First.....on my '04 R53, is there anyway to tell what flywheel I have in the bell housing other than taking the engine & trans out and separating them? Just curious because this car has so much more power than my other JCW car.....I was just wondering if it has a one piece flywheel and not the dual mass flywheel?

Second.....om my '06 R52 JCW car, is there a way to tell if the differential is actually a limited slip or not without tearing it all apart? When I had the car on jack stands for 6 months after I got it and was swapping engines, I spun a front wheel and the other front wheel went in the opposite direction....the car is supposed to have LSD, but the drive train may have been changed at some point.....to me, both front wheels should have turned in the same direction if I spun one of the front wheels

Bryan

 

As far as the new one to the old one, depends on mods, if the '04 has a 15% pulley and CAI, it will probably be making more torque than your JCW, not to mention the difference in weight, my '05 JCW R52 weighed a whopping 3100 lb with me in it, much more than an R53.

And yes, the '06 JCW should have come with the factory LSD, the factory LSD will cause the wheels to spin in opposite directions off the ground, it is also very obvious when spinning under power, an LSD FWD car will float, and wander when spinning. Or will want to go straight (the direction of the momentum) if you break traction on a corner in the rain, a non LSD car will go where you steer it.

 

Yea..I fergot to mention that the '04 R53 has the 15% supercharger pulley, I put it on last year....that is the only engine mod.....so I guess that make sense.....still want to try and find out if it has the single mass flywheel.....the kid I bought it from put a clutch in it...but I didn't get the receipts or anything mentioned about the flywheel.....

Still in the dark about the LSD in the '06.....I know that it's coded for it, but I'm not sure if it's either still in the car or not.....this little R52 JCW car has been through hell before I got it last year....trying to bring it back alive and back to stock......was just trying to find out if there is a way to tell if the trans that is in there right now is actually the LSD unit or not. I have a slight 'gear clash' when shifting to 4th on it's maiden voyage out of the garage a while back.....so if my LSD is not in this trans, I will be on the hunt for one that has it.....

On other RWD cars, limited slip means both rear wheels turn same direction when up on jack stands and engine off....I'm guessing it's different with the MINI?......I spun the drivers side front wheel, and the passenger went opposite direction

Bryan

 

So the deal is that they SHOULD both move in the same direction, however there's a few caveats. Typically, OEM LSDs aren't capable of 100% lockup (like a Quaife, Peloquin, or OS Giken on the high end, units are), plus combined with years and years of abuse (differentials DO require servicing to some extent), and it's likely that your car is no longer experiencing the locking properties that it should be. So to say, originally, BMW likely made it to a 60% locking spec, and now after years of use and abuse, it's just operating like an open differential.

If you want a limited slip, don't waste your time with OE parts. $1100 buys a Quife, which is great for street driving and maybe some light track use, $1550 buys an OS Giken unit, which is the best that can be purchased for these (from my understanding; if anyone is aware of an even higher quality part, I'm all ears).

 

veedubpat, that probably explains why when I spin a wheel, the other one goes the other way......car only has 108,000 miles...but how hard a life it's had, I do not know.....I do know that I have a gear clash when going into 4th gear either upshifting or downshifting.....and I am not sure if it's the OE trans in the car anyway.....

I will never see track time with the car....and I don't plan on driving in the snow or off road.....I mainly want to get the car back to stock if I ever decide to sell it ...so I'll just see what happens down the road.....

Thanks.....Bryan

 

Bryan, don't know if you overlooked it or not, but my '05 JCW R52, Does have the factory LSD, and it does exactly the same as yours when off the ground in neutral, so I'd be pretty confident that yours has the original factory LSD as well, and is in working order.

 

Thanks....I'm probably overthinking this anyway....was just trying to understand why both wheels didn't go the same direction as other cars if in fact that my trans actually has the LSD in it.....too bad there are no "numbers" or markings on the trans to identify the LSD units from the 'non-LSD" units....at least not that I have found to date

If I decide to have the 4th gear issue fixed, that would be the time to tell if it actually is an LSD trans or not....and if it is, either fix it back to stock, or do an upgrade.....but the $$ to do either will dictate which way to go, if at all

Bryan

 

True, as far as repair on the current transmission, it would probably be less expensive to replace it with a working used tranny and simply swap the diffs if the new one was an open diff.
I've been well over 240 WHP for more than 150k on my factory diff and transmission, (the car has 227k right now) and am now over 325 WHP, with no apparent issues, just a better clutch and flywheel.
For the most part, the real thing you have to look out for with these transmissions, besides abuse, is when you try to give big HP traction, otherwise they are pretty stout. In most cases you'll break axles before you break transmissions or diffs, sounds like yours just had too many hard miss shifts from the previous owner.

 

Yea, I think so also.....I found an insurance card in the car when I was tearing apart the interior searching for all of my non-working electrical problems last fall.......the first and last names on the card were very long and only had 3 to 4 vowels total in each owners name.......that alone should give you an idea who owned the car......

I know the kid that I got the car from last year never got to drive the car....I got it for almost nothing because he couldn't get it to run, he had it for almost a year and never had the title changed to his name because he couldn't go through emissions test because it never ran for him.......I'm sure you have followed my purchase thread in the first Gen JCW section....a rather long and interesting read, at least for some

Bryan