Wayne....I will post here about the Chrono Pack swap....I know a couple people are also interested if I can actually get this to work in my car or not....from what I have heard, the only thing I cannot change is the mileage....which doesn't make any difference to me. The R52 is tucked away in the large detached garage, I can work on it when I have the time or energy. I ran the gas down as far as I could until the red light came on in the fuel gauge....computer said I had 47 miles to go when the light came on. Took it to the gas station and took 12 gallons to fill up. Fuel mileage kinda sucks on the R52 JCW....getting around 25mpg.....the R53 gets about 30mpg

I did also get my rear window defogger grid repair kit the other day as well....will see if I can fix that on the car over the winter.

The '04 R53 sit's outside year round, unfortunately, I have a little battery tender under the hood and an extension cord running into the garage to power it up....I usually either start the car every other week, and try to take it out for a little drive over the winter as long as we don't get any snow.

Bryan

 

🤔
You're not driving them right!

The only time I've seen 30 mpg is when I let off the gas rolling downhill. 😜

Heck, I only got 25 mpg when I drove I 90 to Idaho, with the cruise control set at 70...ish.🙄😁

 

I got 35 round trip from Yellowstone a couple years ago in the R53.... two people, luggage, 15% pulley, and spirited driving

Bryan

 

I drive Mine daily and I am getting 30.1 to 30.4 MPG Since I got it and it is a JCW also.. I have the unfair advantage of few stop lights. and very little stop and go traffic. (which really kills over all mileage!), But I do live in a mountainous area. I drove a few day ago, to upstate Oregon and was pushing it pretty hard and lowered the average to 30.1 mpg (with some stop and going Salem area). I had an 05 R53 that only got 28mpgs and drove the same way. I can only figure the JCW car didn't need to work as hard as my regular "S" car.
I also feel that the state of tune is important to good mpg's. My 06 R53 JCW also has 162,000+ miles on it. I drive it daily.

 

Quote: Wayne....I will post here about the Chrono Pack swap....I know a couple people are also interested if I can actually get this to work in my car or not....from what I have heard, the only thing I cannot change is the mileage....which doesn't make any difference to me. The R52 is tucked away in the large detached garage, I can work on it when I have the time or energy. I ran the gas down as far as I could until the red light came on in the fuel gauge....computer said I had 47 miles to go when the light came on. Took it to the gas station and took 12 gallons to fill up. Fuel mileage kinda sucks on the R52 JCW....getting around 25mpg.....the R53 gets about 30mpg

I did also get my rear window defogger grid repair kit the other day as well....will see if I can fix that on the car over the winter.

The '04 R53 sit's outside year round, unfortunately, I have a little battery tender under the hood and an extension cord running into the garage to power it up....I usually either start the car every other week, and try to take it out for a little drive over the winter as long as we don't get any snow.

Bryan :End Quote

Hi Bryan, Great! I would love to know. I bought a 06 R53 a couple years ago and would have kept it except it did not have the chrono package. All my keeper R53's need to have this!
Negative chrono people need not comment!

 

It would be cool if this guy could completely figure out the coding for MINI gauges and make an interface to make the chronopack more accurate, either with coding or by replacing/adding sending units, or figure out how to make center cluster swaps possible with the mileage of the car being correct. Hopefully he keeps on going with this project.

 

Update: 11-10-2019
While I applaud the guys ingenuity in doing all that work with wires and harness's.....I can do the same thing that he just did with my scanner here that just plugs into the OBD II port....

Anyway, seeing as the little R52 Mini from Hell is tucked away in the garage for the winter, I went to Harbor Freight and bought a $20 battery tender and installed it under the hood and connected it to the big main power wire next to the air filter, and the ground wire went to one of the nuts for the drivers strut...might as well keep the battery charged up

I will probably take the car out for a short run as the weather permits

In the meantime, I will load the INPA program on my computer and play with it before I plug into the OBD II port....wish there was a "INPA for Dummies" manual out there, but the guy I got the program from says he will help if I need it

Bryan

 

Update: 11-18-2019

I put the stock rear tail lights in the R52 a while back...one of the bulb holders that came with the lights had very corroded connection pins for the harness connector...I found another one and swapped it out today.....kind of a pain to work on the rear lights in a convertible...I'm glad I got new bulbs in both sides and LED bulbs for back up....I really don't want to be taking these rear lights out very often

On another note, I got the aftermarket rear window defogger grid line repair kit the other day also, I folded down the rear seats, took out the parcel shelf, and cleaned the inside of the rear glass real well.....I have to repair every line on the inside of the rear glass except one line....this is not going to be very easy to try and get up in there to do this.....if this repair does not work, oh well, I'm not going to replace the glass in the convertible top....

I still have not done anything with the INPA program I have here and the Chrono swap.....but it looks like it's going to be a long winter so I will have plenty of time

Bryan

 

11-23-2019

Made a 200 mile round trip yesterday in the R52 JCW....car ran great...no more steering wheel wobble after I installed the hub centering rings in the back side of the aftermarket wheels I have on the car

The factory NAV system worked great....didn't realize that the little "countdown timer" in the lower left of the NAV screen didn't mean the time of the day that you would arrive, instead it't telling me how many hours & minutes it will take to arrive....my aftermarket GPS units gives me the "time of day" that I will arrive.....

I did mainly an "economy run" with the car, I was by myself and didn't push the power and speed too much....after I got back home, the computer was saying "average MPG for the trip" was 30 MPG.....there was a couple times I hit speed above the posted limit.....but so was everyone else....

Car rides a little rougher than my R53, and my back is letting me know it today.

Bryan

 

Hi Bryan,
Most of my driving is fairly normal, with the occasional twisties thrashing, but mostly touring these days. I was averaging 30.4 mpgs, until a drive to Salem, Or for a DMV meeting and managed the long time 30.4 to 3.1 Drive hard to get there and back. So, I guess your car is running great!
A you know the JCW models are stiffer and the verts have extra body stiffening, so it rides harsher than the non JCW variants anyway. It is good you have the other for the pain days, not to mention some of you other rides!
You have done a great job on getting the vert sorted out!
Let me know, if you ever find the fix, so your fob works the door locks again!
I hurt my lower back and have too much pain to check for it now. I know my fob is good, the battery is charged, the mirror is good. I have too much pain to check the fuse box wiring at this point. I am thinking it has an ignition switch issue, but have not checked that yet, but I had read a long time ago, that it could be this.
Have a happy Thanksgiving!

 

Wow that was quite a read Brian. Thanks for bringing it too my attention.

 

Update: 12-16-2019

Did a little tinkering on the convertible today,,,,..I have always been disappointed in the power outlet right in the middle of the cubby hole under the heater controls....if I have an adapter plugged into the outlet to power anything such as phone cord, GPS, or anything else, makes it hard to utilize the tray behind there for other items. So I picked up a couple of power outlets and mounted them into each side of the cubby tray side skirts. One side has a large power outlet like a lighter style, the other side has two USB ports and even a volt meter. This should work out fine

One thing I did learn about the car today was concerning the exterior lights. I was changing out my high beam headlight bubs for a set of 100w 6000k H11 style bulbs. The high beam bulbs are a lot easier to change than the low beam Xenon bulbs with the transformers attached to the bulbs

Anyway, after the two bulbs were changed, I tested the lights and all worked as they should. Yay, something went right for a change. Now here is what I found out today about the car.

If all lights are off, and key is out of the ignition, I can bump the left turn signal stalk as if I were turning on the high beam lights while driving, and all the exterior lights will come on for 40 seconds, then go out. Every running light comes on, both Xenon low beam headlights, every exterior light except the two turn signal bulbs in the side scuttles.

I tried this feature on my '04 R53, doesn't work on that car....oh well

That's my work for the day, I'm back inside where it's warm now

Bryan


cubby tray blocked by power outlet

Passenger side outlet

Drivers side outlet with rubber cover on

Drivers side outlet showing USB ports

 

Update: 12-26-2019

Got another item fixed.....my new arm rest sliding top came in the other day....got it installed, and it stays shut....will see how it does while driving when the weather gets better

Bryan

 

Hi Bryan,
Since mine was the same, I just glued it shut, as I had no use for the little space inside. The whole arm rest seems like poor design, You can get better ones, but I wanted mine to stay stock.

 

I built up the bumps on the tracks
that keep it shut with a few layers
of crazy glue gel and now it opens,
closes, and stays closed when wanted
as intended.

 

I had tried that with the gel too, but only worked about a month for me.I have tendency, do to replaced knees, to press pretty hard on the rest, while gwtting out of the car and I am guessing that is why it did not work on the long haul, so I just glued it shut.
Still working a year later.

 

My plan for the broken top piece was to use a couple hinges on one side and have it open sideways, see picture below. But I stumbled on the new cushions and for $15 I figured I would take a chance.

My '04 R53 didn't have a center arm rest when I got it.....I found a bigger better one on ebay that mounts under the rear seat tracks. This unit is bigger, taller, and holds a lot of stuff inside.(second picture)

Bryan

 

Update: 2-22-2020

Took the R52 out yesterday, had a few errands to run, weather was decent.....after a little bit of driving, had the seat belt light come on in the dash and the air bag light come on in the overhead console.....my seat belt was on, and there was not anyone in the passenger seat. ..figured I would check codes when I got home

Checked codes and here's what I found

90 KOMBI: MRSZ5 Air bag control unit faulty (Alive counter, K bus message 70h)
91 KOMBI: K bus: communication between MRS4/MRS5 and instrument cluster faulty

Hmmmm, not sure what those two codes above mean....will have to do some digging I guess

Bryan

 

Maybe the seat sensor on the connection to it? But might be closer to the control unit?

 

Could be anything I guess....the passenger seat pad was replaced last year after I got the car back on the road again. I had K-bus wiring issues under the carpet on the passenger side, see pic below. I thought I fixed it better than what the factory had done, guess I need to pull the passenger front seat and look at my solder repair...maybe another wire broke off

One thing I did notice is that when I pulled into the Safeway parking lot, shut the car off, removed the key from the ignition, the "chime" kept dinging at me when I opened the door. No lights were on, key was in my coat pocket...not sure why it was making the "chime" noise

Bryan (it's always something with this car)


Corroded K-bus wire connection under the passenger carpet

 

I have a set of the Euro tail lights coming from the Netherlands....he wanted my all red tail lights, I wanted his red & amber style

Will post pics when they arrive

Bryan

 

Update: 4-30-2020

Picked this complete airbox assembly for the R52 the other day....got it for $75... even has a good air filter inside

Bryan

 

Update: 5-1-2020

Was going to install my new $75 JCW air cleaner box today...but I cant get to the "T" hose on the bypass valve where it connects to....I need to take off the drivers side intake air horn and make the vacuum connection for the flapper valve. (My $75 score below)

Car is still running great....(actually both cars are running great)....the only issue I have noticed lately is I think I got a defective clutch or clutch disc....it finally full grabs right at the top of the clutch pedal travel......I really don't want to pull the transmission ....but if I have to, I need to find a good used 6-spd with LSD because mine has a 4th gear clash when sifting into 4th gear. ..

I have not tinkered with the remote unlock problem yet...also have not messed with the computer program for my Chrono swap project either......so far 2020 has not been kind to me, or actually anyone with this virus going around...I may have had it, I was very sick for the whole month of March.....and I didn't know about the virus until I started feeling better....

Bryan (still enjoying the car when we can)

 

You can temporarily use the airbox by just putting the JCW top on the bottom so the stock box and adding the rear divider with the hole. The flap can be disconnected from the linkage, rotated horizontally and held open with the linkage. Later when you can get the vacuum and electronics hooked up you can reconnect the flap. A lot of people just forget the wiring and vacuum and run the intake always open.

One thing I’m not sure of is what tells the controller to open the flap at 4,500 rpm... does the ECU wire trigger the flap even on a stock car? If not, does it have to be activated like adding an alarm or rear fog light, or does it get coded in when the JCW tune is installed.

What kind of filter did you get with it, a paper JCW filter or something like a K&N or Amsoil?

 

The assembly came with a paper filter, in very good condition. I think it says Bosch on it.

All I have on the car now is one of those open element cone filters... I have never liked them, and never will. As a retired tech, people would have those in their vehicle and over oil them. Causes all sorts of problems and runnability issues.

There's an electronic little box that goes on the car under the cowl. He sent me that control unit, but I checked, and mine is still there. I'm sure it's somehow tied into the ECM so it monitors the engine RPM

I did check today, and the lower portion of the air cleaner box is the same as what he sent me, I asked for his entire unit anyway. My car already has the large oval hole under the cowl, I also plan on removing the little round plastic piece in the smaller hole in the housing. I have heard pro's and cons about taking the round plug out... we'll see how it goes

Bryan