Hello all! I've lurked a long time, but finally signed up to share my MINI obsession. Currently in our fleet we have a 2004 Cooper S, GP1 no. 896 (don't get excited, it's a salvage title track project), a 2018 JCW, my mom rolls a 2019 Cooper, and I have GP2 No. 417. So my GP2 finally got some more power after waiting a year! Before I purchased the GP my husband and I (Larry Schultz, some of yall may know him from the MINI groups), had a 2010 Clubman S Laurel Edition with Mario Palza's ceramic coated catless downpipe, 41mm turbo, and stage 3 tuning, colder plugs, bigger ATM intercooler, and a K&N Apollo CAI.

That car was very fun, surprisingly quick, and even survived a hiccup-free 2500 mile spirited roadtrip loaded with my mom, husband, myself, and a roofbox through the mountains of NC/SC, GA, and then on down to Florida. I honestly couldn't even complain with the fuel mileage, we hovered around 23-25mpg for the whole trip.

That being the case, we decided to use Mario again for our N18, and we couldn't be happier. This time we stayed with the stock turbo which has less than 20k on it at this time, stage 2 tune, Mario's ceramic coated catless downpipe, colder NGK plugs, a poly lower engine mount, and a Wagner Tuning intercooler. For a bit of nostalgia we are using a Defender's of Speed CAI (same design as the K&N Apollo setup). It also has a Tarrett Engineering 23.8mm rear swaybar, and Forged intercooler piping.

For the exhaust as of right now, we welded two F56 exhausts to get rid of the secondary cat and resonator so it's a straight pipe going to the factory JCW muffler. The car sounds way more aggressive, the pops are great, and the performance is strong, even, and smooth. I am so impressed! The car used to fall off pretty hard at 100MPH with a JB+ but not anymore. The redline was also moved to 7500RPMs.

Mario's customer service and the quality of the downpipe really can't be matched, especially for how many cars out there run RPM. He's always on hand to answer any questions, and we received our DME back in TWO days from California to Cincinnati, OH with the tune. For the performance you receive, the cost was definitely fair. I'm really looking forward to using this thing again for AutoX later this Spring and Summer...

Also hoping to have the dash re-wrapped due to the leather bunching up, I'm pretty sad about it!

 

Mario is top notch!!! How many miles have you driven with the tune now? Any future plans?

 

Nice ride, what part of Northern Kentucky are you in? The Cinci Mini Sticker might have caught my eye, I live over in Anderson. Would love to meet up with some other mini owners, once we are freed.

 

So sadly, like two days after doing all of this a sizeable branch hit the left rear quarter panel of the GP and dented it pretty good. I am big sad... but while insurance is fixing that I bit the bullet and I'm having the front resprayed, and with COVID-19 on top of THAT it is taking time for sure. Honestly I've driven all of maybe 300 smile plastering miles. My plan is to daily it when it comes back and then give a long term update! Mario is top notch for sure. My plan is to hopefully move up to the 43mm turbo, and that beautiful intake manifold of his. Someday.

 

Hey thank you! Love R55s by the way. We live out in Alexandria, and there are some great curvy, rarely busy state routes out here that we cruise on a lot. Have you ever been to any of the Cincinnati Cars and Coffee meet ups? I'd also love to see more Minis around! Anderson is a nice area.