Nitro (one hell of a nice guy) and I had a little mod party yesterday. His boss was gracious and let him have use of their shop------THANK GOD!

Here's the mods we did: Nitro---JCW CAI including JCW inlet tube, Riss Racing DP, Exhaust Depot exhaust and M7 pre-intercooler charge pipe. Nitro is waiting on a Forge FMIC that should be here by Thurs. in time for the RMW tune. Boomer------- Helix FMIC, JCW inlet tube, Riss Racing DP.The TURBO HEAT SHIELD is PURE TORTURE and Kris had previous experience thanks to Alta. (BAD SUBJECT!) Outside of this MINI TORTURE CHAMBER everything buttoned up pretty nicely. The Riss DP once install seemed to cant a little to the right (from underneath the car looking forward) but with a little muscle mated with both our exhaust (Milltek & ED). The M7 charge pipe was a piece of cake and adds a nice little turbo whistle to the car's symphony of sounds. (Just one of the must have goodies Kris introduced me to!!!!!!!)

With the JCW box, M7 charge tube, RR DP, and ED exhaust, Kris's car sounds AWESOME!!!! From the front the car, it has more Turbo whistle and intake hiss. Hear the air being sucked in and more spooling sound and air recirculation noise from the car. From the back, it's magic!!!! Nice little rumble @ idle, with throttle it gets nasty but tasty. Not obnoxious, just SWEET. Sounds very European with a touch of American Muscle if you can imagine that combination. Not a 4 banger sound at all and not ricey. Mine's a little subdued. Not loud, not deep, just mellow with a hint of anger under throttle. The charge tube and JCW airbox will be added as soon as funds permit.

If anyone has a recommendation on a muffler shop, please PM me. I think Kris's rumble sound is produced by the Magnaflow resonator. Thinking of looking into replacing my Milltek resonator with the Magnaflow to see if I can get a little more soulfull sound. A couple of items that Kris has that I want are: JCW airbox, M7 charge pipe, JCW Steering wheel, and Whalen Shift ****. His car also has a nice stance on the 16" Rota's & 205/50 tires.

Can't wait for the tune!!!!! Will be interesting to see the difference in performance between the 2 cars. We also plan to do a little un-scientific test on Intake Air Temps after Kris installs the Forge FMIC.[FONT=Verdana]Many, many THANKS Kris. Still owe you a few more cold brewski's. Hope you didn't get into too much trouble with the real boss!

Cheers!

PS: Is it Friday yet?

 

patiently waiting as we all are

 

That sure is a mod party! Lots of stuff to do in one day!

 

I'm disappointed in your boomer! Such a great post and NO EYE (or ear) CANDY!
Come on man!


Congrats!

 

alright, here's a few shots, we really didn't take much, it was stinking hot Sunday & everything was taking way longer than we originally anticipated.
Buying a new downpipe gasket & exhaust clamp (uncludes bottom downpipe gasket) was totally worth it. My upper gasket was smushed beyond use after all the R&R of my old Alta downpipe. Upper gasket's about $8 and the lower clamp w/ gasket is about $24.

I ended up leaving the factory filter in the stage 1 airbox instead of using the Amsoil dry filter I ordered, there might be some tiny gain to be had, but the factory filter just fits perfectly, while the neck on the hose just isn't designed for hanging an aftermarket filter off. Replacements aren't as expensive as I've seen posted on some vendors sites, Morristown Mini quoted me around $45. Sounds great, it's a TRUE CAI, not a whole lot more to say, nice oem design.

I have to say, the Militek exhaust looks wicked ! I would love to have the ED sound with that set of tips & fitment. I've checked out a lot of R56 exhaust systems & bought a couple now & there's no doubt Hector at ED has the best sounding system.

I was a little concerned with the Helix intercooler not having any tabs for hard mounting (thus I ordered the Forge for myself), but it seems ok & it looks much better in person than Helix's pictures might suggest.
I'm not sure who's FMIC install guide I was reading the other day, but when you get to the point of removing the stock intercooler, you definitely MUST stop to laugh at it's pathetic size

Given an extra day to mess around I would love to take the stock turbo apart & do some porting, the RR downpipe & the turbo both have a 2.5" opening, but the gasket's an extra 1/4" larger & I could see both being opened up to match. I'm sure there's a few other spots to improve the airflow as well. For reference, the stock downpipe already has a larger opening, but the turbo opening is the limiting factor, nothing w/ the RR downpipe for matching the stock turbo opening.

There's a few tweaks I'd like to see made to the RR downpipe, but overall, it's a very nice product. I'm still holding my breath, no CEL yet, but I don't want to Jinx it, I do NOT want to run an o2 sim.

 

Here's some additional pictures,

JCW stage 1 & 2 intake bits, M7 boost tube, very stealth !

Forge & oem intercoolers side by side

Forge intercooler hard mounted to factory tabs, fits just like factory, comes with a pre-trimmed/spare grill as well. I ended up installed a new chromeline grill and found there wasn't any real need to trim it.


not the best picture, but you can see inside the intercooler just the level of quality and attention to detail. Inside each tube are a ton of fins increasing the surface area 1000 fold !
Off to the dyno, Boomer posted 208whp & 238wtq with the Helix intercooler, we'll see where my tune ends up. It's a little hotter today as well.

 

Those numbers are with an ECU tune right? Did you get the upper & lower gasket with the clamp from Morristown Mini too?

 

Yes, that's with a tune
another psmini member ran 258wtq and 210whp this morning
I'm lined up to go on the dyno next, whenever Jan finishes tinkering with Clints meth kit and high compression r53

 

NICE! What mods did he have??

Let us know how your's goes asap too! You're going to love it!

 

N1tro,

Is that the Alta DP you have in the pic with the RR dp? It looks much bigger with a larger diameter pipe.

 

Well looks like my Mini isn't producing as much boost as the others for whatever reason. Still Boomer & I went with a goal of 225wtq, so the measly 234wtq was still pretty good (did much better one run when overboost kicked in) and a solid (and I do mean solid) 190whp. The gains under the curve are massive, instead of peaking at 190whp, it hits 190 at ~4200rpm and stays dead flat until cutoff. Likewise, peak torque hits earlier and carries on and on and on. Almost a full 50ft/lbs gain after the tune. It was around 90 degrees in the shop when I ran, so that might have been part of it, but it really is a solid tune ! Thanks Jan !

The second downpipe in that picture is the oem unit, it's a combination of stamped stainless and tubing with dual ceramic catalyst units.

 

when they tune the cars, are they playing mostly with just the boost map?

or do they touch the Timing and fuel maps as well?

do u know what the AFR is up top?