I have an 05 mini cooper stock with all the nifty upgrades. I am now thinking its time to get some more out of my car and wondering what would be some nice starter upgrades for my car, intake, supercharger, exhaust, piping etc.

 

Cold air intake (CAI), rear swaybar, pulley. The CAI and swaybar don't have side effects that might require further stuff so are more cost effective. If you change your pulley to a smaller one, you should also consider a shorter accessory belt and colder temp spark plugs. If you want still more power after that, you should consider a catback exhaust, and a custom ECU tune. Once you've added more power, you need to consider stronger brakes and suspension. It doesn't end. Limiting factor would be driver skill and the size of your wallet.

Better yet, the first mod should be a highperformance driving course. A good driver with no upgrades would do better and go faster than a bad or mediocre driver with all the upgrades.

Good luck and welcome to NAM and MINI ownership. Happy motoring!

 

^^agreed^^

Although I wouldn't consider the pulley such a gateway drug to the other mods you listed thereafter. I have plenty of customers that just say no after the pulley. BTW, I've never seen any benefit whatsoever from colder plugs on just a pulleyed car, whether it be on the dyno, track, or street. No power gains, and no measurable change in knock activity.

 

Thanks for your input. I originally didn't want to install the colder plugs but after installing the pulley, I noted that at idle, the engine vibrated more. The cooler temp plugs smoothed out the engine at idle. I don't really detect the cooler temp plugs affecting engine performance much. But the smoother engine at low revs is beneficial for me as my daily drive doesn't generally doesn't allow me to rev up too high.