Hi all,

I was seeking opinion to get a few more ponies from '02 my mini S.

It is strictly a track car, and I recently flogged it at Watkins Glen for 2 days with no incident. i was doing HDPE with it, and on the back straight I was yearning for more MPH. Best I could muster was 115 before the "bus stop"

CURRENT MODS ARE:
complete welded roll cage / no interior / no airbags / recaro seats with 5 point Schroth harnesses, 15% supercharger pulley, rear sway bar, Shark injector tune, lightweight wheels, exhaust no muffler but has factory CAT converter, new valve sproings that spring better.

Car sticks pretty good, I lightened it as much as possible, looking for more.... motor has 84K on it, manual trans, good leak down test, runs really solid for its age. need_more_speed!

thanks for your thoughts.
here is the flog:

 

Nice run, a cam and a ported/polished head such as RMW or Thumper along with a custom tune might do it for you. I think you could prob. do better than the shark tune kinda just my opinion but I know a lot of folks on here feel the same.

 

yes a really big cam! P&P head, a header(do you drive it on the street? if no, get rid of the cat), get a smaller pulley and bigger IC a lot of people say a 19% is not good for racing because the amount of heat it makes, but i wonder what it would be like if you have a big IC. water to air IC? would a GP be big enough? if not water/meth injection. and a tune.

 

Get a tune...
The "shark" is pretty dangerous....
Just a timing advance.... Lots of folks have burnt valves, etc...
The custom will get you more hp and tq...about 200 or so with same mods...

 

Add 17% SCP.
380 injectors or better.
When you can, swap out the 02' supercharger for a new reman or one from a low mileage 05/06, the splines have a coating and equates to almost 1lb more boost.
Replace your OEM Crank Pulley with one from an 05/06 or a Superdamper. It's lighter.
High flow Cat ( if you need to have one on a track car )
Alta Intake or similar with foam style filter
Lower suspension
GP under panels - evac the built up air pressure from under the car aided by removing rear decorative bumper vents on either side of the back up light.
Lighter wheels.
Small Racing battery. Weight loss = HP.

 

Shark is the perfect name for these ....it's a Loan Shark who you end up with after using one....

 

good stuff - thanks.
this aint no street car. It only sees track use, so maybe a converter toss is in the mix. i might fab a header because the cost of one is ridiculous.

the head is like $2300 + cam for what - 50 HP? YUCK! thats really steep cash for a 'lil more HP. $800 for a header?!? YIKES!! What this says to me is that that little motor is putting out pretty close to what it can, If I venture further out it might pop from the abuse.

I'm gunna toss the shark and get a real tune, I'm just trying not to go broke on a 1.6L motor.

$2500 on a small block chevy would permit me to yank the front wheels off the ground -+almost+

thanks for the good word guys.

 

If you have a good working cat you aren't going to see a noticable HP increase. Also if you remove the cat be prepared as your car will get extremely loud and if you run at tracks with noise restrictions be aware.
My track car has a cat and last time they caught me at 104 db and I was taking it easy to try and get by.

As for changing the supercharger to a new style, if yours is good that would be a huge waste of $$, even Eaton says the difference in the blowers from early to late is insignificant.

GP Intercooler will really help has your intake temps are through the roof.

As for the crank pulley. Yes an ATI damper will be lighter and help your engine run better. But the bigger reason to do it is for reliability. The stock crank pulleys fail all the time, switching to an ATI damper could save you from a track day ending early.

LSD, That will be the biggest gain for the track and get you out the corner faster.

 

Yes to the ATI damper, as far as header, you could do a Megan for less than $200 check on Ebay. I think the stock header is just a bottleneck. If you are going to skip a head at least consider a better cam there are several you can drop in without a tune but that will work much better with a tune.

 

Coating on SC splines, and updated crank pulley alone is how MINI squeeked out another 12 HP gains when they advertised their 05/06 models. As far as the 05/06 crank pulley being crapola, I just replaced the one in mine which I put over 100,000 miles on, and it had 20,000 miles on it when I bought it from a guy in NAM Market place. It wasn't replace due to failure, it was still functioning aok. Just replaced since it is my daily driver and reading all the fear factor stuff here about them.....felt it may be good idea.

As far as a waste of money goes with the SC, he has a 2002. Undoubtedly in need of having supercharger service/water pump at this point. IMO a good time to just swap them out, have the older one serviced and in "stand by" since IT is purportedly a dedicated track car.....You can spend your down time fixing/waiting on parts for your MINI, or running the track on weekends, your choice.

 

I have an 02 R53 as well that I use for the track, but it is still street legal. I've driven at WGI multiple times so I know exactly what you are talking about. My top speed on the back straight is around 118-120. I think your best bang for the buck would be a LSD and lightweight wheels. I assume you are running slicks. Have you upgraded the suspension beyond the rear sway bar? I found changing out the shocks to KONI FSDs transformed the car. I haven't dynoed it, but the previous owner did and it produced around 230 hp before I bought it. My engine has 40k on it at this point. Do you ever run Lime Rock?

 

Sorry but that is NOT True.
02-04 MINI S was 163 HP, and 05-06 was 168HP so the difference from MINI was only 5hp. The coating is suppose to be more efficient. But like I said I talked to the engineer at Eaton in person and he said it would be less than 4hp gain. And the newer coating is actually more prone to coming off. The claims in power I think are more so in marketing from MINI as the cars have shown the same dyno numbers stock of either year. But the ECU tune in them is also different which could account for a power gain.
It is true that over time with wear the superchargers will loose a little boost, but this is true with all them.
As for crank pulleys I wouldn't bother going to an 05-06 crank pulley. They are more prone to failure over the 02-04 style. I'd say that 80% of the failed crank pulleys I've replaced have been the newer 05-06 style. And I average replacing 2 a week here in the shop.
My opinion is if you have an 05-06 style crank pulley it's not a matter of if it will fail, just when will it fail. And at the track that is going to come sooner.

 

Nice run, love that track.

 

I must say, I'm a bit confused. You post a thread about having a track car and ask what you can do to make it faster. You've lightened it, put in a roll cage, etc., so it sounds like your serious, but then you scoff at an additional 50 hp?? 50 hp increase is HUGE on these cars!

Well, yes, HP doesn't come cheap on a small motor, and the higher you get, the more it costs to make reliable power. Now, you get something like an RMW head, RMW race cam and header and RMW tune, and probably some meth for the track, you'll probably be pushing 300 hp at the crank, which it will handle reliably. Much more than that and you'll need upgraded bottom end, and it will cost. But you will be damn fast!

Oh, and lose the shark tune as fast as you can!

 

he says "50 HP? YUCK" but it's really more than that. Head, cam, injectors, header and tune should take him from ~200 at the crank stock to 250 or more at the wheels. At least if he spends his money in the right place. I'm still breaking in my clutch so just on a canned tune, not customized for mine yet, but it's already a HELL of an improvement over the stock JCW motor that I used to have.

 

I'm sure you guys know more about this than I do, -but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents anyway.

Wouldn't a cam do more than just add horsepower, like focus the usable power into an RPM range that gets utilized more at the track?

I realize that's a disadvantage on a street car....

 

it all depends on cam profile but yes a cam will add more hp and it will also shift the powerband. all depending on the profile though

and a cam wont necessarily mess up street driving ether, if you have a very aggresive cam that move all the power to the higher rpms than yes its going to be a pita to drive on the street.

 

Way is correct, the actual whp gain between the 2 was nowhere near what the factory bhp claims were.

IMO, for a track only car:
Suspension:
LSD
Coilovers
Adj. Camber Plates
This way you can hold & carry as much speed through & out of the corners as possible.
Engine:
GPIC
Header (lesser priced one will do)
Cam ( drive it w/o & figure out where you want your power)
380cc injectors or larger
Custom Tune
Honestly on a track only car you really should get all of this other stuff dialed in first, then if you're still not happy, think about a Head.

 

What about a diverter valve?

When I purchased my 03, the stock valve was garbage and wouldn't build any boost hardly. I swapped a DT valve in and the gains were incredible.