I take delivery of my MCS sometime this summer. I plan to do the intake and exhaust. Do I need to wait until after the break-in period before installing these?

I'd appreciate hearing the reasoning behind your answer, as well.

Thanks,
JS

 

The best thing to do is wait to do the mods so you have the satisfaction of realizing the performance gains.

If you do the mods before the break-in period is up, you won't ever get a chance to know the "seat of the pants" difference your hard earned money has made, as you won't have ever taken it to the redline before then.

It won't hurt anything on the car to do it right away, it just makes the modification experience more rewarding if you can do before and after comparos.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Randy
randy@mini-motorsport.com
720-841-1002

 

good topic. I was wondering the same thing myself. I don't know if I can wait 1500 miles to start tinkering, but it will be cool to be able to tell the difference. Maybe I'll work on the upgrades that are less performance related first. Maybe even the cool little pda test stuff like pocketlogger. Imagine that, two of my favorite things in one package. PDA technology and cars. :smile: :smile:

 

As an MC owner with over 12K on the car, I put the Rogue exhaust on at 6K miles. The car drives differently at 12K than 6K and definitely different than 1200 miles. It is faster. And the exhaust has gotten better - nice rumble to it as it's broken in. I would suggest driving the car ALOT the first few weeks to get the mileage up there, I actually had some vacation time right after I got it and all I did was drive aimlessly around NJ. Got me used to the car, how it performed and what I could expect from it. Looking at intake systems now for spring...and new wheel/ tire combos...

 

The Butt-dyno is the only one that matters for driving pleasure! I can't imagine you're that bored with your MINI already you need to boost it's HP! Randy is right, give yourself some time to acclimate to the car, feels its' character, get to know MINI intimately, then you can appreciate modifications you do to it

Cheers,
Ryan

 

Wait a while. It'll make the changes feel that much better.

 

Ok, I'm gonna get tagged as impatient, but...

45 minutes after I picked my MCS up I had the Magnaflow, BMP Intake & Magnacore wires installed. :smile:

My (logic?)... I might as well let the ECU adapt from day 1. THAT... and because I could take off the stock exhaust (& sell it) while it was like new.

As for appreciating the difference, it was blatently obvious - even driving calmly in a new car. The differences between bringing the car home & then driving it back to work 3 hours later wer not subtle. The exhaust note might have helped the perception a little bit

BTW
I drained the oil too! & replaced it immediately. Good thing too, as it was very black. This was kind of disconcerting as there were only 37km - 10 of which I logged, that were very tame. I saved that oil, and am thinking of having it analized.