Speed limit is 30 mph not only on the dragon but also most of the roads leading to it. No houses, no road intersections, pretty good asphalt, wide lanes and allot of pull offs.

When you have several pick up trucks pulling trailers in front of you, also has some very beautiful scenery.

 

The Milltek header seems to be the best header if you want to keep the car street legal. They seemed to put in same real design work into it. I notice now the feeder pipes are bent to be covered by the stock stainless heat shield, which to me is important to protect the engine bay and bonnet especially driving on tracks. It would be my choice if the cat on my stock header departs, god forbids.

 

Yup, those are true statements! When my header cracked into two pieces...

 

Yep, when my header goes, milltek goes in on the R52

 

Observing the Milltek header closely against the stock header one can see the subtle attention to details that went into the design. The cat is bigger and the casing has a streamlined funnels on both sides. They implemented the longest runners possible while maintaining compatibility with stainless steel heat shield. That is very important when the header is orange hot driving flat out on tracks. Yes. You can heat wrap the header, but the heat will just move downstream and emit there. For all preped race car of course you will be willing to take this tradeoffs.





Note too is the size of the flex joint, and the smooth pipe bend between the flex joint and the big cat.

 

Here is an article (infomercial) about high performance racing cat.

I am sure they aren't cheap, and you have to weld it on yourself. Many European countries require cat even for racing.

 

This is interesting as there is no rhyme or reason for when the header cracks into two. Your R52 has many more miles on the ticker than my Cooper... and mine went 89,939 miles.

It produces an interesting sound for sure... And gave me the perfect excuse to order the Milltek... so I am not complaining...

An MCS with an intake, header and exhaust sounds like a different beast when compared to a stock MCS... I rode in one a little while ago and it is SO quiet... haha I almost forgot what its like.

 

Yep, mine is holding up, maybe because it's a Cooper and not as much engine movement or maybe because I changed my engine mounts out before they went.

 

Good points... I was a little lazy there with the motor mounts on mine. The trans mount (I think) doesnt have to be swapped all that often. I swapped mine at 113k miles and it still looked ok. But that passenger side and lower get beat up. But not any more!

 

Just added:
Black front stripes
Tints 50% front / 35% rear
LED fog white 6000k bulbs replaced

 

Installed a Whitleline 20mm RSB. Took 1.5 hours from wheels off to wheels on. Gonna go out and enjoy the results now :-)





sani

 

Looks good. Let us know how the results are please. I still need to get my rear sway bar installed.

The rear stabilizing links looks worn. Are you going to replace them also?

 

Finally got my KW V1's installed at a local DIY shop. Took about 8 hours because the bolt on the passenger side pinch collar snapped off (had the driver's side do it last time I tried to install). That took about 3 hours to drill out after I took the knuckle off.

Also - forgot to install the passenger side sway bar end link. Sigh. Oh well. Maybe next time.

 

Took the Mini out for AX in Stockton. Fun layout

 

I was just playing with the new GoPro camera and the desktop app. What better than to make a short video of the street car name Desire.


I picked the canned sound track that is the least sucky.

 

So here's what I worked on this past weekend.

I planned to change the motor lower and upper bushings but before that I thought I could painted the support brackets as well. (Once you start painting something is really hard to stop... so I also painted the intercooler brackets ).




Here're the parts after powder coating! <br/>The top support bracket has some orange peel finish but still look good




Lower support bracket with POWERFLEX bushings! Taking out the big factory bushing required an arbor press and some patience




In place and looking good!





IC brackets! I think is a nice option if you want to keep the OEM boots and add some red to this area




Now I have to replace those rusted bolts.

Of course I'm saving the better part for the end
Just one part left to replace (the upper engine mount) and I found out that the torx bolt head is stripped... I started to grind it but didn't finish the job.




Damn you torx bolt!

I'll have to wait to enjoy the added HP to the mini

 

changed the water pipe. so that means, I had to remove the thermostat housing I just replaced 1.5 weeks ago again. Also had to buy all new coolant because of course the 1.5 week old stuff all leaked out. At least it's fun to drive again! Love/hate relationships are real.

 

bought a bosch scan tool, code reader, data acquisition tool thingy. no more auto store trips when a code pops up.

 

The Whiteline 20mm RSB is....EXCELLENT! I have it set on the middle firmness. If you corner hard, you will get a bit of very predictable and progressive oversteer. Of course, I only have the stock experience to go by, I've never driven a car with 19mm or 22mm bars. I didn't want to get a 22mm as this is my daily driver and my wife also drives the car from time to time and I didn't want her to get into off throttle oversteer shenanigans. The 9mm bar didn't seem like a big enough change.

As for my endlinks...that's just what 10 year old end links in Canada look like :-) Cars rust here. I plan to get new end links when i install lowering springs.

 

Installed my new shrader RSD. Lots of weight off the car.

 

Engine has removed the door panel trims to paint or wrap? Can it be done without removing the door panels if so how I Googledid and can't come up with anything.
Thank you
Ben

 

wat

 

Lol, sorry. Enyone has removed the door panel trims to paint or wrap? Can it be done without removing the door panels if so how I Googledid and can't come up with anything.
Thank you
Ben

 

The door trims are riveted (plastic rivets) on the door plastic panel so there is no way of getting them out without damaging it.

 

well something i did not want to hear, but it is what it is... thank you for posting.
Ben