hey guyz just joined the forum. now my dad is a bmw machanic but he specailizes in mini coopers, so he recently bought me a 2003 mini cooper s r53. it have 110 thousand miles on it and it needs a lil work but not much. i am a honda fan cause im only 16 and there realalistic for me. but i really love minis but i really want to mod my mini up and have fun with it. what mods do u guys think i should start with to get some more ponnies? and i would start with suspension but i only make 7.25 an hour and i work 40 hrs a week and suspension is so expensive. what r u guyz views on alta stuff, or are there better brands? where should i start? and insurence is gonna kill me! but i just want to make a plan so i can start saving up and stuff so what do u guys think

 

Start with IMO the rear sway bar, front sway bar bushing and lower control arm bushings. These are cheap suspension mods that make a big difference in handling.Then you can do the CAI., Pulley and one ball exhaust mod. These are the things I would do 1st IMO. Good luck and Welcome aboard.

 

thanx. what kinda pulley will give me the most power

 

Best all around for the street again IMO is the 17% and 15% if you are going to autoX your MINI. The 19% has caused some issues on members MINI's and some would say you need to tune and to run bigger injectors to work the best with the 19%. You could do a search and see all the results for all 3 pulleys. I use the 15% and sometimes wish I had done the 17% since I dont autoX, but I am very happy with what I have.

 

At 110k miles, start by doing all the repairs and all the maint. that it requires first. Modding the car immediately will just make small potential maint. issues worse.

After that, as stated above, if you don't want to start with any suspension work (A rear sway bar does make a huge difference) and you want to go with a little extra juice, call Waymotorworks and just order his 17% pulley kit. It will come with everything you need to install an this will really wake the motor up, it's probably the best bang for buck power mod.

Alta stuff gets mixed reviews, some like, some hate, but the Way kit is cheaper and bundled perfectly, I run a 16% on mine with an ATI super damper crank pulley and I love it. After the pulley, then you can look into the other basics, like intake, headers, exhaust, etc.

But again, do all maint. first, like Bram stated, check your front control arm bushings because they're probably shot if they are the originals.