Yeah, what he said!

 

I know these may sound like Noob, fraidy-cat questions, but.....

Does anyone think there could be any repercusions from the service department for performing this mod on a new, under warranty car?

Is there any negative effect to the car, itself, in running with the Sport Button on all the time?

Signed:
Ima Fraidycat Noob

 

Did you lease the car? if so then I could see where that could be a potential issue. I don't know about any long term adverse effects related to running the sport button on all the time, I'm not really worried about it either. The mod is simply just pushing the button for you, so at least you won't wear out the button

 

This was great information. Lots uf uses for these pre-made boards

 

No, I bought the car.
What I really meant to ask was whether anyone has had a service advisor make a stink about the mod?

Thanks, Rich

 

I talked to my service advisor today about making mods to MINIs. She told me (granted, the perception of one dealership may differ from another--our MINI club is quite active, with some in the $10k category) that mods are OK. But, if a mod causes a problem during the warranty period and requires servicing, they will most likely charge for the labor, etc., that resulted from the mod. Example from her: Someone had some dash lighting problems (dimming, flashing, etc.) and brought the car in for service. Turns out a 3rd party installed a nav system and wired it directly to the dash lighting, which caused the problem. Owner had to pay for the labor, etc., to fix it. Seemed fair to me ...

 

Got the timer and am ready to try this, but what is this part that is plugged in? Where can I get it? Radio Shack? Thanks!

 

That part you see is a bussman fuse extender, try an auto parts store for that one, it plugs into fuse slot #32. You will also need a fuse to plug into the fuse extender. Try a lower amp fuse, somewhere in the 1-3 amp range should work well. If you look closely at my pictures you will see that there are 2 fuses that plug into that fuse extender, the one in front is the one you will add to protect the timer circuit, the one behind it, that is the original fuse. The other item that you will need and will also likely find at the auto parts store, would be the self stripping electrical tap connector. That's the small red connector you see in the picture with my hand.

 

Thank you! I bought the extender (wire and plug thing) AND another 2-3 amp fuse as suggested by the guy at the auto parts store. I already have the timer. Anything else before I give it a go? I did read that I should put it all together, like the picture shows, before attaching it to the panel ...

 

Make sure you get the wire tap that I mentioned as you want to avoid cutting and splicing the blue sport button wire, this will allow for easy un-modding should you decide to sell the car someday.

Here is a better pic of what I'm talking about.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=082-100

 

I'm quite keen to try this mod out. My big problem is how do I remove the plastic trim so I can get at the wire. I'm not going to be very popular if I mess this up, or the trim doesn't go back correctly.

 

I haven't done this mod, yet. Got one more part to get. But, I think the panel should pop off easily. There's a little thumb latch indention from what I can tell. Here's a pic from amazingrando that shows it:

 

am i weird? because I kind of like Non-sport better....any info on 0-60 times of sport vs non sport? that would be interesting.

 

found one on ebay for $3.99 with $8.99 shipping

 

I can get the fuse box door off alright, I was worried about the rest of the trim around the fuse box, which becomes the door sill trim. Anyway, once I had the fuse box door off, I tugged on trim and it sort of just came off in my hand. The trim piece is attached by a few snap connectors. It goes back on just pushing it till it snaps. (if none of the little white connector posts fall out, one of mine did, I pushed it back in.)

Once I got the trim peice loose, I found the right wire and spliced in a wire. I also attached a ground wire to a metal tab. Then the trim peice snaps back on. After installing the fuse tap I have all the right wires in place. Shorting the button wire to ground turns the sport mode light on.

I did some investigating. The switch switches if its shorted with a 230 Ohm resistor, at that point the wire is at 1.75V. (It doesn't switch with a 430 Ohm resistor, for about 3V.) The wire is supplied by 12V through about 1.3kOhm. When the switch switches it draws about 9mA. The 12V seems to stay on all the time, at least when the interior lighting is on.

That sounds like a logic level input to me, so I thought I could build a little circuit which would do the switching. The relay board people are using seems to be a bit of overkill. I made this:



The components are (with equivalents from RatShack), about $3 worth:

NPN Transistor
10uF Tantalum capacitor
2 10k Ohm resistors

It switches the light on the button on, I assume it'll work for real, I haven't used it for real yet.

 

Found my problem... when in doubt, triple-check your work. Thanks for a great mod!

 

just about ready to do this, just need to pick up a J2 resistor, what does this look like, and where does it go?

 

J2 is the label on one of the resistors on the Altronix 6062 relay board. It is simply cut or removed.

 

haha that makes so much more sense now thanks

 

I made the same mistake, forgot to cut the J2 resistor which left the board to give a constant voltage to the sport button not allowing me to turn it off, and it gave a dimmer glow than usual. I unbottoned the cover and fished out the board and cut the J2 resistor and now I am good to go.

Thanks for the great mod indeed. I can now add it to my list of mods I wish would have come standard from the factory!!

 

Great information. Thank you to all who contributed. I got mine in and working in no time (well, the actually installation was quick).

Two silly mistakes:

1) I got the wrong size fuse extender. I got one for the larger size fuse, not the mini. Another trip to the auto parts store.

Interestingly, NAPA had never heard of a fuse extender. They had to look it up and still couldn't figure out what I was trying to do. O'Reilly had each size sitting on the shelf. I just didn't catch that there were two sizes.

2) It takes two fuses in the extender. Duh. So, back to the store to get another fuse so that the sport button and whatever else is in F32 will work at the same time.

Now that it's all fixed, I love it! I never would have tried this on my own.

Jeremy

 

When I did use it for real, it didn't work. It'd switch sport mode on, then switch it off again after the car had started. The problem turned out to be that when the car starts, the load of the starter motor only allows the main "12V" power to rise to 9 or 10V. After the car starts, the "12V" power then rises to its usual, which is around 14V. As the circuit is using the rise of the 12V power as a signal to press the button, it was switching the button when the car was turned on, then again when the voltage rose after the starter motor was finished.

After a little experimenting, I came up with the MK1a version of the mod board, which uses a zener diode to stabilise the power signal. It also uses a MOSFET to do the switching, which is what I wanted to use originally, but I couldn't find a suitable one at either Ratshack or Fry's (I got it from Digikey through work). I've made two of them and installed them in both MINIs, they seem to be working for real:



2N700 MOSFET transistor
10uF Tantalum capacitor
5.1V Zener diode
3 resistors, 470Ohm, 120kOhm, 2.2MOhm

 

OK, so for the electrically challanged of us, who is willing to assemble and sell one of these kits? I know I would be interested.

 

I'd be interested in buying one too.

 

I thought about doing that, considering I do have rather easy access to a lot of the parts and tools needed (I'm a cinema repair tech) so the question becomes how much to charge? and making sure that I don't break any potential NAM guidlines. I would be willing to build up the kit, cut the necessary jumpers and provide some additional instruction if need be.