My car should be back in my hands in less than 2 weeks with a new clutch, JE pistons, Quaife diff, head/cam and balanced crank. I would like 260-280whp, but the car must be a daily driver. Start and Go! Who has done this and what problems will I come across?
Mario

 

Paging Tuls...please STEP to the white courtesy phone...Dominicminicooper could answer this one too...maybe Veni Vedi Vici could too.....those are the ones I know off the top of my head...

I'll let you know how a turbo only does as a daily here in a few weeks.

 

So you are going to do it??!! I would love to do a turbo only but way toooo much $$$$ for me right now.

 

Yep.
Teasers:







Just like this, minus the fuel rail work (and hornets nest of an ECU):

 

Ha ha... helloooo... Mario needs me not answer this though.... lol.... plus.. apon getting some other things in order I'll be happy to throw that dang SC in the dumpster... or off a bridge... or drop a Tahoe on it... who knows...

 

why is the tubing so large coming off the turbo?

 

It's not that big, looks to me like 3" tubing. Unless you're referring to the water-to-air intercooler?

 

Well, from everything I've read, there are many issues with a twincharge setup with reliablility. I can say without a doubt after talking to fireballed if I was to drop 5-6k, i'd bite the bullet and go straight turbo only. Glad to see you're getting your car back together Mario. We'll have to do a run some day :-). I've been hella busy lately, haven't had time to go to any of these meets :-(

 

My twin charged Mini is a daily driver. I put about 35,000 miles on it with the SPI kit before I melted a couple of pistons. I didn't drive it extremely hard but every know and then it is fun to get on it. Well I guess I pushed it to far one night and that was the end of it. Now I'm in the process of dealing with DMH Motorsports and Fireballed Racing on rebuilding my engine and head. Twin Charged and Turbo only cars are fun but make sure you have the funds to fix stuff afterwards.

 

I don't know if it is as much a reliability thing as it an ABILITY thing. TC you are gonna run higher boost for the same numbers and performance. More likely to have problems, but not a guarantee. Tuls hasn't melted anything....yet.

As far as 5-6K. I only wish it was in that price range. In fact if you do TC and do it right you would be lucky to get away with that price range.

 

Very Lucky!!!

 

6k here... and no... never broken anything....

 

Did that include your clutch and head work?

 

It's all in the tuning guys. if a motor lets go in 35,000 miles that means it wasn't tuned right. i think the only guy right now who has a good hold on the tuning issue as far as the stock ecu is john and lucky dog garage. so for me i will be going with his set up. it seems to be the most reliable tune so far.
remember it's all in the tuning. you can have the best hard parts available and if it's not tuned right somethings gonna give. and it will be expensive!

 

It's always tuning. Any monkey can bolt parts on a car. To be fare to Fireballed they have been doing MINI specific turbo stuff, as SPI before, for longer than LDG. But I don't think you can go wrong with either one.

 

Not so sure who has been at it longer. hubie is the one who started working on the mini not fireball tim. they just joined forces. john at ldg has been doing this for a long long time he is older than all those guys.
they both make good products for sure!!
i just think for now LDG has an edge with the software they are using. no codes for one entire year says it all. it's an emissions legal set up.
unlike all the others.

 

whats that big bulge in the pipe in that engine bay?

 

water to air intercooler

 

i thoughts that is what you were said in the other post. thanks. pretty tit setup

 

Hubie was SPI before he started the joint venture with Tim so we are agreeing there, just spekaing differently.

As far as codes go, if you want OBD-II fuly compliant then LDG has the only setup. The Fireballed kit will throw a SES light, but it's a soft code. They are working on a solution to this and it should be out sooner or later.

The thing about LDG is AFAIK, the only kit is on their car and they are not ready to bring it to mass market/beta testing. The Fireballed guys are willing to work with you NOW if you want to go with a kit today.

I hope in the end they both get their kits into some sort of "production". It would be nice to have a choice when you are spending 8-10 grand on your car!

 

john actually has a few tubo cars out there and done beta testing for over a year now. hopefully he will get it out there for sale soon. i am working on that with him so we'll see.

 

Sorry not trying to be combative on this subject i just wish there were more options/ kits out there that were oem reliable. kinda frustrating.

 

Nah. No worries. I enjoy the discussion Really I think John is a cool cat and will offer a great product. The "problem" is he is 3000 miles away from us here in Tucson. Hubie is a quick flight or a days drive away. Plus having someone who has stated he is willing to fly here to help me out if I have ANY issues is unbelievable. I only wish every tuner I have had contact with was that motivated to make sure their ish worked right.

It will be good to have the comparison between a Fireballed car and a LDG car in the near future. I am gonna be moving this summer, but will still be in AZ, so I know we will be able to compare and contrast pretty easily.

 

yeah the distance does suck. but my sponsor is one of the best tuners in the country and is near L.A. he is working on getting the HKS FCON V Pro to work on the mini. he will come to me here in tucson to tune my car on the dyno.
so along with LDG flash and the FCON the mini will be spot on and no DTC Codes. i can't wait!!

 

Who will be at the Dragon w/ a Twin charged car?