really good have been in contact with Garrett and they helped me with the turbo selection and all the turbo fittings,
meeting a guy next week about fabrication and welding,
just asking some questions about the finer details,
its great when people explain and chip in with some really usefull info,
if anybody would be so kind to help me with ordering some parts I would be really appreciative,
its really hard for me to get parts to Ireland,
this is one of the big problems for me,
but I am determined to try this.
I have to be very carefull as things are only in the research stage,
I wont be building anything until I am fully sure I know what I am doing and have the correct parts but this sure is fun.

 

do you have an actuall boost controller? I forget?

 

no...that's what I am for LOL

 

 

I plan on going twincharge in the long run (have to save up) but I do want a bit more performance from my car now. I don't really want to buy things that'll become useless with the twincharge. If i went ahead and bought say injectors, s-afc and an intercooler, could i remove those items from the twincharge kit?

 

get the afc and injectors first.. you will end up replacing the injectors with ever larger ones when you do the twin charge... but injectors loose very little value...

and the intercooler is a good idea too... but i would do the injectors and afc first!

 

Yeah I only plan on the doing the injectors and afc for now. I only mentioned the intercooler because when the time for the twincharge comes I'm going to be making a one-off front mount. There's different injectors for each kit though, Alta uses 550cc, Helix uses 500cc, and SPI uses 440cc... I want to be running around 320WHP so I figure I would need the 500cc or 550cc injectors, and I just remembered now that I can't run that on just a 19% pulley...

 

we use 650s... it all depends on what you want...

you will need to ditch the 19% for a twin charge...

just get some 440s that will get ya done... tune your 19% with an afc voila...

 

did anybody else hear the rumour that Apex-I are gone out of business,
also does anybody have any wiring diagrams or description of connecting an Apexi AFC to a Mini???
does it piggyback the MAP or TMAP???
and how???

 

2 Questions. Would I be able to use 440cc injectors with a twincharge kit and keep it at/under 80% duty cycle? (again, around 320-330WHP) And, could I run say 500cc or 550cc injectors on my car now (would have 19% pulley and s-afc)? Basically, I don't have money to be wasting and I want to go twincharge in the long run but don't want to waste $1000 on injectors and "chip" that I would lose when I buy the $6,000+ stg 2 twincharge kit... Thanks for your help

 

285whp will be resonable,don't expect 320 or 330whp with twincharge kit.

 

well before you go twincharged look at all the people that own them and ask them how they like it

i know of many problems with the twincharged setup
one blown piston, broken motormounts, destroyed upgraded clutch (3 months) having to cut the fire wall to keep turbo from hitting the firewall and keep coming undone. snaped half shafts and many more

if you choose to go twin charged you have to be ready to loose drivability and be ready to loose possibley alot of money in the prosess, the drive train was never built to take over 300 pluse motor mounts were a definate weak point but i will say its a absolute hoot to drive, i killed a hemi charger hehehehe that was fun the driver was very imbarassed and its also a car i wouldent want to drive everyday i like the ease of drivability like how mine is setup right now with the twincharged 1st and 2nd are a wast and if you need to get going and sneez on the throttle you go noware and just spin even at 30 or 40 youll just spine at lower speeds so youll need to beacome the master of the gas pedal i was acually very much for the twincharged before i saw all the problems now i think ill stay ware im at, if it was my second car then i may think differentley but its your car your choice

and also if your running the 19 percent with the twincharged youll prolly blow

i know my freind spent over 8 grand on just building the bottom end and pistons after the piston blew, you may be able to take the car to 400 hp with twincharged and nitro like once but dont expect the motor to last long

it sounds easy in speculation but when you acually see the guy drive it every day and have nothing but problems its quite scary, hes acually wanted to back to stock once or twice beacause his mini was parked more than driven

 

Your post is riddled with missinformation...

 

other than misspelling

i was just informing what happined to his car thats all whats information their
i realize some have had no problems
but hes had tons

thats all i reported

as far as drivability thats what i felt driving his car
also with a 19% pully the temps would get so hige all power youed gain would then be null beacause of the hige temp range and possibley worse

thats all
agree to disagree

 

I agree the spelling is quite bad but the facts seem fairly clear . He apparently has no allegiance to any mfg. which is refreshing. He is close to the car in question so it is not hearsay. This is not the first Twin Charge car with these problems that have been discussed over the last year so why would you think that he is not being truthfull? All we are asking for here is the real story both good and bad so we can make our own decision if we want to take a chance or not. I am looking to see how a twin charge car handles a day at the track. So far the only performance comments I have heard are from stop light to stop light, not my bag.

John

 

yeah of course you will get problems at that sort of power,
but if you go twin and keep it around 250whp the car should be a hoot to drive and also be reliable and driveable.
besides the way I see it is,
1 new pistons,
2 new clutch and flywheel,
3 new injectors (prob included in twin kit)
4 new IC,
5 apexi afc properly tuned at same time adding turbo,
6 driving lessons,
7 dont get gready with the boost,
thats the way I will do it.

 

i could careless about spelling... lord knows mine could use some work.

Yes very true that it refreshing to hear that he doesn't have an allegiance to any mfg! I love it...

My point is that their are lots of details left out of the post... How much boost he was running... how much power he was making... was the car dyno tuned... what gas are you running? if so what a/f. how is the car now with pistons... who did the install... what type of failures have you experianced specifically?

Ringland failures are usually due to two things... too much power or a bad tune... it seems like the stock pistons go somewhere between 250-300hp. Im sure he was making that much... i wouldn't say that that is a by product of a poor design... just poor planning...

and to others who say that the power is only good from stoplight to stoplight and you are more interested in making yoru car better for the roadcourse... duh... adding more hp rarely makes your car a better safer handling vehicle...

 

and to others who say that the power is only good from stoplight to stoplight and you are more interested in making yoru car better for the roadcourse... duh... adding more hp rarely makes your car a better safer handling vehicle...[/quote]


The handling issue I have covered in spades , been doing this for TOO long of a time. I am just looking for some more RELIABLE power down the straights

John

 

I am not really sure what you mean...but I am already at 300 WHP on a mustang dyno..and 330 WHP on a dyno jet...my motor is stock except pistons

Also...two years ago Hubie made 350 WHP...and El Diablito is currently running around @ 375 WHP...

the most we have made with spray is 500 WHP...everything was stock except from the orignial motor the pistons....

Just an FYI not an attack or anythign stupid...

as Isellem said...the example you are using is very wrong...there were factors that have nothing to do with the kit...like a human...LOL...as for drivability...I love how my baby drives now...it's no different than it was before...just more fun!! Spinning tires sure if I stomp it...but that was no different when I have a 190 WHP...so either way you have to drive the car accordingly....

I do agree with you though...anyone considering it should talk to the ones who own them...and the ones who make them...learn about them...understand what the car is doing...it will help you avoid such terrible cases as the example used in your post...

 

The handling issue I have covered in spades , been doing this for TOO long of a time. I am just looking for some more RELIABLE power down the straights

John[/quote]

put a global motorwerks cylinder head on your car! Thats how we got the 13.2 number out of our cooper S

 

A proper head is certainly in the mix. So far I am considering the one by Webb Motor Sports and Cosworth. I will add yours to the mix, thank you.

John

 

out of curiosity...

what do you or people like you look for in a cylinder head? Price? Performance? availability? Flow numbers? torque?

justin curious as to what and how people compair cylinder heads to one another

 

What's the weight of your car? How do you get it going.. I mean I can't get it to cling on (yes, they have that slipery HCT, I think, and its slipery).

A 15.4 sucks, my cars fully loaded with mods btw.. I couldn't launch it and I had installed a flywheel, pressure plate, clutch with a small glitch. It clamps straight away now.. so I won't be able to launch it gradually anymore. I was expecting a 14.something

Sorry to go OT

 

Ok guys I will take the time to clear some things up, nothing in this world is perfect and some engines will blow and others wont, if anything is fact here we all know how some stock minis are dogs and others are hellfire’s, some have stalling probs and others don’t, such as my post was pointing out

when we had the car, we had wheel to wheel build the car and they are very well known here in the Detroit area for being the best at what they do all the oem companies use them (GM for example use's them for all their race cars) zack was running 243 hp at the wheels and 190 ft pounds of torque
These where the dyno runs after the install

and yes the car had to be relearned since it was a totally new beast
but as I also pointed out their where issues, we talked to hubie and tried to work out the issues but couldn’t, the firewall had to be cut and re worked to keep the turbo from hitting and coming loose, thats not the installers fault, that’s just simple build quality, we don’t have robots kicking these things out so their will be different variances in sizes though small may have profound affects

im not saying good or bad im just telling my story from what I have seen with my own eyes

once his stock piston blew he had wheel to wheel spend 8 grand in parts and even more reassembling it to make sure there where no probs but their where.
At the track he blew 2 motor mounts and dented his hood,
his piston broke were the rings are located, not on the top of the piston,

he was running the normal boost no strange crazy numbers their
and still snapped the trans axels, all im reporting is problems with the car and if it is driver error then you are all at risk for possibly creating the same effect at some point whether you have driver school or not, things weaken over time regardless

I have logged over 120,000 miles on my car with many mods and have seen all the parts weaken over time because of my mods and seen what their affects are on my car as a result

I was one of the first with a mini long ago and was on this site when the new mini was just a mention, thou I was not a member at the time so im not a stranger to the car and have been a gear head all my life, so when I say the car was a entirely new beast I wasn’t just jaw jacking
just giving my best and most honest word on the kit, I still love it, and love the thrill of the acceleration but at the same time be ready to possibly dump a whole lot of money on the car if things go south, again some cars can be a car that will never see a problems but others may have other issues just an honest view. the twin charged arena is still new and not many fork over the almost 6 grand for it so for you to say the two or three cars to not have a problem is a testimate to the kits flawlessness and the one who does have problems is a case of driver error is an error in itself

so when you tell me my post is full of errors and stuff when all im doing is posting truth of what im witnessing is not cool im just trying to help, not give a thumbs down or up

if I knew of others in my club who have had no problems ofcorse I would post that but this is all I have

you just have to be careful with all that power since the front is so light on the car that when you hit the gas the car will act different and some people may not like the way it behaves that’s all, with the higer hp it be nicer if we were rear drive, since during acceleration the whaight transfer makes us tend to spine the tires(deffinetley not like a rear drive car ware the whaight transfer gives us better grip). some may have to do a panic move one day and all that power may be a bad thing rather than a good thing.

if I may also add their has been a number of people who have driven this car and the funny thing is people have very mixed feelings after really feeling it, some who thought they would not be complete without it now want nothing to do with it and others who where so so now want it badly so its a mixed bag and I would really stress to the person to really see if you can test drive one before you dive in since its a very big change and going back will be a pain, perhaps their will be some nice folks at the dragon this year who can gives drives and let some people drive around the block so they can feel the cars behavior, not everyone is a great driver but everyone wants something great even when its not the best for them. some may spend 6000 and feel they have ruined their car and regret it, others wont; it’s the beauty of opinion

here is the site ware he post some of his issues you can all read others responses as well, they have seen the car seen the problems and know it first hand, are club is pretty close
http://www.michiganmini.com/modules....er=asc&start=0



[FONT='Times New Roman']oops sorry for the book ill shut up [/FONT]

 

4GAZM...wow...that's alot to write...we have been round and round on this forum about this very subject....it's always nice to hear from those who have direct contact...as one of those people...This TC case you speak of is the most freakish one ever...LOL...it's NOT the norm....it's the worst case..which is good to know...

as for your talking with Hubie and him not being able to help...that is untrue...I am not going to get into that here...this is not the place...I will say the emails/contact recived was less than professional....maybe not from YOU...again this is not the place

Lastly, as for the TC being new...Hubie disigned the first TC kit in 2002...6 months after they were released in the U.S. ...he posted his #s here on nam as was nothing short of laughed off the board and told it's not possible...there are 35 + TC cars out there now....and having built 4 or so TC cars now including the MINI USA I again say that's why Zacks was worst case...it's crazy...we have never snaped a half shaft or an engine mount till we hit the 350 WHP range and that was with Full race slicks launching very high RPM...

I am not saying what you said is untrue or wrong...just want poeople to be aware of both sides...

thanks again for your info...it's nice to here from the source