I purchased my Mini over the summer and it has been a great little car.

Lately it's been running very inconsistent. The computer pulls boost and I'm getting two CELs. The computer says it's running too rich and I have an air leak past the throttle.

The air leak is either a cracked valve cover, but rather I think it is the vacuum hose coming off the PCV in the valve cover. The hose retainer ring has been broken and it appears to me leaking oil. I can't ever hear the vacuum leak.

As for the leaking inter-cooler piping. The car has some ALTA silicone hoses to replace the factory hoses. The hot side looks fine while deleting the stupid inter-cooler muffler.
As for the cold side, I have quite the mess set up. I pulled off the stock air box and was surprised to find some zip ties holding up a radiator hose that had been re-purposed to adapt some kind of an air filter/valve to the ALTA inter-cooler silicone pipe.

Can you tell me what this plastic valve is and why the previous owner has set up the following?

 

It's the noise maker. It's useless. If you can find something to plug the hole in the silicone tube and put a hose clamp on it you can toss the noisemaker in the trash, I would.

 

Also, I found a wide-open vacuum port on the back of the manifold. I'm wondering which line is supposed to be hooked up this port? See the attached pic. It looks like it has been open for a while but I'm worried that I may have disconnected it when I loosened up the intake manifold. I don't see any open lines in the vicinity.

What do you all think?

Thank you.

 

It looks completely useless. I'll find something to fit the hole and chuck it.

Sweet Coupe BTW.

 

I used a PVC pipe cap. I can't tell what that other hose us, sorry.

 

Thanks!

 

No. It is not wide open. Stick your finger in it and you'll see it is closed off. The only lines connecting to the intake manifold are the gas tank evap purge line and the PCV hose from the passenger side of the valve cover. That's it.

I had the Alta cold side boost tube and it doesn't fit worth a damn. It will rub in multiple spots and eventually spring a leak. Get rid of it. I would replace it with the NM-engineering throttle body tube. It will get rid of the useless noisemaker and frees the flow up a bit. It's a quality piece of gear.

I would double-check every hose clamp in the air system. Don't forget the one that's tucked right next to the passenger side of the radiator fan. Those worm clamps loosen over time. I replaced all of mine with T-bolt clamps and haven't had a problem since.

 

I agree T Bolts are the way to go, thank you for the heads up on the NME tube.