Ive been offerd a 63mm throttle body in exchange for my performance cam and vernier pully,and from my engine mods listed below do you think i would gain much power or would it be a waist of time?

 

BIG WASTE OF MONEY!!!!!! I want my money back for mine.

 

Thanks mate i'll just try and get cash or a more usable mod in exchange for my cam and sprocket then.

 

So what TB do you recomend, if any?
Thanks.

 

I'd pass. Based on the mods in your sig, you basically have the equivalent of a JCW car. I had a Dinan throttle body installed on my JCW car a few months ago (smaller - 59.5 mm, iirc), and the car ran crappy from day one. WOT was OK (although not any noticeable improvement), but any part-throttle driving was very rough, jerky, hesitant. Miserable. A couple of people who work on MINIs (and other cars) a lot more than I ever will suggested that the throttle body was likely the problem. I had the stock tb swapped back in last week, and the car is back to running smoothly with good throttle control.

I'd look for power elsewhere.

Edit: Rustyboy155 summed it up pretty well below - "Tuning helps, but the issue lies deep in the software. The ECU expects a certain amount of air to flow through the stock TB at various RPM's. When you force more air than expected through, it has no idea what to do with it. Going bigger also causes issues with air velocity."

I think he's been talking to the same person as me.

 

Hey thanks for the advise. Will do.

 

Larger Throttle bodies do NOTHING. Waste of money .

Actually I take that back, they're great at messing up your idle and throwing CEL's

 

So why is this so. You would think that with the more air being able to get through it would work alot better. Or is it that the MAP sensors are reading to much air flow through the intake? I would like to here more veiws on this as I do have a Mini Mania 63mm Throttle body on my car and do have Idle issues etc but I swapped it back to a stock and still had the problems so we changed it back and drilled a 3mm hole in the butterfly and it helped the situation a bit. But I think it might come down to tuning, but then again I really don't know

 

Tuning helps, but the issue lies deep in the software. The ECU expects a certain amount of air to flow through the stock TB at various RPM's. When you force more air than expected through, it has no idea what to do with it. Going bigger also causes issues with air velocity.

If you take a straw, stick it in your mouth, and blow through it. The air is high pressure. If you take a piece of computer paper and roll it up so there's about a 1.5 inch diameter opening, stick it in your mouth, and blow in it, obviously the air comes out much slower. Your engine can only such in so much air. There is a point at which the engine doesn't have enough suction to draw air in during various engine RPM's (Hence the lopey idle).

The stock TB is plenty big enough to suck enough air through. People are running 300-400 HP applications with the stock TB still . Honestly the main issue I have with these lies in the fact that tuners spend $30 machining an OEM TB, sell it to you for $399, AND take yours to sell to some other sorry chap. It's one of the highest profit modifications out there, and it doesn't do anything! Think about it, if it made that big of a difference don't you think JCW would have put a larger one into their kit rather than putting a whole new head into the car? Look at the GP, same stock TB, they added a completely different IC to the car, and spent who knows how much developing completely different software to squeeze 7 ponies out of the engine.

168 HP vs 217 HP, 49 HP difference yet for some reason they didn't feel that a larger TB was necessary AT ALL . People are putting pulley's on their car, slapping on a CAI, One-Ball, and going "Wow... all this new power, I need a 6 MM larger TB and 100 CC larger injectors! ." Meanwhile they get rich codes, lopey idle, and weird sputtering issues, and wonder what's going on .

Stop wasting money guys, buy the mods that actually make a difference . I'll admit I wasted a lot of money myself, but I was stupid, and didn't do any research. This forum has opened my eyes to TONS of issues. I could have saved $2500-$3000 by doing the research and not jumping into mods.

With a CAI, Cat Back, Pulley, and Head, you can easily be at 215 wHP :-). 5k or so installed! Trust me, i'm a long time member of the 10k upgrade club .

 

What he said.

Including the 10k bit, unfortunately...

 

This makes so much more sense now. That is what I thought about it getting too much air. But I wasn't really sure. Also I have a Limited ECU Remap. It is done by a company called Powerchip here in Australia. This Remap is really only for a Pulley, maybe a CAI and Exhaust. I have soo much more on the car than this. Have any of you guys heard of this Powerchip over there?? I am going to be swapping over to MTH Tuner File as I have heard good things about this. Does everyone agree or disagree?

 

If you're asking me, negative experiance with MTH both with their customer service and the performance. My AF was 9 when I ran it on the dyno (Normal is about 10.8-11, optimal is 11.5 or so). I think you'll find that the performance boost of most flash type chips is neglegable. If you want to tune your car, get a dyno tune, I promise it's worth every penny .

 

Yes, Powerchip is a large company and make chips for many types of cars. I've heard some good things about them before, dunno of anyone using it in their MINI though. Interesting tidbit, if you follow golf at all...the golfer Stuart Appleby has a large amount to do with the Powerchip company as he invested quite a bit into it. Met him before, very cool guy, and a complete car freak. He's also a huge BMW fanatic. Being that your from Austraila, I'm sure you know what a ute is...well when I talked to him he was turning an E39 M5 into a ute! (For those that don't know...its an El Camino looking car/truck thing that they use in Australia often)

MTH might work a little better for you, but MTH seems to be hit or miss with whether or not it works well with your car & mods. This applies to all ECU remaps/flashes that are not custom tuned to your specific car though. Every car is different and needs tweaking differently!

I have MTH though and its worked very well for me!

 

Yeah I was going to put the MTH Tuners file in just as a base map as I am putting in the Unichip Q version and getting it custom tuned on a Dyno. I am sure it would be alot better than the Powerchip I have in it now!! That is insane about turning an M5 into a ute. But it would be pretty cool/funny to see!!