Ok, i'm starting to have a slight feeling that i might have to replace a headgasket here soon, so it seems like the perfect time to do some headwork!

As far as a mild port job goes, would increasing the flow of the head mess with the computer?

(I dont do cars with computers, so this is all new to me)

How about a cam? Do any of the big cam companies (Crane, Edlebrock, etc.) make a cam for the MINI? How about a set of ARP head bolts for the MINI? and a set of Gaskets, something high performace, for the MINI?

Any supercharger porting i can do myself? Or should i just go get an 05 Unit and use that?

Intake manifold - and kind of port matching i can do here to increase flow?

Any other things i can do while the head is off?

 

a bit over $1800 and included the Shrick cam.

You can also get the intake and SC runners done as well. The SC porting should be left to someone who can take the case apart and has done it well.

Matt

 

Here's a link the to the offerings of ENDYN, including headwork, and intake and supercharger rework, http://www.theoldone.com/components/...ead_modifi.htm

Good luck!

 

I'm afraid to ask but how much?

 

You would probably have to call for a MCS price but here is what they list for Honda work for their first level package. http://www.theoldone.com/components/...g_and_Menu.htm

Basic Head Package
D Series Honda $595.00
All Other Honda 4-cyl Applications $795.00

• Square head by milling the deck parallel to the camshaft bores.
• Mill chamber reliefs around each valve seat.
• Custom radius/discrete valve job. Larger than stock seats at no additional charge. Seat heights set to within .001".
• Machine valve faces and back-angles (used or factory valves), or indicate faces and machine as necessary (new aftermarket valves).
• Rework port bowls and blend into valve seats to achieve desired flow characteristics.
• Blend and smooth combustion chambers.
• Match intake entries and exhaust port exits to achieve proper port match and mismatch for reversion control.
• CC and mill head to achieve proper compression ratio.
• Assemble with new OE valve seals and valves and set up springs to correct pressures/heights for camshaft/RPM application.
• Conversion of VTEC heads to fit non-VTEC blocks at no additional charge.
• CNC chamber rework to match larger bore diameters adds $100.00

 

He had a bunch of stuff done by the Old One!

Matt

 

oops

 

Here are a few ENDYN prices for the MINI from an almost year old invoice:
Modify Cylinder Head $1,050.00
Modify Intake Manifold $150.00
Modify Supercharger $900.00
MINI 1mm Oversize Exhaust Valve $14.50
MINI .5mm Oversize Intake Valve $14.50
Port Intake Manifold Gasket $35.00
Larry was gearing up for CNC production on the headwork but I don’t know if that’s a part of the process now. Prices and turn-around time could have changed since I had my work done; historically a lengthy waiting period was common. There are a few extra procedures performed on the MINI head in addition to the items listed for the Honda b series.
ARP head bolt kit part #206-3601, $119.95 from my local hot rod shop. There is a robust cam bolt available also #206-1001 $36.00 but it cannot be installed using the MINI camshaft locking tool.
Cometic head gasket 78.5mm/.027 in #C4308-027 $83.95 directly from Cometic.
ENDYN can also get these parts as well.

 

I have asked several times but no one yet has done an a/b dyno for he SC porting....... there have been very mixed reports about the effectiveness...... There are claims that they actually experienced a loss of performance with a poted SC on the MCS

 

But if you take thermal efficiency into account, lower pressure can have better performance if the charge is cooler.

But you are correct, there are not any good numbers out there.

Matt

 

Hi Matt and Merry Xmas......... I have read a lot of performance threads....1/2 of them by people who have done very few mods but live in some kind of virtual world... I have spent over $20,000 on mods on my car..... Many of them are far short of my expectations....and in fact the touted expectations....... I am not whining or complaining I am merely stating fact,........I am applying for "show me state" status. I care not about theory as I have learned that theories can be based on erroneous premisis. How things work in systems is very different than how they work singularly in a clinical,laboratory setting. I am not going into my background here but I have seen more BS in my life spewed out by well meaning PHDs, etc. The only car that I know of that the SC was tested..... that had any where near my mods lost power....... Randy Webb in his findings said he hasn't seen the effectiveness....... Peter of M7 reports great gains but only with slightly modded engines....... I wish there was an SC you could bolt on and get 20 whp but so far "no joy."

All that being said, I enjoy driving my Mini fast and while disapointed in the dyno numbers i am not disapointed with the driving experience......So as my brother from a different mother Sid likes to say,....."Screw the Dyno"...... however, not before you test your ported SC for the MCS

This is a time of year for joy and appreciation......

I will get to spend the next several days with my kids who are coming home....... it is time not to think about cams, SCs, ICs, etc but to focus on the really important things...... I wish all who read this a Merry Chrismas and a very Happy New Year filled with love , joy and happiness.

My sincerest best,

Bob
Merry Christmas

 

www.Piloracing.com

 

I just wanted to remind everyone that in laymen's tongue Ph.D. means "Piled Higher and Deeper.".

Merry Christmas

 

There are few that have shown the curios fervor about modified supercharger gains as SpiderX. When I have that kind of curiosity I hit the books or become a part of the experiment. It’s time for Bob/SpiderX to get his own modified supercharger (henceforth acronymic designated MSC) numbers for his car, quell the speculation (about whichever vendor product is chosen), and lead the way towards MSC enlightenment. I’m sure he and others have spent more for less so what’s the downside. In the spirit of holiday sharing, if SpiderX will send me his address I will contribute $20 towards the dyno fees.

I have a lot of respect for PhDs and the effort it takes to achieve that level. Praise the credential but reserve questioning criticisms for the theories. A falsifiable hypothesis is the cornerstone of a good experiment. We all know mod combinations with the MSC are effective but wouldn’t be great if SpiderX could do the ad hoc research.

 

Hi,

I guess my point was that I have been the leader in a lot of these mods. In Atlanta I only know of one other car that is modded to this extent and every mod I do is the first for the local Mini "tuner" most people around here have been satisfied with pulleys, exhaust, MTH, rear sway bar and intakes. headers, heads/cams, PSS9s, intake manifold, BBKs etc are very rare... so much so that mods that take Randy and hour take my local shop 3.... No slam on them they are great guys but they are also very careful and thourough (sp?)and the first time is a learning curve that i have been paying for. It seems to me that the vendors should do more testing...... gaurentee x results....... I don't want to add a mod and lose power and torque....... Now if that $20 grows to the point where we can buy the intake and pay the install....I am your man..... I'll be the mule......

Cosmic Purple has an 05 SC that he has offered to sell to me which I may end up with if he stil has it.

Tons of respect for PHDs.....some of my best friends are....... but the leading edge is usually defacto the unknown and the reasons for unsatisfactory results the first few tries are usually explained away a few years later as "of course....etc" after several people have bought the early " this is the poop" product. There is no acoountability because they live above it in a constant state of experiment/failure/failure/success....... the failures are part of the process that the early adopters pay for,.....have to "fix" or live with etc..... if this doesn't make sense to you....you can PM me and we can have a conversation.

 

Bob, in my eyes, you have indeed paved the way for many of us when it comes to mod'ing the MCS. While I'm aware of others who have done similar things as you, they didn't share so openly the ups & downs in such a public setting as we have here in NAM.

With that all said, I'm not sure what your end goal is, or even if you have one per se. I know with many, it's just more, and more, and then still more . For me, having someting like a mission statement really helps in keeping me in check by reminding me of what I'm trying to achieve...

I'm sure your MCS is a hoot to drive! For many, that would be mission accomplished .

 

I though the sound of ported SCs was real good, and I bought a take off from e-bay (05 with less than 50 miles, for $310 delivered to my door). I sent it off to M7, because I like those guys, even though I'd found Stegmeier (sp?) who does the porting, but I wanted to promote the Mini tuning community. It's still sitting in my garage, ready for action.

So, since I have an 02, the 05 P&P SC won't be a fair comparison, as the 02 doesn't have the same (any?) coating on the rotors....

Also, I bought a used AGS from another NAM member, and didn't like some of the flow featurs, and did something about it. I started a thread called something like "Improving the AGS, one mans journey" about filling in the sources of turbulence (a lot like the gen 2 AGS, just earlier). It too is sitting in my garage, waiting for time. Also note, that while the improved flow path potential from eliminating the turbulence is pretty obvious, my degree does give me a pretty good handle on how much flow improvement potential was there (that's good for about $5 worth of my PhD ). So when I do the work, I'll do them both at the same time. Any results will be conveluted, and hard to ascribe to any one source.

Since then, I've done what I should have done first. Read up on the subject. Now here's a primer on the roots blower.....

1) It's a posative displacement air PUMP, not a compressor. This means that for each revolution, it moves a certain volume of air, without compressing it.

2) So where does the boost come from? It comes from less air being injested by the motor through the intake valves. This means that with each revolution, the pump is putting more air into the intake than the motor can swallow, and this difference "pumps up" and becomes the boost.

3) So why doesn't boost keep climing to the sky? After all, each rotation adds more air than the motor can swallow.... There are several answers to this.
3.1) some leakes back because the clearences aren't 0. There are a few thousanths of an inch clearence, and some intake charge squeeks by.
3.2) there is some volume between the lobes of the rotors that gets pumpted backwards, and this is just due to the shape of the rotors. It's a few % of the pumped volume. And note that this volume is filled with boosted intake charge, so the leakage is about twice what you would expect from just looking at the volume.
3.3) as the boost climbs, more molecules can be digested by the motor (there's a larger pressure gradient between the intake and the cylinder, this is why blowers are used), so as the boost climbes, there is a boost level at which the motor can swallow all the air pumped by the blower.

In reality, all three of these contribute to the steady state, the boost level, leakage due to rotor case clearence, and the reversion of the pumping back to the intake of the rotor/rotor gap.

So now let's think about what porting a SC can do, the exit first....

When the pumped volume opens to the intake, which is at a higher pressure (the boost), some air flows BACK INTO the SC, and then this is swept out into the intake. The flow is very complicated here, but no amount of porting on the back end will change the amount of air is injested by the SC. So why do it? The answer is reduction of turbulence. Think of this as reducing the air friction, and the main effect will be to reduce heating of the air. Remember, the SC is spinning at 15k RPM at redline, so the air motion is pretty violent. To first order, this won't do anything to create power, but it will lower intake charge temp (and with it pressure) which will help prevent detonation. Indirectly, the lower pressures will effect all three things that limit total boost. The hope is that you get less decrease in the cylinder filling than the leakage between the rotor and the case, and the rotor to rotor gap.

Now let's look at the intake... Improving flow here does have the potential to get more air into the SC. This can create more power. When should you expect it to actually contribute? When the path into the SC is a significant limit to flow. An example of this is the testing on the TBs I did with the stock intake path in place. No difference between stock, 60mm and 62mm. That's not because an enlarged TB doesn't help, but it wouldn't do crap with the other bottlenecks on the car. So with a stock intake path, I don't really expect improved flow into the SC either, so I don't expect much at all from the SC directly with the stock air path in place. But to be fair, I haven't mapped all the pressure drops in the intake path, so that's just a guess. A good one, but still just a guess.

So what about indirect power adders? Well, if the charge temp is lower (even at identical molecular density) you can run more advance on the ignition and get more power that way. Or more realistically, you won't have the knock sensor back off the timing on hot days. Our Mini's IC doesn't get the air flow it deserves (only running about 70% thermal efficiency) and I don't know how may dyno graphs that have been posted that have the dreaded kink around 6000 RPMs as the ignition retard kicks in. Truth be told, I've had some ping on some of my MTH maps in hot weather, and none in the cold. I'd anticipate that I can run pingless (or knock sensor retard less) to hotter ambient temps, or at lower speeds (redline in first, as opposed to third).

So this could be a situation where no peak power were added at all by the mod, but it still allows for more useable power in more situations, not at all a bad thing. Is it worth a kilo buck? depends on your income, inclination to test, and ambient weather...

Two other things to think about.
A)Water injection. Do it in the atmospheric side of the SC. Why? The water will reduce the rotor case gap, and reduce leakage. This will keep more of the pumped air on the high pressure side (but you better make sure it doesn't leak, otherwise you can hydrolock the SC, not pretty!).
B) Thermal coatings on the IC. These do absoultely nothing to add more air into the cylender, but will increase thermal effeicincy of the IC (stock about 5%), which will help with detonation, and timing retard.

Sorry if this is boring, or stuff you already know. But I've found that understanding the principles of what the system is supposed to do can sure help with knowing what to expect, and where it fits into the whole system operation.

So, what about cars that put one on and don't see benefit. The only one I'm aware of is the guys up north that saw a bit off a loss of HP in a highly modded car. This was (if I remember correctly) a car where a ported SC was swapped with the one on the car, not the same one being ported and put back on. Maybe the tolerences of the new one were a hair sloppier than the one that started on the car... Don't know. Maybe the porting added some flow steps (like from the intake runner into the SC, the M7 one realy opens that up) that weren't obvious, and were counter productive. If the intake valves are the predominant bottle neck, maybe there just wasn't too much SC improvements can do for that car. Honestly, I have no clue, and to my knowledge, no one took the car apart to test the flow of each part separatly, or to compare the clearence of the original SC to the one that was put onto it, or looked at the match between each part in the system.

In the trade, we have an experimental fact that has not yet been explained. Nor will a single test on another car with different build give a defenitive answer.

Now that I know more about SC operation than I did before I bought and got the SC ported and polished, would I still have done it? I don't know. I get a bump just going from the 02 sc to the 05 sc, so there's some drive there for the change, even without the port/polish. In hind sight, I think I'd do the M7 scoop (more air for the IC),, the thermal dispersant on the IC (more thermal efficiency) befor I did a SC port and polish, and have saved $ at the same time. I'm still on the fence about the larger IC. I have a first gen Alta, but I'm not happy at all about the end-cap design, and am on the fence about using it. (See TonyB's thread about thesting the GRS unit against the stock with and without the M7 scoop). I'll get that coated as well, and do some G-Techs to see what there is to be had. But I have the P&P SC now, so what the heck, when I get off my as* to put it and the modified AGS on, I'll let everyone know what I find.

Matt

 

Good stuff, Matt!

 

I didn't expect anyone to actually read it all!

Matt

 

Yah, he did it (his PhD) online though

Just kidding Matt. Great Post! With re to what you said here:

"Two other things to think about.
A)Water injection. Do it in the atmospheric side of the SC. Why? The water will reduce the rotor case gap, and reduce leakage. This will keep more of the pumped air on the high pressure side (but you better make sure it doesn't leak, otherwise you can hydrolock the SC, not pretty!)."

The guy who was going to do my UNIChip dyno tune wanted to put an Aquamist in such a location as he thought the MINI could really benefit from this. Your hydrolock scenario is what came to my mind though... I've been waiting for Bob to try first

 

I'm gonna move my Roots SC Thesis to a new thread....

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=57718

Matt

 

Lol, if you only knew how much I have to read in one day, you'd know where I'm coming from . That was light but very appreciated stuff. Rock on.

edit: Oh yeah, and what are friends for?!?

 

I ate it up like Mama's pasta sauce...... I'll take seconds

 

Matt

ps, I share it as I learn it, measure it or just figure it out.