Back in January I put on an Alta Intake on my wife's R56. All was good, but after a few weeks it started having strange issues where at various times it felt as if the car had NO power. After a couple of weeks of this, it progressed to being an everyday thing, and then was doing it 24/7. So, we got the car trailered to the dealership.

They witnessed the problem straight away, and their first thing was to put a stock intake back on the MINI...and viola, it started driving fine again. They then put the Alta intake back on, and it still drove fine. They charged me for the service then (of course), saying it was the intake's fault...and we drove the car home. I kept the Alta intake on it ever since and the car has been fine. However, last week it started acting up again in the same fashion....once again it's very rarely....but I'm afraid it will progress as it did previously.

SO, anyone have any thoughts/ideas about what could be going on here? Any ways to maybe fix the problem? Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

One thing that I am very sensitive about is oiled filter elements on "hot wire" MAF sensor cars/motors. That includes most if not ALL new cars. I have never had good luck running oiled filters and these are oiled filters from the manufacturer NOT over-oiled by the user. I much prefer the paper element. With that said, your issue may have nothing to do with the MAF sensor but I'd be curious if the dealer cleaned the wire (CRC makes a cleaner specifically for this) and then re-installed and now it's acting up again. Can't say for sure. All in all....I prefer the stock config or the JCW upgrade to a conical filter which is paper.

 

Worth a shot, I'll pick up some of the cleaner and clean it..... :-)

Any other ideas?

 

yep, probably oil on the MAF. That is the only thing that would make it run worse. There are two other sensors along the air intake path you may wanna check too.

I replaced the oil filter with a 9" paper filter from AEM.

 

Hrm...might have to try picking one up.