I'm a little short on money this month, and I was just wondering if there is one piece of equipment that will have a noticable speed, hp, or overall perfomance upgrade for my MC. I'm thinking about trying the Magnaflow. Thanks.


P.S. something that would not void the warranty would be nice! Thanks again.

 

don't know what you have yet ... but the Swaybar would be good ...

 

search the forums for Magnaflow. You'll find tons of info. From what I read it looks like either that or the madness filter wins as the best mod.

 

if you can only afford one thing and your looking at the Magnaflow I'd ditch the thoughts of the exhaust and opt for an intake and set of new plug wires. You will end up spending less than a full out exhaust and gain more HP.

 

Depending on how much money you're looking to spend, wheels and tires are a great investment...

 

for the price of the magnaflow - you could add a rear sway bar, intake, plugs, and stress bar...and these combined mods I think will be more noticable then just the magnaflow. If you can afford to - from what I have heard - the most noticable difference is light weight wheels. I have a 2nd S on order, selling the first, and the first mod will be some lightweight Volk TE37s, then sway bar, intake, stressbar, coilovers.

 

well...I got rid of the heavy 17" wheels and the runflats on my MCS....went to 16" alloys and sticky tires...huge performance difference...IMO the 17" wheels are kinda dumb on the mini.....I've even seen some 18" wheels...with the extra weight of the MCS over the MC and these oversize wheels, doesn't make much sense to me....I went for improved handling as I think adding an exhaust is more hype than substance regarding performance based on the few MCS owners I talked to in San Diego that added the catback....for $600 I'd rather get rid of the awful runflats..but that's just my 2 cents...good luck!

 

I have an MC, and was looking at the MOSS brochure last night. I like the looks of them, but when it comes to performance issues, I need some advice. Which one has been proven to be the "best"? I know this is a loaded question, I just really want to know which one to buy.

 

GoblinJack,

See you ask one simple question and get 99 differant answers. Well I will muddy the waters for you a bit more.

For less than you can get a Magnaflow exhaust, (one of the best), you could get an intake and an exhaust. Supertrapp is the lightest, gives almost as good a HP as the magnaflow, and costs much less. You could have an intake and exhaust for less than $500.00.

Sound quality is very good with the Supertrapp as well. The biggest negative with the Supertrapp is you give up the center exit for the exhaust and it becomes a side exit like the regular cooper, jsut doesn't look quite as cool.

Supertrapp is not the fav here at MCO or at MINI2 but it is a very viable option. You can see my car in the gallery section under ghillie.

Do a search on Supertrapp, you should find it interesting reading at least.

Have fun.

John

 

>>if you can only afford one thing and your looking at the Magnaflow I'd ditch the thoughts of the exhaust and opt for an intake and set of new plug wires. You will end up spending less than a full out exhaust and gain more HP.>>>>>>


What do the plugs do? I've read that the MCS already HAS very good plugs and aftermarket ones are just a waste of dough. What are they supposed to do?

 

Iwould not spend the money on plug wires. I say this and I have them . If you are going to do alot of mods and are looking at the best of each (fit, finish, and performance). magnaflow may be the choice for you. If you want to spend the least you should look at other products. Hard question to answer because each person wants something different. One last thing the run flats do suck.

 

>>I'm a little short on money this month, and I was just wondering if there is one piece of equipment that will have a noticable speed, hp, or overall perfomance upgrade for my MC. I'm thinking about trying the Magnaflow. Thanks.
>>
>>
>>P.S. something that would not void the warranty would be nice! Thanks again.
>>
>>

GoblinJack99,

I would recommend the Madness Intake for $239. It makes a serious difference, and the cost is reasonable.

Once you do an exhaust, I highly recommend the Magnaflow.

As far as wheels and tires making the biggest difference, we kinda proved that isn't the case on the track today - keep reading the forum for soon to come details.

I recommend mods in this order for hp/money ratio:

Intake
Magnaflow
Nology wires
more cool stuff that is still in development

If I were to do an all around car mod list, it would go like this:

rear swaybar
intake
exhaust
springs/coil overs
wheels and tires
brake pads/rotors
plug wires
more cool stuff that is in development

If that confused you because there are so many opinions out there, feel free to give me a call, and I'd be glad to discuss the different options out there, what we've found works from testing, and the cost of different products.

Great question by the way!

And welcome to MCO :smile: !

Randy Webb
Owner, MINI-Motorsport
720-841-1002

 

Randy -would the front strut brace make your list? If not, why?

 

I have driven the car with the BMP strut brace, and my car (as well as a host of others) that don't have it. I have NOT driven them on the track yet.

With the "test course" we have at MINI-Motorpsort, I didn't really notice that big a difference. The MINI is extremely torsionally rigid, so maybe it doesn't need it. I think that triangulation is always good, so it couldn't hurt to have one. I'm checking into some options on what braces will work with the Madness and Pipercross intakes. When I find one that I'm told will work, I'll get it here and do some testing on the track. That way I can give you a better answer and let you know if it really fits.

Randy

 

Hey, it's me again, starter of this thread. Just seeing if I could pull Randy back in here or any other performance buff. Randy mentioned that the Madness intake is arguably the best choice for first modificaton with little money. Problem is, I am pretty sure that this intake is specifically for the MCS, and unfortunately (and regretfully,) I own an MC. So hopefully you could redo that little list of hp/cost ratio mods again but for the MC. Thanks a bunch, GoblinJack

 

GoblinJack - Randy's second list (all around car mods) is applicable to both MC and MCS, but products for each may change slightly ... intake, for instance, doesn't have the product assortment to chose from for the Cooper like the MCS does (I have the K&N insert for the stock box while I wait for developement to catch up - there's one for our MC's out there that does well, but it's ugly!). Suspension mod's are quick, inexpensive, and help to make use of the available power - HP increases are easy to come by but generally will require a 'package' - more pieces, and more cost.
To my way of thinking, one doesn't want too much of a gap between available power and the ability to put the power to the ground ... even the MC has a good amount of stock power and in every-day driving, all of the power availably is seldom used; I used to say that the old Mini was a great car for lazy people because one didn't need to slowdown through the twisties or around corners - once you get the speed up, you don't need to worry quite as much about the power to accelerate again, if you never need to slow down! If HP gains are all one is concerned with and the gap between power and handling grows too great, one ends up with a 'muscle car' that can blast down the straights only to have to bleed off that speed as it crawls around the corners, quickly accelerating in the next straight, up to the next corner it has to tip-toe around ...
... Maybe a bit too much of the 'Motoring Philosophy', but the first thing I put on my Cooper was the Sport+ suspension (essentially a MCS suspension on a MC) so that I could better take advantage of everything else I would eventially do to the car.
Good luck with the Mods - Motor On and Enjoy (don't 'regrete') your Cooper!

 

GoblinJack,

Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner.

8ball is pretty much correct.

The Cooper is harder to get more power out of though. The intake is worth about 4-6 horsepower, and the exhaust is tough to get much power from - nowhere near the 12-15 we see on the S. You can expect about 10 or so horsepower with the intake and exhaust, and maybe a coople more with wires. The ECU doesn't make as much compared to the S either, but the EVO-Tech tuning is almost half the price.

Here's what I would do in order:

Pipercross intake
Magnaflow or Rogue exhaust
Nology or Magnacor wires
ECU tuning (this would be higher on the list if it didn't have warranty implications)

Now that I'm thinking about it, there is a gentleman (and I use that term loosely) that traded a Cooper in on an S and kept his parts. They are available for significantly less than new, and they only have about 5,000 miles on them. Maybe I should move this to Marketplace - but honestly I just though of it - and I swear they aren't my parts

Here's a pic of what's available with the prices he is asking.


Rogue exhaust $350


Pipercross intake $100

Hope this helps. Let me know if you are interested in the used stuff, and I can get you in touch with the seller.

Randy
randy@mini-motorsport.com