Think about it folks. We all have MINI's that the the coolant temp normally runs at 220F, except the 2013 JCW and GP2 which runs at 195F. The HPFP and thermostat housing and temp sensor sits at the back of the engine, not too far from the turbo. We lost both of those 2 days apart on my wife's 2011 R55 MCS last week at 16K miles. On the front of the engine people are losing water pumps at 40K or less. Hood scoops are melting! What can we do, other than raising the hood each time we stop to keep from cooking everything. Maybe the tuners out there can give us a DME that holds the coolant temp down to 185 to 195 like the GP2's or 2013 JCW's. If it's good enough for them, why not the MCS's? Just my take. Any thoughts out there??

 

I agree it's too damn hot in there. I am really thinking of replacing my factory black plastic hood scoop with a metal mesh. I know it's not going to fix anything but just giving that heat apace to go has to help.

 

I might add the new MINI water pumps are now aluminum, or aluminium for you Brits, rather than plastic. The 2013 JCW and GP2 fuel pumps now have minimal contact with the head. Only enough to pick up the drive off the intake cam and 2 short stand off legs, with airspace behind the pump. This is in comparison to the MCS pumps that are one square block about 3 X 3 or 76mm square bolted flush on the head. The heat transfer must be terrific on the pump. Gasoline or petrol starts to boil at 160F or 142C at 1bar. Fuel pumps are lubed by the fuel in them. Any cavitation would degrade the pump and could lead to failure. We lost the HPFP and thermostat about 2 days apart 2 weeks ago on our MCS R55 at only 16K miles. Based on the changes I see on my JCW R56 on both the water pump and HPFP maybe BMW is starting to catch on. Hopefully the 2014 1.5 and 2.0 engines will be an improvement over what we have now.

 

That is some good info on the 13 jcw changes . I have a new 13 jcw coupe it gives me some hope . It would be nice of a vendor would get on this and maybe produce a lower thermostat or a tune that would allow lower temps . Back in my muscle car days we used 160 degree stats and the cars would run around 180 it helped .

 

Good I could give you some hope. I did inquire with my SA about a different tune for MCS water temp. Nothing from the factory is available, only after market. He told me they would have to remove it when I took the car in for service. The thermostat in these cars are like the old school stats that were controlled by water temp. The ECU/DME reads the water temp and based on what it reads and what the DME "thinks" it should be. That's how I knew my wife's 2011 R55 MCS had a bad temp sensor and thermo, as they are one now. The temp gauge read 0 and the fan continued to run, because the DME didn't know what the coolant temp was, so it turned on the low speed fan. I stopped and started the car several times till the temp registered, and the DME turned off the fan. The temp gauge should read ambient at least on cold start.

I too am from the muscle car era--50's forward. Ran dirt track mods in the 70's & 80's and we didn't even use a thermostat, just a washer with a 5/8th hole in it. Never failed. lol!

Yes, I love my 2013 R56 JCW. Feb 2013 build. As you know 2013 was the first JCW to get the N-18 engine, and probably the last with the 2.0L engine on the horizon. As well as the low temp setting thermo, they have a completely new design clutch and flywheel. So much better than the 2012 R55 MCS that I traded in for the JCW. So, you have a rare bird if you have a 2013 JCW.

 

Thanks again! I traded a 2012 mcs coupe for my 13 jcw coupe .Big improvement . enjoy!

 

One thing you might consider is these:

http://www.hoodlouvers.com/shop/size...low-angle-cut/

I'm not going to do this in gloss black or anything or this size necessarily but it would give the heat in the engine a place to go...

 

For what it's worth, this makes a huge difference. I've done this (actually, I removed it and left it open), and after vigorous drives, when the car is parked (which is when it was hottest), the scoop is never hot to the touch.

 

Opening up that scoop was one of the first things I did to my car. I just took the plug out & did not bother with mesh or anything.

Something I have done on other vehicles (that don't have a scoop) is to remove the weather stripping at the rear of the hood. This allows the hot air to exit at the windshield cowl area.

 

So you removed the black insert in the scoop?
Was it easy?

 

The scoop for the GP2 scoop grille is opened up already. Maybe a good mod., no dremel needed, has factory appearance ( if wanted ).


Not usually recommended. Due to lack of pressurization under the bonnet in many cases it will have the opposite effect effectively increasing water temps as the efficiency of the radiator is reduced.

 

This is not actually correct. The insert on the GP2 is the same as on the vast majority of other R56 models, ie on the insert about half the holes on the vent are perforated and about half are blanked off. This has been standard on all R56's for a long time.

Early versions of the R56 did come with the vent completely blocked off, but this was changed early on from the factory.

 

It worked well on a past vehicle, the under hood temperatures went up when I put headers on it, then went back down when I ditched the weatherstripping. That was a truck though. I could see these cars being different.

The plug was not hard to remove from the scoop. It took me less than an hour and looks much better open.