Milltek un-resonated catback at idle; amazing that how mild manner it is


European emergency flashers


European emergency flasher at the scuttle

 

I love threads like these; all the cool things that are available for these pocket rockets makes me want to get out and click the buy it now buttons all across the interwebz.

Then I realize the tax deduction for kids isn't what I was told it would be. 😒

🏁

 

I cannot blame you for being skeptical. I am a skeptic and I had very low expectation when I decided to risk $2.74 of my hard earned money. The photo was taken of the entire dipsticks so does not show the flying goose well on the from China one. I look at it very closely and the it is every bit as good as the factory one. Surveying all the photos of the $7.99 ones offered by the usual suspect, I have good reason to think they are all from this same manufacturer. It is like the AC Delco R53 belt tensioner which is identical to the genuine MINI except the ground off part marking.

My insight is these is it is how auto companies entice small part suppliers to play ***** at next to nothing profit. Hardly different from mafia and politicians in Washington. It goes something like this:

We are lowballing your price as that is our budget. I know you will barely make a living wage, but let us sweeten the deal. You get the specification, and you become a supplier (along with undisclosed other supplier if any), and you can sell the part that you invested in tooling in aftermarket as much you want. You however cannot claim it is OE quality not to mention it is OEM.

 

One more post on the Mini hog (aka R52/R53) dipstick. The factory got a lot of bad rap for being difficult to use, and breaks easily. I too was taken aback the first time I check the engine oil. Why is it so difficult to insert and remove? For me it was very clear from the difficult spots as I am all too familiar with household plumbing when you have to use a snake. I knew right away I just have to be gentle with the plastic dipstick instead of bending it to my wills.

Here is a photo of the R52/R53 dipstick tube. It is clear that it is the result of cramming the supercharger subsystem into the tiny engine bay. Like I have said repeatedly, our Minis are the prime example of amazing packaging. Good things come in tiny packages.




here is a photo that better shows the three bends


here is a photo of same for the R50

 

Taking advantage of a mild and dry day I took Mini out for a spin. I took a few impromptu photos where Mini was parked - your ubiquitous North America's (and that includes you, Canada) ugly shopping malls.

here is a quick exercise to crop out the ugliness of a photo of the Mini taken at an ubiquitous American shopping center


a bit better, but not by much; OMG with those tacky ogee moldings on mall buildings everywhere and the incoherent signage


this is the best I can do


this photo also has been cropped to rid the abandoned sofas


here is one impromptu photo with an ideal backdrop - our cityscapes used to be more attractive

 

What lens did you use for the last picture?

Also - is euro flashers just a coding issue?

 

It's just iPhone 6S plus with HDR on for the huge disparity of luminance between the sky and the black steel bridge.
yes

 

How did you get such a wide angle?! I thought that was only available with panoramic mode and that only works horizontally AFAIK.

 

I didn't use panoramic mode. If the wide angle won't come to me, I go to the wide angle. I had time to think the composition I'd like. I just walked a few paces back far enough to get the coverage I wanted.

 

My Mini has to be among the most photographed one. The photos are nice for to reference back and often I notice something that I previously not.

It strikes me in this 2004 photo the stark contrast with the stance of the Mini with the original springs and runflat tires, compared to a recent photo with the same wheels. You can see the difference by the wheel well gaps.

Mini spanking new in 2004 with 16" x-lites


Mini now with Swift springs


For a dual duty Mini the spring rates and drop of the Swift springs, handling, and ride quality are just perfect for me. The Swift spring is not that popular which I think is attributable to the low key marketing - that it works well with the stock dampers. However if you compare the spring rates you would know the kit is stiffer than many other lowering spring kits. It has a rare higher spring rate at the rear than the front (think wheel rates and other handling factors).

Mini prefers the tranquility by the dead while I go shopping

 

I have been keeping an eye out for a set of OEM quality replacement ignition wires. I have done some survey of what are available out there. What I find interesting is the marketing hypes on some premium priced wires. One reads "Super Conductor" on the wire jacket. Another one has "High Energy" on the wire jacket. Most tout the larger diameter of the cable like "10.2mm". The price ranges from circa $25 to near $100.

As to the Super Conductor claim, I hate to break it to you that you will not want super conductor for your spark plug cable because it will be nightmare for your AM and FM radio reception, as well as the cars next to you at the lights. All spark plug wires should have fairly high (tens or hundreds of kilo ohm) resistance for EFI reasons as stipulated by FCC. And for the "High Energy" I have no comment except to say energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Riding on the success of my $2.74 OEM equivalent dipstick I double-downed on my cheapness. I found a good price for a set of NGK with feeble 7mm diameter cable. For what's worth we all know that ignition cables carry 10s of thousands of volt so adequate dielectric quality of the cable jacket is important. Also no less important is the quality of the silicone rubber boots and NGK's product photos passed my visual scrutiny. I have more confident with NGK than any other non OEM manufacturers that tout thicker jackets. It is the quality of the jacket that count instead of just larger the better.




I purchase this as spare as the original cables show no sign of problem. By this I mean cold-start rough idle in days with very high humidity. I haven't even inspect the coil side terminal of #3 cylinder which is often reported to suffer from corrosion. For the longevity of high tension ignition cables, to me the less you mess with them the better.

 

As a post-purchase research, I navigated NGK's website and gathered these screen shots. As most often I found Japanese automotive company web sites stuck in the 20th century. I am glad to find these. For now this post is work in progress that serves to host the images I collected. What I read is very interesting and most are consistent with my assertions in the post above.

It has been many years since I last did a destructive inspection of an ignition cable. Those that I inspected had carbon resistive core that breaks easily. What is interesting is NGK now uses what they called variable pitch wound resistance wire.

Here are the screen shots that I took:















Note to self: remember to check the ignition cable resistance next time messing with the spark plugs (8k ohm/meter NGK, 16k ohm/meter others)



What is most surprising is NGK does make an ignition coil for my Mini. It is by and large unknown here in the US, and until now for me. The best part is it is very reasonably priced. I cannot find a US based vendor for it, but there are plenty in UK.






To me ignition products market reminds me of those of Hi Fi a few decades ago, especially marketing tactics used by brands like Monster Cable.

 

It just came to my attention that there is a cheaper alternative to CAE shifter. It is CoolerWorx. I found out reading MartijnGizmo's R50 to R53 conversion build.

photo of MartijnGizmo's


Coolerworx


the CAE shifter is a bit cleaner in the reverse cable (so I thought until I see the one in a Mini which is the same routing)




One inevitably would think that it is a knockoff of the CAE. I am one would want to respect intellectual property so I too immediately think it is a knockoff. However upon a bit more thought, I wonder who is really the original designer of this type of "short" shifters. I would not be surprised the basic idea has exist a long time starting from custom fabricated race shifter.

I am not head over heel on the idea of one of this shifter yet. Mini is still a street car named Desire - to be a track car.

 

photos on the Steel Bridge







a rare frontal shot - unloading my Mini SUV

 

I'd always like this photo, taken when new. Mini hog spreads the wings and tail feathers - but can it fly?



I am very surprised how well the circa 2003 Olympus E-10 DSLR coped with challenging dynamic range (note the wheel well and tire gaps) in this shot taken in 2005

 

The set of NGK ignition cables arrived. It is everything that I envisioned and expected. The rubber boots and wires all feel nice to the touch and passed my visual inspection. The cable conductor is USA made. I measured the resistance of all 4 cables as they are of varied lengths. The most surprising is they are all under 200 ohms, when I was expecting in the range of 8k ohm/meter.

The actual measurements are 126, 136, 170, and 193 ohms of cylinder #1 to #4. It tells me the conductor is closer to 760 ohm/meter.







what I especially like is there is no lengthwise running mold seam on the long spark plug boot


it comes with a pack of dielectric grease


I can already feel the faster acceleration with the butt dyno.

 

The NGK plug wires are looking very promising.

Great thread you’ve got going. Fun and informative. 👍🏼

 

Thanks Zsm. The NGK wires look to me better quality than the factory ones. I should have commented that the % difference in the resistance of a few hundred ohms is immaterial when the voltage is thousands of volts. Nor is copper, nickle, or stainless steel for the terminals. All will look like dead short as far as the electrical pulse is concerned.

 

The more I scrutinize the Coolworx short shifter against the CAE the more I incline to say it is a direct copy down to the most minute aspects of the CAE design. If you search NAM there are about three threads the Coolworx is mentioned.

 

Mini and I cannot wait for the weather to get better. We have nothing but rain and Southwesterly disturbances of late. We are both stir crazy. A couple of old photos.

the original window sticker of my custom order Mini; in retrospect given what I could order I would still make the same choice with a hindsight of 13 years


There are a lot of interesting tidbits in the window sticker such as contents by country, verbiage of the features and equipments, as well as the finer print numbers in the EPA fuel economy. I used to consistently get 26 MPG with mixed driving. On the surface it seemed to low compared to that of the sticker. However upon examining the small numbers, I would say it is quite close.

Mini is curbrashphobic ; there is always an invisible force field that I have a hard time overcoming to park closer to the curb


For fun I used google translate to see what curb rash phobic in German wanting to see a very long word as Germans tend to create words by concatenate a string of words together. My first attempt returned with "Bordsteinausschlag phobisch". As always, I don't just want to blindly use what google translate returns. I did a sanity check by deconstructing the word "Bordsteinausschlag". "Phobish" needs no deconstruction as it appears to be phobic. "Bordstein" is curb stone, and "ausschlag" is rash. Bordsteinausschlag phobisch sound good to me. So again German wins in the who-has-the-longest-word contest. My curbrashphobic simply has no chance.

 

the incessant drizzle this week makes Mini feel like home - the GB

 

I just discovered a few useful post processing tools built into the Mac Photos. I only found them now as I dislike the dumbed down UIs of most Apple apps and OSs. These filters are pretty cool, and there are built in smudge function to obscure license plate.







a melancholy winter mood of a grounded Mini

 

We have incessant drizzle and rain for days and I have been looking forward to the grocery shopping trip during a little of dry break.

Shortly into the trip I notice there is this haze on the inside surface of the oil pressure gauge lens. My first thought is may be it is just condensation. Scanned across to the boost gauge and it is crystal clear. Not good, I thought as it is a mechanical gauge. Could be a very small leak and the haze is in fact a film of oil.

Unlike some pilots who freaked out and lost situational awareness and crash their plane I know I just need to keep cool and keep driving undistracted. As I have the driving lights on I know I will soon know which once the 3w incandescent bulb warms up the gauge.


haze inside the mechanical oil pressure gauge face


Sure enough after a 10 minutes of driving the haze is gone. It is just vapour condensation.

I took this photo but there were litters everywhere, so "I pick up the rubbish" by post processing.

note the rubbish on the ground everywhere


virtual rubbish picked up ; I also toned down the colour intensity


The fun of the Mini makes a otherwise just a chore into an joyride. There was not a moment while driving that my mind drifted away from the task of driving as it is so engaging.

 

Just a couple of new photos.

 

This is an epic and inspirational thread.

All I can say is thank you!

Cheers!