You'd think with cars like this today they'd come with wheels the aftermarket could embrace more. Wheel shape can mean everything from a ton of clearance to none of clearance. And all have the same 'spec' to them.

 

You'd think so right. Luckily, we have experts such as yourself to turn to. The FSL kits you put together look like serious track worthy beasts that will still be street friendly just by swapping pads..

 

Vlad has been enjoying his new shoes about a week now. Gotta say I'm pretty impressed so far with the Yokahama Advan. Nice quick response to input, lots a stick, the ride is nice, they don't rub and they're quiet. Checks all my boxes I was hoping to check. Here's a few pics of the new rims and tires. Good news on the BBK front is I still have some more room to play with. Will see what happens when I get the 5mm spacers this week.

 

Looks great!

 

Thanks. They turned out better all around than I thought they would. I think I could have gone with a nine inch rim with these 245's and still been fine but rubbing on the lip is a deal breaker for me. Whats the sense in having a wider tire if you can't push it hard without interference.

 

I definitely agree!

I could be wrong, but the 8.5" can support up to 255 tires?
I doubt, well I know, I would never need that... but I want to test that fitment one day. As long as it functions properly.

 

For a 255 the recommended wheel width is 8.5 to 10 inches, while a 245 recommended wheel would be 8 to 9.5. Section width of the tire is where you have to be careful. If you stay within an inch or inch and a quarter of the wheel width you should be fine. Too much pinch or stretch and contact patch or sidewall flex, etc can get all cattywampus.

Since most 255's have a section width of 10.2" to 10.4" I personally wouldn't go smaller than a 9" wide wheel. The tire height is also up around the 25" range even with a 40 profile. Starts to make for a tight squeeze even with these flares. No doubt a persevering soul could get them in.

But they don't call'em Mini's for nothing brother

 

Small update. Brandon and the team at ECS pulled out the stops, called in some favors and/or sent a bottle to someone at Schrick as the 10.7mm cams came in over a month early. Wohoo thanks guys. Unfortunately, that means I'm now over a month behind on getting the head ready

Just in case anybody else is considering these cams in the future, Schrick has updated the part numbers of the 10.7mm/248° cams. Its now 0483E1481-03 for the intake and 0483A1481-03 for the exhaust. The older catalogs list them as -01 instead of -03.

Also had a chance to put the Yokohamas through some more abuse now that they are broken in. Gotta say I am very very impressed by these tires. Response is great, ride is excellent, they're quiet and while not as sticky as an R compound they grip extremely for a 280 wear rating. In addition I've never had a high performance summer tire do so incredibly well with standing water. No hydroplaning, no pulling to one side and no bogging down. I'm just flat amazed at their performance all around. So if you're on the fence about the Advan V601 go ahead and pull the trigger. Next time Vlad needs new shoes he's getting a fresh pair of these.

 

Nice! Next set of tires I'll have to try those out.

What is the benefit of installing those cams? As opposed to staying with stock? Or a different aftermarket version?

 

Whew. You don't like asking simple questions do you

There's been entire books written on the subject, so I'll try and keep this short. Hmm... where do I start?

It really all comes down to your goals and design philosophy. Stock valve lift is 9.0 mm and duration is 239°. Great for a smooth. yet peppy and responsive street vehicle combined with a small responsive turbo. Add some bolt on's with a tune, and a Mini becomes the ultimate point and squirt weapon. Darting around like a shark in a pod of whales. For the N18 and F56 we can increase valve lift via the valvetronic maps to 9.9 mm. More lift equals more flow. This results in higher cylinder pressure, therefore more torque and horsepower without moving peak torque much. What we can't do is alter the duration of the camshaft via tuning. Moving the powerband left or right is a function of the cams duration. I'm simplifying here and ignoring other aspects of a build that can also have a similar effect nor addressing the effect of vanos tuning.

These limitations are why I specifically looked for an N14 when I went shopping for a JCW Coupe. So obviously a lift of over 10mm would be one of my requirements. That helped narrow the choices to either the Schrick 10.7mm, 248° cam set or the Cat Cams race cam which has an 11.5mm, 269° intake cam and a 10mm, 254° cam. Both are companies with a reputation for excellent products but very divergent ideas when it comes to designing a cam set for the Mini. Schrick cams have the same lift and duration on inlet and exhaust cams. Whereas Cat Cams offers dual pattern cams where the intake cam has both a higher lift and longer duration then the exhaust cam. In general terms a longer duration camshaft will tend to shift peak torque to a higher rpm. Another generality is that high lift short duration cams tend to retain their mid range power while still improving top end power. So its a balancing act.

Have you ever noticed that intake valves are always a larger diameter than exhaust valves? The reason is simple in that the exhaust gases are actively being forced out of the cylinder by the piston on the exhaust stroke therefore a smaller valve can be used. This allows a larger inlet valve to be used in the same size combustion chamber. A very good thing as the only thing pushing air into the engine when NA is atmospheric pressure. Boosted applications are a little different. On the exhaust stroke the piston is not only pushing the exhaust gasses against atmospheric pressure but also against the back pressure induced by the turbo charger. In fact the exhaust back pressure is often much higher than the boost pressure on the intake side. The efficiency of the turbine wheel in relation to the compressor can reduce this ratio considerably. The reduction in back pressure though tends to come at the expense of spool. Aaand I'm getting off track (knew I would dang it). Back to cams.

With that basic understanding, the flow of the head already has a built in design to optimize the ratio of intake to exhaust flow. Porting and valve changes certainly have an effect but dual pattern cams with higher inlet than exhaust lift tend to produce great torque but fall off at higher RPM. To offset this longer duration is also incorporated. This type of pattern started becoming popular in the early 2000's as I recall but it has its downsides as well. You don't need as much lift or duration in a turbo charged application as you do in a normally aspirated motor. Longer durations also tend to increase the amount of valve overlap, the time when the exhaust valve hasn't fully closed and the intake valve is opening. At lower rpm when the airflow is lazy this tends to increase exhaust gas reversion which is when the exhaust pressure still in the cylinder pushes exhaust gas into the inlet tract as the inlet valve opens. This is the single biggest cause of carbon accumulation on the N14. Really high lift numbers also place greater strain on the valve train, increase the chance of valve float at high rpm and increase the torque load on the timing chain.

My final reasoning for choosing the Schrick is well... I'm old school and tend to like concepts that have been tried and tested to work well over time. Which is the way I want this engine to perform. If it makes 400 horse great, 500 even better but I don't want to be having to pull it apart every couple of years because it burnt a valve, busted a spring or broke a timing chain.

Kinda like to enjoy it as long as possible or until the wife figures out what it cost. Whichever comes first

 

Wow, that's an awesome response. I super appreciate that! That seriously helped me to understand a lot more about cams. I've read about cams here and there, but the way you put it was very simple to understand.

Now I'm almost to the point where I want to get those cams! Would those work in the N18?


Your build has to be one of the best I've ever seen for a MINI. And that fact that you can do it all yourself is just amazing. When my car grows up, it wants to be just like your car.

 

Holy thread revival Batman! Had a couple of people ask if I'm still tinkering with Vlad and has there been much progress. Which made me realize I was being a lazy twit before Covid sidetracked the world. Then other projects, remote tuning and my job in aviation really started sucking up all my time. To those that were left wondering my sincere apologies. I'll start bringing this up to speed. Hmm... where to start? I guess I'll start with the Reyland AP Racing big brake upgrade. This includes a 300mm rear disc that uses the factory brake and a CP4440 front brake with 330mm discs.

So before upgrading the brakes I figured why not replace the front and rear bearings at the same time. I went with NSK for the fronts and NTN for the rears. Had to order new studs as well since the old ones wouldn't budge.


Then it was on to the rear brakes.



Since the emergency brake cables have to be re-positioned you can expect to have to re-adjust your parking brake when performing this mod.


The rears have about an inch of clearance. Next up for the fronts I decided to install the GP2 heatshields to go along with the larger discs.



Pagid discs with Reyland floating bells for the front.


The kit comes with Pagid racing pads as well which are amazing when hot but scream like a banshee till they come up to temp. For street use I replaced these with Hawk HPS pads.



Clearance is still pretty good at 6mm.



That's it for now. I still need to cover the new meth system, audio upgrades, race seats along with other interior updates, gauge upgrades, new shifter, electrical upgrades then progress on the engine build, new clutch and turbo Vlad will be getting.
Happy Motoring

 

Outstanding.
You always have a reason for your choices. What led you to AP over the JCW kit or some of the other BBK?
Also, would the audio include a new head unit? I have not yet found a satisfactory replacement that includes wireless Carplay + upgraded mic for calls and rear camera input.

 

Those brakes look amazing, and those rear rotors are HUGE! Lots of stops can now be had

 

Since Vlad came with the JCW Brembo's the only factory upgrade was the GP2 brakes. Those are outstanding brakes and I had even gone as far as getting the GP2 clutch pedal actuator. But I kept looking as I wanted an equivalent or better level of braking but with better heat tolerance that would also reduce unsprung weight. I had finally settled on the Reyland kit out of the UK but Reyland couldn't sell direct to the US. Luckily, Orranje can sell to the US and they are a distributor for Reyland. Since it's AP there's a ton of pad choices and with the CP9440's castellated stainless pistons plus the thickness of the pad, the heat resistance is outstanding. Performed several high speed stops in a row with zero fade. The only minor thing of note is that being floating discs on the front you will get some low speed clicking sometimes or slight bump noise when going from reverse to forward. It's pretty minor though. When I pulled the original brakes off of Vlad I rebuilt them and installed them on Heinrich my 2013 S with EBC USR front and rear disc that I was using as a daily driver. Once spoiled on better brakes in the Mini I just couldn't deal with the stock brakes on the S. Here's a better pic of the pistons in the CP9440 brakes.



I looked at a ton of head units but really couldn't find one I was crazy about so I figured why not upgrade the speakers now and worry about the rest later. What I really wanted to do was order the Integral Audio system as lets face it, that system sets the bar for quality audio and clarity with a nice bit of thump. It's not an inexpensive system though so it came down to choosing between a billet intake or Integral Audio and well... Integral lost out. Plus I hadn't finished designing the new meth tank/pump mounting system and wasn't keen on having to cut the integral box to make it fit. So the search continued and I decided to try the BavSound upgrade speakers for the Mini while upgrading the 6.5" drivers. Here's the mid's that come with the BavSound. Pretty large difference in the size of the driver and I do like the high's the silk tweeters produce with the HK system.


I ended up choosing 2 Ohm CDTAudio CL-62 for the 6.5" drivers. The BavSound bolted straight in but CL-62's required fitting to the door and changing the connectors.


All in all I'm pretty happy with it. It sounds pretty good as long as I'm not mashing the go pedal too hard.

 

I’m interested in your woofer choice there…. My drivers side woofer has been making some nasty noises, which leads me to believe the speaker is giving up on life. I’d like to replace it with something better, but having the HK sound system in the car, not sure what to go with.

 

The pdf attached gives you basic specs on the HK in the Coupe but the door and pillar speakers are the same in the Clubby. Technically a 6" driver would be closest in size to the original but I figured. Hey, while I'm in here I might as well.... and we all know where that leads.

The most important consideration is the resistance of the speaker. To work properly with the HK system amp they need to 2 Ohm units. If you install 4 Ohm you will loose a lot of output. I like the CL's compared to original. They generate more base but that's just an adjustment away.

 

Deleted.

 

Since I touched on sound level when mashing the go fast pedal I should probably mention something that I wasn't very happy about when I noticed it but that turned out good in the end. As noted previously Vlad is running a custom 3" exhaust. Took me a couple of iterations to get the sound close to where I wanted, and I ended up with an 18"x5"x9" Thermal R&D back box with 3" inlet and dual 2.5" outlets as well a 5"x14" resonator up front.



The old system could hit 105 db inside the car with the windows up, and that's with Dynamat installed. I wanted to tone it down further and based on clips I'd heard on-line I decided to switch to a Scorpion non-resonated 70mm exhaust. Once it arrived I pulled the old exhaust off and installed the shiny new Scorpion system. I'll admit I was in a rush but the system appeared to be of high quality and well put together. The packaging was also excellent and protected the product quite well. Installation was straight forward and I happily jumped in for a spin. The new system was definitely an improvement. It had a beautiful deep sound very similar to my old system just without the ear splitting roar at WOT. I didn't take any pictures when I first installed it. The photos below are of when I removed it.




Around this time I had purchased a 2013 BRG Cooper S with 30k miles that I named Heinrich for a daily driver. I had forgotten how the standard S brakes feel and proceeded to swap the Brembos and rear calipers to Heinrich after I had removed them from Vlad and rebuilt them. I also had to do something about the anemic factory exhaust. Hmm... What to do? What to do? Then came the light bulb moment. Aha, lets play musical exhaust. So the Scorpion comes off of Vlad and the custom exhaust goes back on. Then the factory exhaust comes off Heinrich and I'm about to install the Scorpion exhaust when something stops me in my tracks.
Note that the following pictures are not of the Mini Challenge system.




Note the reduction in inner diameter above. The standard 70mm exhaust is not 70mm all the way through as I had blindly assumed.



Don't let the perspective of the picture above throw you off. The inner diameter narrows down to about 55mm not the 35mm that it appears. Nonetheless, I was a bit miffed upon becoming aware of this at first. However, Heinrich was never intended for big power. His purpose in life was to plaster a smile all over my face while zipping around town or traveling back and forth to work. I managed to go three whole days after buying him before the I installed the Stage 1 (I was rather proud of myself for holding out that long). Eventually, he ended up being sold and the current daily is a forged F56 with Garrett but that's a tail for another thread.

So in summary, while the regular Scorpion exhaust may not be 70mm all the way through, don't let that put you off if looking for a beautiful sounding exhaust. I'm no sound engineer but perhaps the reduced diameter may serve to help create a resonance chamber out of the main pipe that allows for that deep aggressive sound without it being so loud that every law enforcement officer in a two mile radius start looking for you every time you give it a good squeeze.

 

For as much as that system costs, those welds look terrible. Glad it sounds good, but I might have been disappointed after receiving that.

 

Love my scorpion challenge exhaust.

 

Yeah. When i saw what was going on in the back box I was pretty livid and NOT a very pleasant person to be around. If your going to advertise an exhaust as 70mm then make it 70mm, not 70mm going into 52 or 55mm. Had I not had another use for it I would have raised hell over it. Luckily I did though and the new owner of Heinrich is loving it.

With the difference in sound I'd be very surprised if the Challenge exhaust isn't 70mm all the way through. Running catless it's a bit too randy for me but add an Akrapovic or similar high flow cat to tone it down some and it would probably be right up my alley.

 

Yes, i would have to measure actual on my challenge exhaust, vs just the tip section which is what most places measure. They dont measure the inside opening. Now on the main pipe sometimes they will tell you 3" , 2.25" etc. I know my exhaust is loud and aggressive.

 

Couple of short updates. Wanted to clean up the electrical system. As I've added systems over time the underside of the dash had started to look a bit like a rats nest. Since there will be additional systems being installed later I figured a separate fuse box was in order. Currently the relays trigger off of terminal 15 but I may add some separate switches for some of them later. The biggest challenge was figuring out where I could squirrel away an extra fuse box in the Coupes engine bay.

This is the Bussmann relay and fuse panel I chose and the bracket I made to mount it once I had found a spot.


New home for the fuse box.


All buttoned up.



Another minor update was related to the gauges. I decided to install a frog gauge set. Since Vlad's microphone is installed in the cover for the steering column it had to be relocated from the top cover to the side.


Initial install but not connected yet.



Since these are 60mm gauges I chose dual function gauges. The gauge on the right displays boost and water temp, while the gauge on the left display oil temperature and oil pressure.



The Aquamist gauge was relocated to the drivers side vent and I'm waiting on a CF panel from RSI c6 so I can relocate the boost controller and wideband/ethanol gauge to the center console.

 

One of the reasons this has been such a slow burn project is I have way too many "squirrel" moments. I mentioned Heinrich the 2013 S I bought to daily. Picked him up with 30k miles on the clock in bone stock condition. I really did plan to mostly keep him that way but.... well you know. Squirrel > and off I go.



This is him when I sold him recently. OCZ HLT4 powder coated Porsche silver, Swift lowering springs, JCW brakes w/stainless brake lines, EBC yellow pads with EBC USR rotors, Recaro seats and scorpion exhaust.




Sold him to pick up Ollie a garage kept 2014 F56 S with 20k miles that belonged to a client of mine. Ollie will get his own build thread though.