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I've been rocking a 2003 justa for about 4 years and replaced it with an S model end of February 2024. The R50 was probably the best car I've ever owned. I bought it with 84k on the clock and sold it with just shy of a quarter million miles. It received plenty of maintenance and upgrades in the time but a new job with a MUCH shorter commute motivated me to upgrade. The R50 averaged between 38 and 40 mpg. The S has been sitting right at 30 since I brought it home but that blower whine is entirely too entertaining to get any better fuel mileage atm ha ha.
I plan to document any maintenance or upgrades in this thread.
The specs on the new ride are as follows:
2005 S model with 6 speed manual trans. Heated leather (Pleather? Vinyl? ) cruise, ac, sunroof, chrono package, and ASC. Haven't researched rpo codes to determine if it has lsd or not.
It came with the following already installed:
17% Cravenspeed pulley and new tensioner
Valeo clutch
AFE CAI
Miltek resonated cat back
Sprint Booster v3
Raceland coilovers
and a bunch of assorted light upgrade.
It also had a few issues. I fixed a misfire with a simple plug and wire replacement. Strut mounts were shot but it came with a pair of brand new Lemforders. Both outer ball joints, one inner, both front stabilizer end links, and both control arm bushings are hammered. It had a boost leak from a poorly installed IC boot. And the hatch handle was broken.
The 17's it came with weren't my style but it came with the oem wheels too so I put the 17's for sale on marketplace, put the oem on the R50, and kept my Konig Heliums.
Overall I love the car but the brakes and handling aren't even in the same ballpark as the R50 it replaced. It will be eventually, or at least close, but not as it sits.
I'll update this thread as I upgrade and repair the little beast,
pictures will follow shortly.
Old and new. Konigs mounted on the 1" wheel spacers that came with the car. I've since swapped to a 20mm on the rear but still not quite right so I'll have to play around with it some more.
First bit of maintenance was a set of NGK plugs and wires, fixed the boost leak (IC boots), cleaned the TMAP, and installed the new strut mounts.
First mod was a 19mm Eibach rear sway bar.
This car came with this interesting looking wing on it. It had a few stripped screws so I pulled it off. Got a chance to fix it and threw it back on.
I also got the new hatch handle on and the coolant tank was delivered.
The maintenance parts also started showing up on the doorstep. Radiator support is here. I'm hoping the ball joints, stab links, and control arm bushings are delivered in the next couple days so I can knock it all out this weekend.
Broken hatch handle. New hatch handle, ignore the filth. Old, faded, and now starting to leak oem coolant tank. New coolant tank.
Got a ton of work done on this little beast over the weekend. 1 inner and 2 outer ball joints replaced, both front sway bar end links replaced, control arm bushings upgraded to Powerflex purple (one old one came out in pieces), adjusted the ride height some more, installed the skid plate off my R50 (took some tweaking) replaced the radiator support, installed the new coolant tank with new antifreeze, installed the smoked led fender lights on the front, tinted the taillights, and replaced a bunch of cheap leds and the amber turn signal bulbs (orange coating was coming off).
It was a job and a half!!! I'm not sure why but the control arm bushings gave me fits!! I put the exact same set on the R50 and while difficult to do on the car it wasn't that bad. This set made me question my choice in automobiles! They are on now though and just like on the last car, they made a very noticeable improvement in handling.
The radiator support was pretty straightforward and the coolant tank seems to be working well save for the fact it shipped with the sight glass only finger tight. It leaked as soon as I poured the coolant in. That was an easy fix though and after an excessively long burping process she seems to be doing great.
I still have to get the new rear fender lights on then its on to sorting the drivers side seat airbag wiring. The PO picked up a set of R56 seats but didn't bother converting the airbag wiring so once that is done I'll have the pleasure of trying to figure out how to get the airbag light off. I haven't decided yet if I'm even going to bother putting the passenger side seat in. I don't see any difference between the R53 and R56 seats. Honestly I'd rather ditch them both for the set my wife picked out for the Corvette. They are much more comfortable and a lot lighter. They look a lot better too. Time will tell. Swapping a connection is a lot cheaper than buying another set of seats lol.
Here's some pictures I snapped of the weekends festivities:
The PO picked up a set of R56 seats but didn't bother converting the airbag wiring so once that is done I'll have the pleasure of trying to figure out how to get the airbag light off. I haven't decided yet if I'm even going to bother putting the passenger side seat in. I don't see any difference between the R53 and R56 seats. Honestly I'd rather ditch them both for the set my wife picked out for the Corvette. They are much more comfortable and a lot lighter. They look a lot better too. Time will tell. Swapping a connection is a lot cheaper than buying another set of seats lol.
Are these the seats currently in the R53? If so, those look like 1st gen sport seats and not R56 seats. The R56 seats are supposed to be a little more comfortable and sit slightly higher than 1st gen seats. The facelift MINI’s have a passenger occupancy sensor which can trigger an airbag light if the sensor goes bad or is missing. There’s a recall for some facelift 1st gens with a bad occupancy sensor. Maybe the PO installed pre-facelift seats without the sensor?
Are these the seats currently in the R53? If so, those look like 1st gen sport seats and not R56 seats. The R56 seats are supposed to be a little more comfortable and sit slightly higher than 1st gen seats. The facelift MINI’s have a passenger occupancy sensor which can trigger an airbag light if the sensor goes bad or is missing. There’s a recall for some facelift 1st gens with a bad occupancy sensor. Maybe the PO installed pre-facelift seats without the sensor?
Oooo good info. I'll have to look into that. I'm honestly not sure as I'm mostly going off what I was told. I want to say I saw an R56 tag on the bottom of the passenger seat (hasn't been installed yet but came with the car).
I'm gonna run up to the barn and look.
Tag says R52. So 1st gen convertible. Another tag says Sport Sitz, German? It also has no less than 5 plugs on the bottom, drivers seat that was removed has 3. Looks like it will be even more fun than I anticipated lol. Back to the 5 plug thing. I'm guessing heated seat, airbag, occupancy sensor, seat belt sensor, and...???
R52 replacement passenger seat not yet installed
R52 passenger seat
R53(?) Drivers seat that was in the car when PO purchased it
Browsed the R56 seats in a 2004 thread. These are definitely 1st gen seats. Also noticed the black and blue plugs both go to the seat belt. 3 pin heavy wire plug is seat heater, yellow is airbag, and the 5th is seat occupancy sensor. I think I'll go ahead and put the other R52 seat in and check the wiring on the drivers seat also. I know at least 1 plug isn't hooked up atm and I don't remember which one it is. I wanna say it was black though. I can research recalls in the meantime.
Thanks RB-MINI!
And it has begun !
I don't have any r53s any longer but i will still be lurking in the forum checking out build threads..
glad you were able to score your self an S..
imo if I were you , I'd STILL keep your justa. Thst is a cool little justa youve put together and lol wait till you see how fast mpg begins dropping on the r53 once you begin to modify it..
And it has begun !
I don't have any r53s any longer but i will still be lurking in the forum checking out build threads..
glad you were able to score your self an S..
imo if I were you , I'd STILL keep your justa. Thst is a cool little justa youve put together and lol wait till you see how fast mpg begins dropping on the r53 once you begin to modify it..
I already sold the Justa 😔
and the S is about 8 to 10 mpg less on average so far lol. Still WAY better than my truck lol. That thing only gets about 15 mpg. I can live with 30. It's a helluva lot of fun. All the mods I have planned fall into the suspension, brakes, and aero categories. I still want reliability so I don't think I'll mod much else as far as the motor is concerned. A tune may be in order down the road. And I thought long and hard about swapping the header from the old car too but the engine light coming on all the time due to it drove me nuts. Although with a tune it wouldn't be a problem.
I'm working on a front splitter right now. Not sure whats up with the bumper cover but there is a big gap between the back of the bumper cover and the front of the radiator support/ skid plate. I want to fill that gap so I'm building a splitter that extends from the skid plate to maybe 4" - 6" in front of the bumper. Its gonna be a cheap plywood core with a fiberglass overlay. Lots of plans available online and its gotta be cheap. Think somewhat disposable lol. It'll take a beating that low to the ground so gotta be replaceable
I haven't done much other than drive this thing since the first round of upgrades/maintenance. Timing chain tensioner collapsed at 147k miles so I replaced that the other night. Pulled the Sprint Booster off and sold it to a member on NAM. I plan to upgrade injectors and have it tuned eventually but not hanging fire right now.
My wife found her old Land Rover listed for sale on marketplace so we brought that home and are more or less restoring it. Its a bigger job than I'd originally anticipated so it's taking up a lot of space in the shop and even more time lol. Will be cool to have 2 iconic British vehicles in the garage when its done though!
Heres some pics of that project for anyone that may be interested...
Well state inspection is due by end of July so I figured I should probably get around to fixing the airbag light. A coworker with a scan tool advanced enough to deal with the srs system on this car was gracious enough to plug in and tell me what I'm dealing with here. Turns out the female side of the seatbelt (the part bolted to the side of the seat) has 2 harnesses hooked to it. One for the tensioner and one for the buckle sensor. One wasn't plugged in. I knew there was an extra plug hanging down under there but didn't know what specifically it went to.
I ended up simply removing the buckle from the original seat and swapping it for the one on the replacement R52 seat currently installed in the drivers side of the car. Easy fix. I took a bunch of pictures as I went in case anyone else runs into plug differences on same gen seat replacements. The seat belt buckle is held on with 1 T50 torx head bolt. And the seat is bolted to the floor with 4 T40's. My car had 4 plugs under the seat. Yellow is airbag, black with heavy gauge wires is to heated seats, and the other black and blue go to the seat belt. I have a manual seat so I pulled the battery first and just slid the seat back and forth to access the bolts. I had to pull the seat to access the buckle and fish the wires through. There is also a plastic shroud that just pops off that covers where the wires go though the seat frame. Do NOT forget to unhook the battery before messing with anything related to airbags! Best case scenario you'll have a light on the dash to deal with, worst case you'll deploy an airbag! Can't stress that enough!
This shows the clips that hold the little shroud on the seat
R52 buckle on bottom, R53 on top
R53 plug is a little different, and has 4 wires vs 2 on the R52
R52 plugs
T40 bolts, rear of seat
T40 bolts, front of seat
T40 and T50 sockets
The hole with the rubber grommet is where the wires fish through
I figured it was time for an update. Haven't been on here in awhile because I haven't really done much to it other than drive it since August. In August I replaced the timing chain, guides, a bunch of gaskets, and installed a 180° t-stat from a dodge neon. It did in fact throw a code with a srs light for the 180° t-stat. I found a set of JCW injectors. They need to go in sometime soon.
Tonight I installed the M7 strut tower brace that came with the car. PO said he found it on a R52 in a junk yard.
The brakes are starting to show there age. Plan to get something along the lines of cetric geomet solid rotors and EBC or Akebono pads. Also replacing the oem hoses with a stainless lines and Motul 600.
I'm pretty happy with the car in general. Other than injectors and tune I think its pretty balanced overall. It came with Raceland coilovers on it. They ride nice but are extremely noisy. The other thing I really hate about them is the only way to adjust ride height also changes spring preload.
Oh one more thing. My last mini saw about 44k to 45k miles a year and I had a habit of running cheap ebay tires. While they worked just fine on a R50 they don't work so well on this car. Currently researching good tires for a daily.
I had some free time today so I decided to fix something that's annoyed me since I bought this car. The PO plasti-dipped a bunch of random parts on it. Its faded, chipped, and looks like crap. I have a roll of carbon wrap left from another project so I decided to see how hard it is to wrap complex shapes.
This is what I started with:
This was the start of the first headlight ring.
And the finished product
The gas cap was crazy hard. Had my wife help lol. No way it was happening alone, required too much heat.
I decided while I had everything out I'd wrap the spoiler too. Not sure if the PO plasti-dipped that too or if it was just horribly faded.
This carbon vinyl was crazy thick and really hard to work with but I'm ok with how it turned out.
I got a hobo intercooler for Christmas. Install was easier than most people say. I used high pressure fuel line for rubber isolators on the mounting bolts, and trimmed 2 spots on the intake manifold with a dremel for extra clearance. I also had to modify the hood scoop because it blocked the back few rows of the cooler. Looks way better. There might be a little lag in boost at lower rpm but the car doesn't pull timing anymore til it runs out of fuel. Overall I'm pretty happy. I have a sheet of stainless I plan to make a diverter out of. The original intercooler was also full of oily sludge. Gonna have to check the pcv to make sure thats still functional.
Original setup With diverter removed Side x side comparison New intercooler
I made a diverter for my hobo intercooler. Came out great considering I used a bunch of left over crap I found in the shop. I plan to get something a little better for the seal but this works for now. Its a leftover piece of garage door seal glued on with 3M spray adhesive.
Setting up CAD (cardboard aided design)
Cad template
Transferring the template
First design marked out. I ended up changing it quite a bit later.
Final cut
Polishing to a satin finish
Gluing the seal on
And installed on the car. I used pieces of cut up fuel rail for spacers and mounted it to the original points on the intake the the oem diverter was mounted to using the factory hardware.
Do you have a link to that intercooler? I’ve been wanting one but I’ve been hesitant since my brother got one that didn’t line up at all.
I said this intercooler fit well, but....
I used the factory boots with a strip of rubber added to each side to make sure there were no leaks (the same result can be accomplished by grinding a little off the male side of the clamps)
and I ground 2 spots on the intake manifold because the intercooler hits in those 2 spots (see picture)
Also, the mounts are large and don't line up perfectly. I got around this by using a short piece of fuel line as a bushing.
Finally installed the JCW Injectors tonight. I should have done it the same time I put the new intercooler on since it all had to come back off but I do it nice because I do it twice....or something like that.
These injectors are the Bavarian Autosport brand from ECS. They look to be very high quality, every bit as well made as oem. The car fired right up and ran smooth, it actually runs a lot smoother than it has since I bought it.
Install was pretty straight forward. Original 340's were STUCK in the manifold. Had to pull the clips off the fuel rail, remove the fuel rail, then pry the injectors out one at a time with a little pry bar. There was also a lot of crusty stuff built up in the bores which had to be removed before the new injectors would seat. All in all it was an easy enough job. Haven't driven it yet. I'll find out on my way to work tomorrow if I screwed anything up 🤣
Started replacing the brakes tonight. My R50 had insane stopping power which I accomplished with quality pads and rotors, caliper stifners, ss hoses, and a fluid flush with Motul 600. That car weighed in at 2440 pounds with no occupants. So not a ton of weight to slow down. This car weighs a good bit more so in addition to the afore mentioned I'm also installing R56 calipers with 294mm front rotors. I'm not using Ways stifners as I don't think they'll be necessary with the bigger rotors and calipers.
The front brake parts are on order. The rears are installed. Rears were metal on metal and I quit driving it this week until I had time to work on it.
For rotors I'm using PowerStop Evolution rotors and EBC red pads on the rear. Front will get the same rotors and Raybestos Element 3 pads. I got the EBCs on a closeout deal and the Raybestos came highly recommended from a friend. We'll see how they do as I've never used either.
