Hi folks,

Here are a few pictures of my three week old custom JCW with added blackness.

I'm pretty pleased with the results let me know what you think.

After reading various reviews of the JCW factory suspension I was surprised that I didn't find the ride particularly harsh when running on Michelin Pilot's.

Otherwise I'm bummed that I can't put a full mechanical diff in the car without voiding the warranty as that's the only area in which I feel the car could be improved. I don't really feel that that I need a bunch of additional HP as it's already plenty quick enough for "spirited" road driving and the brakes are exceptional.

I started with an 09 Midnight Black JCW Mini Cooper with Redwood Leather seats, Convenience Package, Cold Weather Package, Premium Package, Center armrest, Fog lights, Xenon headlights, MINI HiFi System, USB kit white turn signals and a full JCW body kit.

Performance Modifications.
JCW Strut Kit, JCW Sports Suspension, Michelin Pilot SPT+ Tires.

External Modifications.
Added: JCW Carbon Fibre hood scoop, rear defuser and wing. Plus black driving lights, black license plate surrounds, a stub antenna, an Escort 9500ci Concealed Radar Detector / Laser Shifter (front and rear)

The standard 17" wheels where repainted black, a matt black wrap was applied to all of the chrome external components and the rear lights. I also added a matt black racing stripes across the drivers side of the car. Also the rear windows are tinted.

Finally I de-badged it to make it a little little more discrete, which in hindsight pretty stupid given all of the external modifications, but I still think looks cool!





Internal Modifications.
Replaced factory HiFi system with an Alpine PDX-4.100 amp, Morel Hybrid Ovation 6" 3 Way speakers in the front and Morel Tempo 6"x9" 2-Way speakers in the rear.

Re-covered the center console, door armrests and dash knee guard with Redwood Leather to match the seats.

Modified the factory USB kit so that I could have a completely clean iPhone installation in the dash utilizing an Wilson Electronics iBooster cradle (which works wonders for iPhone cell reception, charges the iPhone and has a pass though connector to the USB Kit).

The Escort 9500ci display and control unit is mounted discreetly to the right of the steering wheel.

I also added a JCW Carbon Fiber dash kit, door grabs, gear lever and handbrake.

Finally I had a matt black wrap applied to all the interior chrome components.



Tricky Modifications.
The the factory HiFi amp has been removed from permanent placement in the car and I now just have a connection harness so that it can be plugged in when the car's ECU needs to be programmed.



Also I've jail broken my iPhone so that I can use roqyBT to attach a Holux M1000C 64 Channel GPS receiver wirelessly to my iPhone for better GPS reception.

 

God I love Black. Reminds me of my R53.

I gotta get my challenge-spokes painted black.

You have to LAMIN-X your headlights and get coilovers!

 

Sounds great. You must have spent a ton of money. Can you please re-post larger pictures or provide a link to view them. You pics are way too smail to see any detail and that is what I am interested in seeing.

Good luck and welcome to the club. Its an awesome ride!!

 

Thanks, larger pictures can be found at the following URL:

http://gallery.me.com/andrew.littlefield#100062

I did get kinda got carried away, and perhaps spent a little too much money on getting things "right".

 

Thanks for the link. Don't feel bad so did I and the more I read the posts here on NAM the more I keep buying stuff.

 

I thought I spent a lot of $. I also have the JCW shift ****. But I am still waiting for the handbrake part. The first one the dealer said was loose. The 2nd one was better, but the dealer said they had to order a glue kit to install it correctly. Did you need to have it done this way?
Ron

 

Yes. Installed with industrial strength glue. Even the new cap is glued on. I'd expect no less for my little premium car .

 

Keep in mind, it's really only going to void your warranty on the factory diff. Which is fine, because the aftermarket diff most likely has some sort of limited warranty. Don't let the dealer try and tell you that your warranty will be void.

Can you explain this? I'm not seeing the point...


Anyway though, your car looks great all blacked out!!

 

It's begging for the Joey mod.

 

Thanks for the info, It's good to know the dealer is not full of S___!
Ron

 

In order to allow the dealer to reprogram the car when adding something such as the factory alarm all items that the car left the factory with have to been in place.

This causes problems when you want to upgrade your amp, you either have to keep the factory amp in place with all wires intact except for the audio lines and find another place to locate your aftermarket amp (which is a pain) or create a tricky little splice so that you can remove the factory amp and use the space it frees up for your aftermarket amp and only plug in the factory amp when the car needs to be reprogrammed.

I've left enough cable length on the splice to allow me to just put the factory amp on the floor of the trunk when I drop the car off for service.

Cheers,

Andrew

 

Yeah, that would look really cool, but I'm not sure that I want to attempt it just yet. I'm pretty ham fisted when it comes to anything but electronics, esp painting.

 

where did you find the black boot handle wrap at? i've been looking for it for some time now.

 

The car boot handle came in black from the dealer.

 

Ahh ok. I forgot that the S doesnt come with the chrome boot handle. I really wish someone would make a vinyl or a new handle, the chrome on pure silver just doesnt look to great to me. im going to do the most i can with a black out kit. i know that AC makes a kit but doesnt have the boot handle.

 

You can also get a JCW carbon fibre boot handle if want to go with a darker handle. Otherwise a good paint shop should be able to do a respray pretty inexpensively as the boot handle can be removed very easily.

 

Looks cool!

 

Andrew, I can see that you share my "love" of chrome!



Tmo8462, Lyle at Vinyl Styles wraps boot handles (among other things) and does excellent work.

http://www.vinylstyles.com/index2.php#/rgallery2/5/

 

Adorable is the word.
I am only halfway there with a midnight black jcw w/ bodykit...obviously not enough black!

 

beautiful car! one thing that stands out is the satin/matte wheel arches! you should get them painted or vinyl wrapped in gloss black like mine are!

makes a load of diff!

 

I tried looking at the link but it wasn't working. Do you have any closer pics of your Escort 9500ci install? I am trying to find the best solution for the Coupe. If you don't mind, what did it set you back to install?