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Hello everyone, I hope you'll find this worth your time to read. I'm pretty excited about it.
I recently came across a deal I couldn't pass up and bought a dead R56 for $600. Cylinder 2 has no compression, number 4 is not much better. Needless to say, it doesn't run, and was almost destined to be thrown in the tip. I guess you could say it was an impulse buy, and I'm so glad I did it. Here's the scoop.
It's a 2008 Cooper S with the JCW tuning kit. It also has the JCW suspension, aero kit, and not to be forgotten, the JCW shifter. No creature comforts to be mentioned, not even heated seats. This thing is a bare bones performance car. After doing a bit of research, I discovered that I knew the original owner of the car, and so I reached out to him. He was pretty enthused to hear what had happened, and he suggested that I reach out to someone else, the guy who he sold the car to in 2011. You may have heard of him; his name is Craig Wilcox.
Come to find out, this thing is a diamond in the rough. Craig not only raced this car and pushed it hard, but this car won the 2011 SCCA Solo Nationals with him behind the wheel.
I bought a championship winning race car for $600. I'm absolutely stoked.
Anyway, I got the car towed home, put it in my garage, was about to tear it apart, and the next day I broke my arm. And so it has sat there for about a month now. But, I'm taking this time to research my options, decide on a build, and make sure I do this properly. Like, James May kind of properly.
I've done a lot of work on my R53, even to the point of doing my own valve job and installing a cam, teardown and rebuild of the whole front end, other nonsense. I know that this car is a whole different animal, and that's where you all come in. I have some ideas of my own, but any and all help and advice is encouraged and appreciated. What I don't want to do, though many of you may roll your eyes, is to a monster boost build that makes tons of power if you can stand the lag. I want as much power as I can squeeze out of this N14, and I want it everywhere. The thing I love about my R53 is the immediate snap of torque from the SC when you stomp on the gas. That's what I want. Lots of power, everywhere.
With only 90,000 miles on the clock, it's time for this car to get a second chance at life.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to project Rocky.
Last edited by CarFreak427; 01-07-2017 at 08:25 AM.
Awesome!!! So other than the dead motor, what condition is the car in? Pictures?
Cosmetically, it's pretty darn good. For an 8, almost 9 year old car, the headlights have no glazing on them and feel as smooth as could be. The paint has hardly any chips in it. I will have the stripes replaced though.
I think the car sat outside for a few weeks or maybe months recently and it's pretty dirty, but after cleaning up just the front end, it looks like it will clean up nicely. Even the interior isn't that bad. The only damage to be spoken for is a cracked windshield which I can have replaced at the dealership I work at for a pretty good price.
Last edited by CarFreak427; 02-13-2017 at 09:36 AM.
From what I understand, the car was taken completely back to stock before he sold it, but we'll see if I find anything worth mentioning when I tear it apart.
Here's some better pics.
Last edited by CarFreak427; 02-13-2017 at 09:33 AM.
Just did a compression test. Cylinders 1 and 3 are very healthy managing to sustain 190 psi for quite a long time. Unfortunately, cylinder 4 only managed 48 psi and dropped off fairly quickly. Cylinder 2 only managed 25 psi and could hardly hold it for any time at all.
Got the ball rolling this past week. Pulled lots of stuff out of the engine bay. The only bits remaining preventing me from pulling the motor are the axles and A/C system. Hoping to have all of that done later this week.
But first, how about that new lower grill? I swapped out the original for the retrofit brake duct kit. I can't describe how much I love the look of it.
I've started a YouTube channel to document the rebuild of this car, and I'd be absolutely chuffed if you'd hop over there and check it out. The channel name is 'R50what'. I'll have the footage behind the pictures you see here posted this coming Sunday the 12th.
Last edited by CarFreak427; 02-13-2017 at 09:41 AM.
Assuming you are comfortable with where the standard turbo kicks in and whatever lag it has, then the key is to not introduce more.
The most lag free setup I ever had on my car was a stock Mini Cooper S turbo, with no cat, a MUCH bigger intercooler and a remap. The power was in from 2,000rpm and held well to 6,000 rpm where it slightly dipped to 6,500rpm rev limit.
How would I have made that better without creating more lag and a higher boost threshold? Hard to say as nearly every other mod would have attempted to move the power up the RPM band. You could go for a very extreme setup and look to add a supercharger to the current turbo. We look at it but we just couldn't find a good location to place the supercharger and drive it properly. So we opted for a 2nd turbo.
I think it is more the case of "what not to do" rather than what to do as the stock turbo will be the one that kicks in the earliest and to get power from low down, you need boost early.
That's some awesome insight, thank you. I've already got my heart set on a catless downpipe, and had been considering an intercooler. When you say significantly bigger, are we talking about cutting out the lower grill and covering up half of the radiator to make it fit?
That's some awesome insight, thank you. I've already got my heart set on a catless downpipe, and had been considering an intercooler. When you say significantly bigger, are we talking about cutting out the lower grill and covering up half of the radiator to make it fit?
In my case we did a lot of work and managed to fit one that covers up the entire radiator and air-conditioning radiator taking up the full frontal area. It's a bit extreme and I believe some of the off the shelf stuff works quite well. Reality is you can never have enough intercooling but you have to draw a line somewhere.
Do you remember what brand yours was? I'm looking at Forge and it seems to be the go-to.
Hi.
Mine isn't designed for a mini. It was designed for a ford Sierra rs 500 race car. It has an efficient Behr core and we made it fit. Forge is a good starting point. Remember the harder you push a small turbo the higher the compressor outlet temps are which means your intercooler needs to work harder to bring them down to sensible levels. The benefit of the small turbo is early boost.. The downside is they are not designed to efficiently produce lots of high boost flow. In general.
it gives you an idea of scale of the cooler. It is a lot of work to make it fit. We had to redesign how the front end plastics and front bumper all hold together. It's subtle when it's all on but to get it fit was not easy. I'd expect it's fair to say that most people wouldn't be willing to go to the effort required. If I were you I would go and prove that the off the shelf ones are not good enough for your needs before setting out on such full on intercooler fitting work.
You will be able to sell any standard uprated item you buy if it doesn't work as well as you need.
Have a look at the thread. I have some updates to add such as we have the second turbo fitted at the moment but it's needing some more testing on what size turbine housing the second turbo needs to be as it's too big at the moment.
I'm selling the factory set of headlights, fog lights and tail lights up for sale since I'll be upgrading to all LED stuff. If anyone's interested, I think the set is worth about $250. The headlights are close to immaculate, no joke. The surface doesn't even feel like they're a year old. One fog light has the regular wear on the surface from pebbles over the years, but it's not noticeable from even 5 feet away. The other fog is brand new. None of them have any haze; they're clear as day.
Last edited by CarFreak427; 04-12-2017 at 11:43 AM.
After a bit of advice from Steven_RW and more subsequent research, I found a steal on Craigslist for a brand new Forge FMIC. The tape had been cut, but the box hadn't been unpacked and the thing is beautiful. Retail was about $750 and I picked it up for $450. Stoked! Also going to get a meth injection kit and controller from ECS.
Last edited by CarFreak427; 04-12-2017 at 07:40 AM.
Welp, I've found the problem. Piston #2 us busted. Fortunately, the cylinder walls don't look to be damaged in any way. So, I won't have to re-sleeve the block, but I will have it bored out and use 77.5 mm pistons. Looking for brand recommendations.
01-05-2017, 02:11 PM
