Well, I've never personally modded my ride before, but I've already got a list of cosmetics mods to make I figured I might as well make her perform better while I'm at it!

So, I'm not looking to make the car really loud, so I'll probably stay away from the exhaust. I am definitely looking for bang for the buck, so any relatively cheap mods that will produce noticeable performance increase will be most welcome.

The short list:
Throttle booster -- My biggest gripe, and the first to mod! Probably going with the cheaper D1 Throttle Booster here
Intake (DDM Works or K&N)
Torque arm mount (undecided here -- how much of an increase in vibration is there with this mod?)

Is there anything I'm overlooking that I shouldn't be?

Thanks!

 

i think your plans are spot on the money.
the intake will net your greatest power/torque increase and raise the sportiness quotient a huge chunk.
the throttle lag issue was my main complaint of my cooper as well, tho i finally sucked for the sprint booster primarily for the ease/cleanliness of installation over the D1.I've been wholey impressed with the result and finally feel that I can push the car to the limits without that horrid sense of disconnectedness. my shifts (manual) are finally crisp and clean, not having to anticipate and compensate for the sluggish throttle action. I also experienced an unexpected benefit - without the lag, it subjectively feels as tho the engine is producing more torque due to the car's much more vigorous acceleration ,particularly from a stop and in the lower rev bands.
the NM torque arm bushing was a useful mod but one of a much smaller but useful benefit, mostly in controlling motor windup, both in hard acceleration and braking with a nice improvement in shifter feel & precision. i do not feel any significant increase in vibration.

beyond that, I'd recommend ditching those harsh, noisy and numb OEM runflats with a quality high performance tire and maybe a lightweight wheelset to suit your sense of aesthetics to go with them. you won't believe how much the OEM runflats degrade the driving experience until you swap them out. imo, you should avoid going to 17" rims as you'll just be gaining a lot of excess weight and rolling resistance that the cooper can ill afford. toss in a good 4 wheel alignment and you should be pretty well set to go (at least till the mod bug strikes again).

best,
k

 

That's definitely the result I'm looking for -- Im coming from an automatic '09 Scion xD. Those guys also aren't big on HP, but I LOVED the way it came off the starting line! I use my car as a commuter, so I really don't need big gains in power, but I DO need to be able to zip in and out of traffic.
Interesting about the D1, as I was under the impression those were plug-and-play as well (unless you're using the OBDII port for something else already).

Are all OEM tires the run-flats? I thought that the 15" wheels did not come with run-flats, but I certainly could be mistaken. Wheels and tires are a pretty penny to drop, so those didn't make the short list. I had planned on plasti-dipping the OEM wheels for aesthetics, but perhaps I'll look into trading them for another set (I don't have the space to keep both).

Thanks so much!

 

It is a plug-n-play unit but rather my decision was made because the D1 is housed in a small box that would be fitted or routed somewhere above the footwell/under the dash whereas the sprintbooster is physically little more than an extension of the throttle assy connectors and fits very neatly up in a tight & tiny recess up behind the panel immediately next to the pedal assembly.

aside from the much lower cost of the D1, it has the advantage of a very broad selection of sensitivity and response settings so that may be a more important selection factor than the install.either unit should be fine use-wise.

For the way I drive, I just set the sprintbooster on the max "race" setting, and eventually removed the remote selector switch as I never used any other settings . i find the max setting just fine for regular driving and supplement it with the mini's own sport button for when I'm feeling frisky. the sprintbooster's medium setting was just too much like a tease.

dunno. you may be correct. I ordered my car with the "sport package" which included the optional 16" six spoke rims fitted with continental procontact runflats and a limp-along spare tire.