North American Motoring - 8,16

R50/R53 Catalytic cleaners - Have you tried / Do they work?

Here2Go — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:09:21 GMT

Just keeping up with general / preventative maintenance.
I had my original 22 y/o, 120k something CAT fail and replaced with a used low mileage OEM a while back.
All has been great 2k + miles so far.

I've heard and been reading about CAT cleaners. Has anyone tried or had success with any of these products?
Or are they just another snake oil?
Your thoughts, please.

R50/R53 R53 Belt Tensioner

jcampbell6768 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:26:24 GMT

If you go through my past posts, you can see the progress and understand where I am right now.

So, new tensioner, idler pulley, and belt installed after the SC service. Everything running smoothly for a couple weeks. Did some spirited driving at times, but nothing too crazy.
Last week, upon starting the car, I�m getting what sounds like �belt slipping� / kind of a high pitched squeal. I sprayed some WD-40 (with silicone) around the pulleys (If I could reach them) and the noise would go away, only to return the next morning after sitting overnight.

I�ve read that even new tensioners can be �bad� right out of the box. And as I didn�t buy OEM (for cost savings), I wonder id that could be the case. Everything is stock, so it�s not a question of belt size, etc.

In the �old days�, my Camaro�s belt would start to stretch and you could get away with adjusting the alternator arm as a temporary fix. I was 17 at the time! HaHa!
Could this be an issue, and dare I say, can I �shim� the alternator a bit and tighten the belt.

I�m lost at this point�

R50/R53 R50 pop and bang

shaba1988 — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 16:22:59 GMT

anyone able to add pop and bang to my map please

Attached Files

minioriginal.bin (512.0 KB)

R50/R53 R50 pop and bang

shaba1988 — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:10:35 GMT

hi anyone able to add pop and bang and few other tweeks to my R50 map if possible please. .... thanks in advance

Attached Files

minioriginal.bin (512.0 KB)

R50/R53 New guy

senotfed1 — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:21:51 GMT

Hello All, im new here and I have just gotten my mini back on the ground from 7 months of basically replacing/upgrading everything i deemed necessary or felt it would be better to upgrade this perfectly good part. It's an addiction I for sure. I was wondering how I get intouch with Adriancl for a tune? Thanks in advance

Bad Bitsy

How To First Mini

CarPoor — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:47:55 GMT

Newbie to Mini ownership and 2 this site!! Did some "horse trading" with a buddy of mine (older gentleman) and somehow ended up with an 02 S model in Liquid Yellow with 72K for the princely sum of $150!!! Been in covered storage for approx 5yrs (thankfully he drained tank). After addressing usual service issues, I've got goodies inbound. CravenSpeed 17% kit, exhaust header with cat less down, aluminum coolant surge tank, m7 Speed manifold "blanket", R56 front rotors (drilled/slotted), picked up calipers from low mile part out, plan on modding air box myself, have tossed the I'll fitting IC diverter and fabbed one......
Questions: I see a lot.of debate re: IC do I need to upgrade?? Same with injectors?? And finally is there anyone in upstate SC or Charlotte NC that tunes Mini??
included is a pic of ride.
Thanks for any and all comments!
JW

R50/R53 R53: Coolant circulation question

Mforce — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:26:33 GMT

Hello,

I was checking my coolant tubes, the big ones that comes from the radiator to water pump and thermostat housing.

I am getting confused on how the coolant circulates in R53's engine, does the water pump draws coolant away from engine block? I noticed that the radiator heats up first on the passenger side then goes to driver side.

But the upper hose\tube is connected to thermostat housing, looks like coolant is moving away from engine block too?

Thanks.

R50/R53 Power Acoustik install

BMH94 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:58:56 GMT

Old radio never worked. I bought the harness to use swc and harmon kardon amp. I have everything connected to check for power only, no sound. No power to radio. Fuses are good to radio. With a test light, both fuse terminals light up.
2003 r53
Any ideas?

R50/R53 5 Car Detailing Brands ROBBING You Blind (And 5 Hidden Gems)

Tombstone — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:53:20 GMT

R50/R53 Steering Angle stuck on 1440�?... Try this -

Here2Go — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:27:01 GMT

After a recent white-knuckle encounter, swerving radically to avoid hitting/killing a bunny at 55mph - triggered my flat tire and DSC warning lights in which I could not clear the codes. A scan of my steering angle showed that the sensor was stuck at -1440�. My attempts at performing the simple steering wheel clock left then right to reset/re-adjust the sensor failed miserably.

I've come across this "seemingly unfixable" Steering Angle -1440� and 1440� fault issue in the past. After a few unsuccessful and frustrating attempts to resolve with INPA and my Foxwell; I decided to try this:

In the driver's side footwell fuse panel - Pull fuse #F2 (It is the second fuse from the top first row labeled with the DCS traction control symbol *marked on the inside cover of the fuse panel cover).
By doing so; this will cause the flat tire and DCS lights on the clock to go out momentarily each time you start the car. BUT the warning lights will immediately illuminate and stay on as the computer senses that the fuse is missing (?).
Drive the car as usual (ignore the lights on the dash), for 25 - 50 miles or so cycling the car on and off before each drive. Making normal turns as usual during your daily routine.
Replace the #F2 fuse.
Connect your OBD II reader and perform a routine scan.
The scan should come up with a new fault in addition to the DSC and steering angle fault codes.
NOW you should be able to clear all fault codes related to the DCS and steering angle faults.

Now that the -1440� faults have resolved/ been erased and the warning lights extinguished on the clock/speedometer - At this point; if it hasn't worked, you can then proceed to moving on to try pulling, cleaning and resetting the steering angle sensor.
With any luck you may avoid having to replace the sensor and dealer.

I should note:
I continue to have a faulty steering angle sensor but managed to reset/recalibrate it with my Foxwell NT 510 OBD II scan tool. Although the issue occasionally remains as a fault during routine scans, the flat tire & DCS warning lights cycle on and go off (as normal) after each start up and remain off while driving. (Yup. I'm essentially ignoring an $800+ replacement + dealer recoding).

R50/R53 RPM Takes a few seconds to drop back to idle

Here2Go — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 01:53:00 GMT

Recently I've noticed after driving a bit, when coming to a stop, my tach seems to hang a bit @ 1k - 1,100 rpms before dropping down to 700/800 rpms (idle) when stopped.
Just curious; Would this seem more indicative of a "sticky" /dirty throttle body or perhaps the behavior of a bypass valve issue?

*It's not like the engine stays revved or anything. The rpms just seem to hang a little longer (2-3 seconds) than I had noticed in the past.
Otherwise the car idles, runs and accelerates fine.
No vacuum leaks detected so far.

R50/R53 Classic Mini Cooper with a R53 compressor

LukasH — Sun, 31 May 2026 05:00:52 GMT

I just came across this build from a fellow Dutchman and wanted to share it. It's an A-series 1275cc Cooper with a R53 compressor bolted to the intake. It looks like a proper resto-mod.

Found it on YouTube

R50/R53 R53 - Father / Son Project Car

Tiro26 — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:36:39 GMT

I wanted to introduce my new project and get some community feedback on the direction we�re heading. I watched this late-production 2006 R53 sit on FB Marketplace for over a month. Realizing its neglected condition, and the fact that it�s an automatic, it was highly likely destined for the scrap yard if someone didn't step in.

This is going to be a father-son build. While we aren't strangers to diving deep into European car rebuilds and restorations, this is our first venture into the R53 chassis. Our plan is to completely bring it back to life and build a fun street car that will see the occasional track day for some spirited fun.

Now, I already know what most of you are thinking, and I completely agree: a manual R53 is a way more engaging, grounded driver's car. However, I�m genuinely happy to save this one from the crusher and give it another lease on life. Plus, there was a practical family upside to the automatic: my son was having some serious reservations about learning to drive a manual on a car we plan to rebuild from the ground up. He would not be happy with himself if he burned up a fresh clutch after putting this much collective sweat equity into the garage.

We are currently in the deep research phase and getting ready to place our first major parts orders. Since the front end will be in Service Mode and the cylinder head is coming off for a refresh, we are planning a heavy mix of preventative maintenance, oil leak fixes, and Stage 2 supporting mods all at once.

Here is our blueprint for the build so far:

Engine, Cylinder Head & Seals

Head Gasket

ARP Cylinder Head Stud Kit

Timing Cover Gasket & Front Shaft Seal

Crankshaft Position Sensor O-Ring & Oil Pressure Switch

ARP Cam Sprocket Bolt Kit

Supercharger & Cooling System

17% Supercharger Reduction Pulley

Alta Performance Serpentine Belt Tensioner Stop

Full Supercharger Oil Service (Including brand-new water pump)

New Silicone Intercooler Boots

Full Coolant Hose Set

Fueling & Tuning

380cc Fuel Injectors
Remote Tune, Most likely go with AdrianclBrakes & Chassis

New Rear Rotor, Caliper, and Pad Set (Rear calipers are getting completely refreshed)

Note on Front Brakes: Keeping them stock for now, may upgrade tot the R56 bigger brakes.

What Am I Missing?

We want to do this once and do it right while the front clip is off the car. For the veteran R53 owners out there: does this look like the right path for a reliable, aggressive street build? Are there any hidden "while you're in there" items, gaskets, or quirks specific to the late-2006 automatic platform that we should add to our checklist before we start clicking buy?

Looking forward to sharing the progress as we tear into it!

R50/R53 R53 - New Lease On Life - Father - Son Project Car

Tiro26 — Tue, 26 May 2026 16:56:22 GMT

Hey everyone,

I wanted to introduce my new project and get some community feedback on the direction we�re heading. I watched this late-production 2006 R53 sit on FB Marketplace for over a month. Realizing its neglected condition, and the fact that it�s an automatic, it was highly likely destined for the scrap yard if someone didn't step in.

This is going to be a father-son build. While we aren't strangers to diving deep into European car rebuilds and restorations, this is our first venture into the R53 chassis. Our plan is to completely bring it back to life and build a fun street car that will see the occasional track day for some spirited fun.

Now, I already know what most of you are thinking, and I completely agree: a manual R53 is a way more engaging, grounded driver's car. However, I�m genuinely happy to save this one from the crusher and give it another lease on life. Plus, there was a practical family upside to the automatic: my son was having some serious reservations about learning to drive a manual on a car we plan to rebuild from the ground up. He would not be happy with himself if he burned up a fresh clutch after putting this much collective sweat equity into the garage. Plus I am familiar with the Aisin transmission platform and have rebuilt one myself for a Saab project car.

We are currently in the deep research phase and getting ready to place our first major parts orders. Since the front end will be in Service Mode and the cylinder head is coming off for a refresh, we are planning a heavy mix of preventative maintenance, oil leak fixes, and Stage 2 supporting mods all at once.

Here is our blueprint for the build so far:

Engine, Cylinder Head & Seals

Cylinder Head / Valve Cover Gasket Set

ARP Cylinder Head Stud Kit

Timing Cover Gasket & Front Shaft Seal

Crankshaft Position Sensor O-Ring & Oil Pressure Switch (stopping the classic front-block oil leaks)

ARP Cam Sprocket Bolt Kit

Supercharger & Cooling System

CravenSpeed 17% Supercharger Reduction Pulley

Alta Performance Serpentine Belt Tensioner Stop

Full Supercharger Oil Service Kit & New Water Pump

M7 Speed Silicone Intercooler Boots

Full Coolant Hose Set (Keeping this on the radar, though currently hunting for upgraded metal Y-pipe fitting to replace the brittle factory plastic section that broke do not see it listed anywhere though)

Fueling & Tuning

380cc Fuel Injectors
Looking for the right remote Tuner to help dial it in. Brakes & Chassis
New Pads & Rotors all around, new rear calipers.

What Am I Missing?

R50/R53 I installed my new camshaft today

ghostwrench — Sun, 24 May 2026 07:29:04 GMT

I don't know why but I have been holding off on tuning my car until "as soon as I get X installed". I have realistically run out of "X" as of today with the installation of my WMW mild street camshaft. I was tormented which camshaft to buy, mostly between one of the Catcam choices, Shrick or RMW Dominator but descriptions and information on most every W11 camshaft seems lacking. I'm pretty sure, at least ECS Tuning lists duration and valve lift but I guess I don't know how to pick a camshaft. All I know is I wanted more power, remain emissions complaint and not melt my catalyst. When I saw "mild street" in the description and a dyno sheet from a shop that installed that camshaft, I decided that is good enough for my needs on a daily driver that hits the track a few times per year. I bought the camshaft and then decided I would like a new set of rockers to wear together with my new camshaft.

I had in my garage for a couple years a wideband AFR gauge that I wanted to install, so to stop my procrastination in installing it, I denied myself the installation of the new cam until the AFR gauge was installed. My logic was that the AFR gauge would allow me to make sure I'm not going melt my engine with lean combustion with all these mods on a stock tune. I saw that the stock tune seems to handle it just fine in terms of at WOT I would see 11.3 - 12.3 (safely rich?) on my gauge. I got the AFR gauge installed a couple of months ago and with a lot going on, it was hard to pin down a Saturday to get the cam in and then I decided I could squeeze in the install on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

As I installed this engine 4 years and a little over 20k miles ago, I was curious how it would look under the valve cover. My original engine looked amazingly clean inside when I pulled its valve cover around 150k miles but one of the intake valve lobes was worn pretty badly. The engine in my car now has about 95k miles on it and was also very clean inside and I was happy to see no unusual camshaft wear like my original engine had.

This camshaft has a lot more duration than stock and it seems it closes the intake valves more slowly. The best I could get trying to measure lift for comparison vs stock was a little under a millimeter on both (intake and exhaust) lobes. Mod Mini on YouTube installed this cam and measured it. He said it's about 1mm more lift so, we'll go with that.

This is a good view showing the difference in duration. The lobe is more "D" shaped than the stock lobe on the left.

The W11 is a pretty simple engine being SOHC, no VVT or DI, so the camshaft was out in about 90 minutes. I have read comments and saw a video about denting the spark plug tubes for clearance from cam lobes on performance camshafts, so I laid the cam in the head and rotated it by hand. The exhaust lobes come very close to the spark plug tubes. I have no idea how much expansion from heat on a hot engine would close that gap, so I measured it with feeler gauges. I found that a feeler gauge of 0.25mm would prevent the cam from rotating and 0.20mm let the lobe pass easily, so actual clearance must have been around 0.23mm or so. With no idea what safe clearances are, I decided to carefully dent the tubes and give the lobe more room, while at the same time, not denting the tube to the point that a spark plug socket will no longer go in the hole.

After marking the spark plug tube where the lobe is closest to it, I tried about 3-4 taps with a ball peen hammer and measured. That got me to 0.30mm. I stuck my spark plug socket in the hole to verify there were no issues with that an then I tapped more and got each tube to 0.40mm clearance. If I were smart, I would have measured the clearance the stock camshaft runs with but I decided a 0.40mm gap was sufficient. At 0.40mm, the lobe would gently brush against my feeler gauge as it passed. It was a little more loose than I use when checking and setting valve clearances.

Here are my feeler gauges checking clearance.

This is 0.40mm clearance:

Satisfied with the cam lobe clearance, I remembered I had to swap my new rocker arms onto the rocker shafts. I hadn't done that before, but it wasn't too hard to figure out how it goes. Here is the stock cam with the rockers laid out:

Since the intake side has more parts, I swapped the rockers on that shaft first, using assembly lube to pre-lube everything. With all the rockers on the shaft, I flipped it over to lube the lash adjusters and got an unexpected and unhappy surprise:

One of my brand new, genuine MINI rockers was missing the cap that contacts the top of the valve! As each rocker was in its own bag, I checked all the bags for the bright yellow piece but all bags were empty. I check the floor around me. Nothing. So really? My brand new rocker was bagged without the cap? I thought I heard they were removable, so I thought I could transfer one from one of the old rockers to my new rocker. I got it off pretty easily but could not get it to fit the new rocker. As I need to drive the car today, the option of pushing the car outside and dealing with FCP Euro was not an option I was going to choose. I simply took a rocker that was already on the engine and used it. My OCD didn't like that much but pushing the car outside and waiting to complete this job some other time was not going to work for me today.

I got the exhaust rockers swapped and now my engine can truly begin going back together. Setting the intake rocker shaft on the head is something of a pain. Patience and a gentle touch finally got all the rockers where they belong. Exhaust side was much easier. Time to carefully tighten the rocker shaft bolts.

It's pretty easy to see here which rocker has about 95k miles on it.

Getting the cam gear back on took patience and carefully rotating the crank to give me slack to get the gear lined up with the dowel on the end of the camshaft. Getting the chain tensioner back in was easy but getting a tool on the 19mm cap for it was really frustrating. Apparently, you can leave the tensioner compressed and it will pop as soon as you crank the engine. I would rather pop it before I crank the engine, so I was looking for how to do that. Luckily, I decided that because the chain was not on the chain guide properly. It was off track from my getting the chain onto the cam gear, so again I had to carefully rotate the crank to get slack on that run of the chain so that I could get the chain on the chain guide properly. I imagine if I had cranked the engine with the chain off the guide the way it was, it might had jumped time. So with the chain where it belongs, I slowing rotated the engine clockwise and I think I heard the tensioner pop. Good enough for me. I installed a new valve cover gasket and proceeded to finish the job.

The engine started right up and sounded not much different through my Milltek header and exhaust than before. I took it easy on the drive home but I did indulge in 2 pulls to see if I could feel anything. On a flat street, pulling through second gear, my car certainly felt stronger. My AFR was reading a little more lean at WOT than the stock cam (about 12.3). Between that and idling at stop lights with A/C running, I need a tune soon.

On the stock cam, while idling at stop lights, occasionally I would see my gauge go lean and the idle go rough. A blip of the throttle would settle that. Now, it does that at most stop lights and after I blip the throttle, it goes back to the rough idle. Off idle, the car is just fine. I've only got less than 30 miles, so I will reserve final thoughts on this job until my car is tuned and more miles on it. I'll report back then.