Not my MINI but here is what we did to a club members car over the weekend. Grey Metallic on top of Gloss White vinyl. They backed out on doing the roof and behind the license plate so I will have that vinyl for sale in the classified section..

 

^ that looks great! It's Monday (my day off) so as usual I gave mine a bath.

 

I'm calling BS on two counts:

1. I've seen a lot of idiots driving Jeeps
2. You're not an idiot

C ya,
Dutch

 

I did a very (un)scientific test of stock antenna vs stubby. I replaced the factory ant with a stubby a while back but questioned the reception. So yesterday I drove a large loop twice, first with the stubby then with the factory antenna and compared. I used three different stations and focused on the sound quality as well as the number of bars showing signal strength on the radio face. I focused on each of the three stations at three different points along the loop.

Interestingly the signal strength was one bar LESS with the longer factory antenna, However, the sound quality was better in all comparisons and that is the bottom line. That may mean that I am hearing less of the high end which is where the noise would typically be but I dont really think so. I spent a bunch of time in the high end audio industry. I have a good feel for what I am listening for. The bottom line for me was that one of the stations was not able to be listened to with the stubby and I could stay on it with the factory antenna and isnt that what its all about?

Verdict- I put my factory antenna back on even though it makes it look like a remote control toy. Man I really like the look of the stubby.

I am in a rural area of MD so your mileage may very.

 

Reinstalled my ScanGauge II. Sent it in last Wednesday, got it back today, all MINI-fied!

Thanks, James!

 

K, so it was this past weekend, but...

Plasti-Dipped the front bumper and de-Plasti-Dipped the grille to put back a little BRG up front:




Also, "new" tails, courtesy of raata:


C ya,
Dutch

 

Dropped him off at the body shop. He should be back at the end of the week, theoretically.

 

Installed a new Magnaflow exhaust tip. Muffler delete. Bought the tip on Amazon for just under $80 and the guys at the muffler shop charged me $100 to remove the old muffler and weld everything up. Sounds good, not loud until you put your foot into it. No drone noise just cruising along.

 

Any video/sound clips of this? I've been thinking about doing this since I bought my Mini a few months ago, but I'm hesitant to commit without knowing how it will sound.

 

Hey Louros,
No clips yet. I did a search on you tube and found a few before I made the switch. None of them seemed that loud, which I can confirm. When you go through the gears, it has a nice rumble tone to it, not like those fart boxes on the rice burners, this has more class ..... :0) Once your off the throttle and just driving along, you really don't hear much difference than the stock muffler. It may be just a skosh deeper in tone. The guys at the muffler shop even commented that it was not loud at all.

Hope this helps.

 

So much more interesting.

 

That's more or less what I'm looking for, a nice rumble without being too loud. Maybe I'll give it a shot, worst case I can have an aftermarket muffler welded in after the fact if I find it to be too loud.

 

In the 2009 I put in a new battery, Diehard Gold deep cycle.

 

Here you go, this is a muffler delete replaced with stock size piping. All cats and resonator in place. Highway drone without the resonator was horrible imho.

This is pretty quiet at low speeds, but gets louder up top. ou could drive it easy around town and no one would no the difference between it and a stock setup.

 

Inquiring minds would like to know.. define "MINI-fied"?

 

Linear Logic has some MINI-specific programming (like OIL TEMP!) they will reprogram a late model ScanGauge II with.

If you buy a SGII from Way Motor Works, it comes pre-programmed for the MINI.

So my SGII displays Coolant Temp, Oil Temp, Voltage, and Boost (or Air/Fuel, or Air Intake Temp).

 

With the wonderful assistance of minibx, my car was lowered on Saturday. Also took that opportunity to change the rear fog blanks to those that come with the factory aero kit. Front fogs were replaced with Hoen Endurance H8's and the driving/city lights were changed to 6000k LEDs.

Yesterday, got an alignment!

 

^ more pics looks awesome

 

Thanks!!!! So far, I'm very pleased with the outcome.

More pictures are coming soon. Waiting for better weather :-)

 

replacing the fogs, just the bulbs or the whole assembly?
I have the xenon headlights and the fogs just don't match. Looking for a quality, whiter light replacement, hopefully just bulbs for now.

 

I just did the bulbs. The Endurance are yellow. I have halogens, so the xenons are not my area of expertise...but from what I hear, Hoen's xenon match fogs are pretty good.

 

Fixed to dents that happened at the Bruno Mars concert a week and a half ago. Parked so far and perfect so there was room but people don't care:-).

 

Received this from GOBADGES.

 

 

Got a Scangauge and now I understand how addicting they are. The data nerd in me is a little giddy.