well lets see....i've seen a few headers out there. but they all look like they utilize the Cat system.
Is there any company that sells a full exhaust with no CATS involved?

how many cats does the MINI have?

my lex HAD 3....they are all gone now.:smile: Which i know you have to use 02 sim. when you get rid of your cats.

ive seen anything like that for the mINI.

 

bumped....

i have seen Jackson racing header. Is that one any good?

any dyno #'s:smile:

 

I had a Supersprint 4-2-1 header with no cat mated to my JCW catback. The top end performance was quite good(just butt dyno) but the noise was too much for street driving, so I switched to a Milltek header with sport cat and the system now sounds fantastic and performs quite well(again butt dyno). If you race your MINI the Supersprint might be for you.

DDTUNG

 

I'd like to say MINI owners typically have good responsibility towards the environment and fellow Motorers. Getting rid of your catalytic converters is not only uncool, it's downright stinky. If you drive your MINI on the street (which I'm gonna go on a limb here and guess you do), please respect your fellow motorists and maintain a cat in your exhaust.

thanks,
Ryan

 

I have a Jackson racing Header with the Borla sport exhaust. The jackson does not come with a cat butthe last piece of tubing is quite long and straight. I took the stock cat and had it installed there so the car is actually legal again, at least in that area. I was going with a " race " cat but the stock one isnt really that bad at all . The number one weak point in the stock system is the pinch point at the base of the collector more than the cat itself. I havent been on a dyno with this setup as yet but plan to after the new head . I will post as soon as I can regarding that.

Randy
Team M7

www.m7tuning.com

 

MINI have only one cat in the header.
Any Header without cat is going to be rather loud and with a free flowing cat-back exhaust like Magnaflow for the MCS or Borla racing it's going to be very loud. Loudness does not = power gain.

Some shops like RDR and Helix13 have tried to dyno headers and none come up with much in terms of measureable gains, especially the headers with no cat. Webbmotorsports.com has dynoed a Milltek header with race cat with some gains in the mid to high rpm range (loudness is good with this header in general).

Some MINI headers have no cat-
Jackson racing $600
http://www.mossmini.com/Shop/ViewPro...eIndexID=39045
Super sprint $611
http://www.promini.com/product-exec/...category_id/82
Mini Mania $750
http://new.minimania.com/web/Item/NME1003/InvDetail.cfm

Some MINI headers have a 200 cell racing cat-
Milltek $899 to 995+
http://www.stratmosphere.com/milltek_mini.htm or
http://www.webbmotorsports.com/exhaust-mcs.php
Madness Header $1200
http://www.mini-madness.com/index.as...ROD&ProdID=166

Minimania Header with cat $750 (webbmotorsports) to $850
http://new.minimania.com/web/Item/NME1004/InvDetail.cfm

London Stainless (about $1200 imported)
http://www.racecar.co.uk/quicksilver...rsmanifold.htm

Dyno for Supertrapp Mania Vs stock header
http://new.minimania.com/imagesbig/nme1003_ch.jpg
Any gains look like beyond 5000 rpm for HP and torque!

 

i was told the madness header is suposed to be a pretty nice header, good welds and flanges, plus it has a cat. have no cat can be good if you track it, but the car itself is designed to run with a cat, so i dont no why you shouldnt run one.

chris

 

Madness, a pretty nice header? Welds, flanges and has a cat?
Well yes all of the headers are "nice" headers with good welds, etc.
But at $1200 do you think it is worth the benefits? Besides looking pretty and being under the MINI what do you really get for your money?

"No cat" is good for the track? Well I would say that on the track there are no requirements like on the street for a cat to be present. Having no cat is likely to make more noise but is no guarantee that there will be more power in either HP or torque.

Most independent dyno tests just don't show much gain in any header with no cat and similar results for headers even with a racing cat. If there really is gain to be had then it should be easy for any independent dyno to show us that gain.

Therefore, before you spend that $1000 on a header think long and hard about what you want that header to do for your MINI and then act accordingly.

To drive on the street legally you need a cat on your header. I have heard a MINI with no cat and a magnaflow exhaust and it was NOT pretty. It was disturbing. And the owner promptly removed the header (worth $650).

I had a Quicksilver cat back exhaust on my MCS and it was louder than stock and when I added a Miltek header it got louder. I replaced the Quicksilver with a Miltek cat-back (kept the Miltek header) and now it is less noisy.

I'd say for street use/autocross/or driving school you don't need a header. For short or long course track if you can get up to a higher rpm sometimes then you might make some use of any power it might offer.

 

i have a full catless exhaust im finishing up, from head to tip, but my intentions behind is race prep exhaust, but working a cat version as well, should be finished up in a week or two, but the problem is it will be expensive, but a true race designed exhaust always will be....i never intended to be for street use, but if local regs allow it it could be, the only think i cant really comment on is noise level, i have notice little changes can make a huge diffrence in sound, so we will see in the final phase....

Also a quick question why are u intrested in a catless, a good race cat you almost cant measure the diffrence?

 

Caddman,

This is the same header with race cat you've been working on since last year?

Looking forward to seeing it, I know you had some delays.

Can you dyno it with the following setup?
MCS with intake/15% pulley/cat-back exhaust as baseline then add the header and Baseline stock MCS and add only the header.

This will give the basic difference of header alone and header added to a mid modded MCS.

It's impossible to try to predict noise levels with all the different Cat-back exhaust systems out there for the MCS.

A race developed header being costly is no surprise but I hope you can do better than $1200. Having the ability to run it with and without cat would be good. For most people, having the header with cat should be the best/easiest option.

Also is your product being tested for the MCS only or for use with the MC?
The exhaust backpressure is different for each so how does one header handle this difference or does it matter? The stock header is so restricted I think it would hurt the MCS more than it does the MC. Yet when we add a header to the MC the gains are less than that for the MCS even with their respective aftermarket cat-back exhausts.

 

one thing, it a full exhaust sytem, not a header alone, the porblem i was having is the joints we not in a position that i could not acheive what i was after,i am working on a version, that would tie in to an aftermarket exhaust just before the split to go to th mufflers, but with the variety of flanges and such the it still may take some mods for certain exhaust, I will have two versions one for the MC and one for the MCS, im working on the MCS version first.. Yes its the same one from last year, im not rying to throw something together as many others have, my intrest is in my race car first, then i will go to market, so that being said its all about perfecting the performance of it, not the marketability, it will be expensive, for i see never getting my return out of the R&D, so no it wont be for the average joe, hopefully i will see the gains if not more than i have seen in the testing so far, which in my position warrant the extra cost, i wll be doing a baseline on my personal car the a run with the exhaust, as i sell some and install the hopefully i can get diffrent dyno test, kind of a catch 22, i would prefer not to do this part this way but i dont have access to a stock MCS, but i do have access to customers cars, i am willing to pay for the dyno time, but the exhaust is designed for a modded car not a stocker, yes i am intrested in the result is would give one, but my focus is on a modded one... i have a back pressur tester and i the backpresuure i assure will be minimal

as far as testing, of course it has been design on a race car, not stock ecu or anything else for that matter, just a stock block.......

but my basle line will be on 02 MCS with, KN intake, 19%, big valve Head, schrick cam,Evotech Ecu, Rc enginering injectors, custom Water to air intercooler,uuc flywheel, stock manifold, mangnaflow exhaust,MSD coil and wires, NGK irridium plugs, i will be dyno same day, changing the exhaust and redynoing hopefully i can several diffrent types of car to test on, or one who wants a bunch of mods(like from stock) and will allow me to do various testing at stages of car being put together, but the problem with that is most are to impatient for me to do that, so we will see....

 

Caddman,

Sounds like you are creating a one piece SUPER supersprint racing exhaust system. Make it lightweight, people won't care about the power if it is light.
Put three tips on the back in the center. Or better yet, one GIANT 4" tip.

Thanks for working on that project and letting us know about it.
OK on it not really being for mass consumption and it sounds really geared for the mid to highly modded MINI. That makes sense.
It's obviously a labor of love. Good luck.

 

Yes it is, im not sure about the three tips though honestly i havent even thought about "tips" yet for they are cosmetic, however as far as weight, im looking into several ideas once i have the tuning part done. One idea is titanium since it is becoming more popular in exhaust systems the cost has come down considerably, like i said though its an idea.. it would be really light then....i have shyed away from my ceramic coated idea i was playing with due to weight and it tends to spider crack at real high temps, but that all will be worked out in time, but being a performance exhaust performance is 1, weight is 2, cost 3(even thought i cant really controll it to much),apperance 50th, sound 99th or maybe a little higher i dont want to lose performce trying to acheive a better sound, if i can, with no performance loss i will of course

 

i will definitely be checking out your new exhaust....i def.. agree in making it as light as possible.

and to comment about my questions.

No cats were the best way to go for my IS300. I just figured the same with the MINI.

But as i have read it dont like the mini has many gains from any exhaust mods.
so best to just keep it legal with a throaty tone. But like i said being able to shave some Pounds in the process would be great!

 

BoopedrivesmyMINI,
No cats isn't looking as good for the MINI at this time.

Keeping it legal keeps you out of trouble in more ways than one.

Save money if you are on a budget and look first at a good cat-back exhaust that:
Has some power (realistically about 5+ HP/ 5+ ft-lbs of torque)
Has a deep tone
Doesn't drone
Saves some weight (single sided systems weigh 21 pounds, doubles are about 32 pounds compared to stock 44 pounds)
Looks nice (has tips that you can live with)

Find someone with a UUC, Milltek, Rspeed.net MCS exhaust, or Borla race for double systems. Quicksilver or Alta for single systems.

 

The problem with exhaust, is not the exhaust itself, its the head, the exhaust port, valve are crap, if there were a way to really enlarge them without running into a water jaket and such, the diffrences in the exhausts would become more larger, but until some comes out with new head, not a ported and polished head this problem wont go away, i have looked into it but is just not cost effective the first head would be around 10 grand, that would almost not be recoverable in this market,porting and polishing helps as well as a larger valve, but the current design has limitations that cant be ported around, so its a bottleneck to stay.....

 

Caddman,

Thanks for pointing that "minor" detail out. It makes good sense that something upstream from the exhaust header and system is limiting power.

This means that stock header or aftermarket header no matter how good the design is going to be influenced to a great degree. Shucks.

Hopefully your exhaust will tweak what it can but there may be limits.

 

That is the basis of my who design, by proper tuning, the header will actually cause a vacumn on the exhaust port allowing it act like a supercharger in reverse, sucking the exhaust gasses out instead of "just letting them flow" out, and so far the design has shown very promising results, but the head design is still the limiting factor, it only helps the situation, you got a pile of lemons make lemonade Equal length is very important, but the actual length being tuned is even more important, then the free flowing exhaust after the collector, at that point as long as its not a restriction its not important....

 

Mini Mania has a cat free header.I am not a tree hugger but i really believe a cat isn't that much of a horsepower block.I have a Mini Mania header w/cat and love it.

 

Hello, I have a question on which header is better?

Mini Mania's header is said to be not for street use... but they claim if you use if for extended track use it will ruin the cat, what are you supposed to use it for??? It sells for $850.

Mini Madness has one that sounds very nice, but it sells for $1200.

Webb Motor sports sells a Mini Mania header for $750 and a Milteck header for $899.

Does anyone have any input for someone with a Borla race exhause who uses his car mostly for street but occasionally goes to track events? I don't want to get something that will melt down after a few days at the track, but I would like some extra horse power.

 

I am still stuck on why everyone wants a header for this car. What a tremendous amount of money on something that has seen none to at best very little gains in power? Can anyone explain this too me. You would get much better power gains putting a new head on and save some money at the same time. This is one of those mods, that just doesn't make sense to me. Headers are great on a 350 cu inch car, but maybe I am missing the boat on this one. Up to $1000 for at best 2-3hp, and maybe some increased sound. I hope these aren't the same people complaining about the cost of a $150 intake.

 

OK, if a head is better. I'm not all that familiar with that, but I have seen what I think you are refering to at $1700 with $1000 installation charges. Or are you refering to something different. I'm just going with what I have seen on different web sites for upgrading the MCS. Please let me know some info about replacing the head, or where I can look for pricing. What kind of increase will replacing the head give me?

 

Header is fine if you also do a ported and flowed head with larger valves.


DDTUNG

 

Replacing the head can give you a good 10-15hp depending on type. The cost is typically $800-$1000 for a ported and polished job. To get one with larger valves, could be in the $1400-$1800 range, but can push the power gain between 15-20hp. Of course power gains are relative to the other mods and vary car to car. The header doesn't make sense without larger exhaust valves. That is why no one is seeing much power from one on a stock head. It just seems crazy that some people are spending almost $2000 for a header and exhaust looking for performance on the street. There are much ways to spend your money.

 

agreed; the path I found was the head with larger valves begged for the header;l A/F meaurements then showed the need for larger injectors and the A'pexi fuel management controller.

I also had my header ceramic coated to drop underhood temps.

If you wanted to sneak up on it, remove the pre-cat and squished part of the stock header, enlarge the flange openings and re-use what's left, get Endyn to do your head with larger valves ($1,400) and try that out. By the way, anyone charging more than 1,400 for a big valve head isn't doing the work themselves, so the end user is getting hit by middleman markups.