Hey folks! I've been searching and haven't found much on these topics. Hope you can help out.

I completely sold my mom on Minis, and she finally picked up a 2010 Cooper S that she's had for a couple of years now (her "favorite thing in the world other than her kids"). She's starting to get into autocross, and I'm hoping to get her to road course stuff eventually. Long story short - she's interested in picking up a used AccessPort. I'm sure there are other performance upgrades that might be a better idea, but she's not really at a serious level. So I have a few questions:


1. Is this a bad idea now that it's discontinued? Her car is bone-stock right now, so the off-the-shelf maps should still provide a pretty significant performance increase, eh? And even if she upgrades some of the more common parts, switching to other OTS maps would be just as easy? If she ended up getting the modification fever and wanted to really go all-out, we could always either get someone to custom tune her AP or get rid of it and go with a standard-style tune.

2. Is there any way to get my hands on the Mini AccessTuner software? Even if she only ends up needing OTS maps, I think it would be great to learn AP tuning. But I get the feeling Cobb wants nothing to do with that anymore. I would, of course, love to find a free source if that were possible, but even if it costs as much as the Race licences usually seem to, that might be worth it for the customization and the fun of learning.

edit: 3. What options are there for the "sport" button? Or am I relying on Alta to give me any of the functions for it?

4. Is there anything else to consider that I'm missing?


Thanks for all the advice I've already garnered from this website, and any more that you'll provide!

 

An AP is still a good choice, it will add some power and they are coming down in price. However as of right now I would go with Battle Tuning. They are actively custom tuning Minis and you can get support for your tunes. If you have an issue with the AP you might be SOL. Battle Tuning will cost more though, but it's worth it...

 

Wow, I hadn't heard there was a similar alternative. I'll have to check them out when I have time to do some digging. It seems that their FAQ page is down, and I don't see much other info about the Powergate on their website. $650 is still a pretty reasonable price if it's anything like the AP, though.

 

tatsuha,

You are welcome to shoot us an email: info@battletuning.com

We are currently revamping the entire website to incorporate performance parts, oem, and of course tuning.

 

Pretty sure the Access Tuner Race was never offered to the mini crowd like you could get it for other cars. I looked for a copy for awhile. I got it as a free download for my STI.

 

By into autocross, do you mean for fun, or to actually compete? If you, (or she), plans to compete, you need to really look at the rules for the class. A tune might very well put you, (or her), into a class where you would never be competitive.

 

This too. If you're running with SCCA a D Street mini could be a lot of fun and pretty competitive locally. Just need some shocks, a swaybar, and some wheels/tires.

 

That's the feeling I got, but then they had to have at least released tuner software so that businesses could tune them. Since they're not going to make money off of it, I wouldn't have felt too guilty torrenting it.


So far, just for fun. Not sure about the future. I hadn't thought about a tune possibly changing class, but that makes complete sense. On the plus side, something like an AP would be easy to swap back. Then she could at least still enjoy it on the street, and hopefully grow into it at some point.


She takes a little convincing, but I think we could get her to throw down for those kinds of mods in less than one season with a bit of pushing.