower.

What's surprising to me is how much more the JCW's are making with the intakes. Is this a reflection of the intake, the dyno or do both of these cars just perform better, irregardless of the intake. No way to know for sure I guess

 

Randy Webb did my 03 MCS in Vegas

before: 146.73 HP

after Alta pully, Alta intake, coil pack, plugs and wires, and throttle body: 170.09 HP

I have added Millteck Sport Catback and Unichip ECU but haven't been to a dyno since. The car seems to have more power now so I'm sure the HP is up.

I will say most of it is in the driver as when Randy Webb drove my car after adding exhaust (and before ECU) it was fast

Earl

 

The replies to this post are a good indication why the numbers, even if you have them, don't do any good. Some people will take anything you say and contradict it or turn things around so they become meaningless. The numers are great if you keep them to yourself and use them for comparison purposes for future upgrades.

Other than that you are just opening yourself up to more bashing than it's worth. Even if one were to do a comparison of various exhaust systems, you run the risk of someone complaining about a whole variety of potential issue; the time it took to swap the exhausts may have been extensive enough to have different ambient temperature, air pressure or humidity conditions, etc.; was the car cooled off equally between runs?, etc., etc.

Numbers don't always mean something.

Don't show me the numbers!!

 

Actually, dyno runs performed the same day on the same dyno can be very informative, but it is important that the conditions have been normalized. A good sanity check is to rerun the first car at the end of the day to make sure the data hasn't "shifted". Consistent operating conditions including ECT and IAT are key to obtaining usable data.

 

i thought a sock cooper S should have 169 hp...that is what i have read in all the car mags...and JCW should have 198 to 200 hp.... am i wrong or are we all have been miss led by the mini company.....after seing these # it looks like why by JCW when you can get more HP from after market mods for alot cheaper... like car#5..

 

EmCeeEss and Miniraider, these numbers are at the wheels not flywheel like the manufarcturers use. 145hp at the wheels is about equivalent to 163 at the flywheel. I think it is 11%driveline loss.

numbers here don't make any sense in my opinion nor do the explanations but I am not going to harp on someone that was trying to do a good thing

 

Andy,
Yes all temps where logged. Everyone got there Dyno Files to view on the Dynojet Runviewer.

We did have one more MINI run. He got 187 HP at the wheels.

His power to weight was 1 : 10.8 compaired to the stock 1 : 16.2
It was one light MINI.
-Brad

 

Do you know what the starting ECT and IAT were for each run? Were they consistent?

 

Not making power yet??? No such thing...Put a smaller pulley on an MCS and it'll make A LOT more power the first time you touch the throttle!