I recently came into a 2002 Mini Cooper from a friend for very cheap. I now want to do something drastic to it. I want to create the fastest non-S Mini. Any Ideas on what I Should do? I have money to play around with since I sold my Civic Si. 14k to be exact.
Thanks

 

intake, exhaust, head... ECU... header maybe... you might get some really good power... but then the tranny has to handle it.... etc...

 

not drastic and it wont be me that much hp. I have all those modds on my 04 and its only at 130hp.

 

This is not original, but throw a "S" motor under the bonnet and drive a "S" Killer :-) You can get away with not needing the bonnet scope if you use the Mini-Madness Water-to-Air IC.....I've put my hand on it right after a stage 4 MCS went around the track hard for 30 minutes and it was fairly cool to the touch. Thus you can go "S" without people knowing it and it will handle it!
Just my 2 cents

 

So my idea's would turn it into an "S" which you don't want....Sorry, what else.......Nitros & a Turbo?

 

hmm maybe. Where could I get a "S" engine?

 

Check salvage yards on the internet. Yeah, $14K, Lucky! I'm just hoping to up the ECU soon.

 

Well you can dump thousands and thousands of dollars into it and probably never be as fast as a stock Cooper S, or you could trade it in for and S and start out with the extra hp. I know that this isnt what you want to do as I went through the same ordeal, but after spending thousands for maybe 10hp on the non-S, I finally realized that the same amount of mod-money on the S will get you 4 time the additional hp, so I traded up for not much more. You'll be way happier, trust me.

The only other direction you could go is turbo/nitrous.

...and I hate when people give answers like I just gave but I feel I had to as I learned the hard way.

 

I like the Idea of Turbo, but I would need to do a lot to the engine, right?

 

It has been quite a while since I've chatted w/ you Minitor. How is your MCS doing?
(ie. psmini)

 

It would be alot of work and money that would not be as reliable and would not add any resale value but possibly diminish it.

 

Uh oh...thread hijack! My MINI and myself are both great and loving the warmer weather here in Austin. Plus MINITOR is happy to live in a garage now where the birds cant poop on him. And he is a celebrity now thanks to MC2. Is it wrong to speak of one's MINI with gender as if it is a person?

 

You already have a high flow head?

I think the S has a different crank the Cooper, maybe some other bottom end stuff. I'd get all of that, a cam, and individualt throttle bodies. If you don't have headwork, I'd get that done too. That will consume the better part of $10k, but it'd be a pretty mean cooper.

 

+ a new lightweight flywheel and camshaft, check Mossmini, Minimania, M7,.... all have got good products, if u have 14 K to spend just go to the dealer and tell him what u want, he should make u a very good price for it....

u should have all of this stuff for around 2000 to 3000 euro or dollars

 

So basically it sounds like you have 3 options to get big power after the above mentioned by Tuls.

1. Supercharged
2. Turbo
3. NOS

 

what I would do with 14k.

cai
wiring
ecu
headers
catless exhast 3"
intake manifold
ported head
forged pistons rods
turbo
intercooler
new tranny
and brakes to handle it

in that order

and nos!

 

Massive HP and Non-S in the same sentence is a joke. You can't do it with out spending 15k+. And I'm not just some snobby MCS owner trying to put you down. I am a Cooper owner who has been modding his cooper for over 4 years. No matter how much cash you put in, you wont get over 135 hp without a new tranny and a turbo.

At this point i even doubt you are at 130. I know someone who had the exact same mods and pulled a 110 on the dyno. 130 would be a huge stretch....30 hp from those mods is a dream. Do realize that although they say 115 stock....most stock coopers pull sub-100 dynos stock.

The one way to be faster than an MCS is to invest in Coilovers, camber plates, rear control arms, and a nice rear sway. With those mods combined with the mods you have....you will easily turn FAR faster times at the autocross track than most MCS's (atleast once you learn to competitively drive if you dont know already). I have those suspension mods + intake, exhaust, ECU, plug wires and many times i have finished above many stock MCS's and come in a second or two behind pullied MCS's with little suspension work done.

Check out the justacooper thread....there is more than one way to be faster than the MCS. And it doesnt involve ungraspable HP numbers.

 

Strip down the engine to bare case.

Build the hell out of it. (light weight bullet forged knife edge counter weighted crank shaft, balanced chromoly race rods, ARP rod bolts, change pistons)

Put in a HUGE cam, (custom grind) something alot more than a shrick.

Alot of head work

Large injectors

Stand alone, custom tunned ECU.

Independent throttle bodies.

A big bottle of "go juice" in the back (NOS, 250-shot! )

lighten the flywheel, heavy duity clutch, high strength axles and cages.

LSD

header/no cat/custom exhaust

15x10.5 rims with some fat hoosier street ET's

Edit: Or buy a old VW bug, cheaper and can be made to go crazy fast!

 

 

Well Ranzo, we seem to think alot alike.

 

And yes, you will need an uprated transmission... you can find one here...

http://www.minimaniauk.com/web/Item/.../InvDetail.cfm

 

The MCS engine has the benefit of having forged rods and pistons and a decompressed 8:1 ratio (over MC 10:1) I've seen the engine for sale at yards for $3k. You'd dump way more than that in the MC motor to bring it up to that level.

We've seen the twin kits pull 19lbs of boost. With the correct application of parts, you could build a single turbo that produces 300-400hp at the same 19lbs.

Then you need the S tranny, not really a big deal if you have the S motor, plus not bad tranny to worry about. Remeber, Fireballed! is still running stock LSD and tranny @ 500+hp. Have no idea on price, probably another $3k.

Factor in atleast $3k for the turbo and support items. Tally comes to $9k, which gives you much room.

Something else to consider, "theres no replacement for displacement." A dodge 2.0 is so extremely similar, I'm suprised more swaps haven't been done. There might even be room for a turbo in there too.

 

$14k? Swap in something entirely not MINI for the engine. I'm not sure what, but that seems like it might be enough cash, and probably the easiest way to get "massive HP".

SRT-4 engine? Sure, it "doesn't fit", but neither does the M3 engine, and someone has done that already for a race car.

 

anything can fit if you cut/weld and bang on it enough.

 

This sounds cool. You could trade the non-S for an S, but you want a fast non-S. The exterior of the blocks on both cars are essentially the same, so start there. Put on a better head, say a Cosworth or similar, then port-match the intake to the head. I would leave the stock cam(The turbo will probably work better with the non-S cam than the S or a custom cam, otherwise you'll spend tons of $ experimenting with custom grinds). Reinforce the bottom-end with better pistons and rods, you could even use stock S guts to meet a price point. Put in a Cooper S Transmission and ECU(since it's already designed for a boosted situation), and get the ECU dyno tuned. Bolt-up an off-the-shelf turbo manifold(again, port-matched to the head), and get a front mount fitted, possibly using a modified aftermarket bumper. Don't forget the LSD! I would think doing most of this yourself, and shopping carefully, you could do all of the above and still have money for suspension, tires, and brakes to handle the new monster . Happy hunting!