Hello all!

I recently became the new caretaker of a Hyper Blue 2006 MCS with 40k miles. It appears to have a few mods that I'll need to disclose up front to hopefully help diagnose my issue.

The mods that I can see/easily verify are: DDMWorks Intake, 15% pulley, and Supersprint catback. I haven't put the car up on a lift, so I have not verified the header. Suspension (although no relevant to the issue) is still all labeled Mini so appears to be stock.

The car is extremely clean and looks to have been pretty well cared for, outside of a couple of areas on the bonnet where it looks like someone used a dirty rag to 'clean' and scratched up the clear coat. Already attacked that with good polish and my Porter Cable 7424XP and that's shaping up pretty good.

With all of that said, the car exhibits some seemingly common yo-yo effect at around 3k ... quick stuttering of power from maybe 2800 - 3200, and then perfect above that. I figured I would eventually get around to sorting that out, and it wasn't much of a concern.

Today however, I was making a left hand turn (let's say 3rd gear because I did not need to stop to make the turn) and was aggressive with the throttle after the apex. At what I think was similar rpm's, the car just completely stopped accelerating and had zero power... no CEL, no indication anything was wrong, no weird noises, just absolute bog. I downshifted to 2nd and feathered the throttle a bit, and within a few seconds, the car was back to normal although seemingly not from anything I did.

Fast forward about 7 miles, and I was accelerating onto an onramp and had almost the exact same thing happen.

My first guess is an issue with the bypass valve. Given the other mods, I need to check if the one installed is stock or not. Does the Detroit Tuned one have anything visible from the outside that is different from stock?

My second guess is a fuel starvation issue. I was slightly below a quarter tank when this happened. Any known issues like this? I don't think I've run the car that low before, so I went to the Mobil station and filled up with premium.

Any help would be appreciated. This has been a fun car so far!

Thanks,
Jeff

 

Detroit tuned valve will appear the same, did you perhaps lose traction?

 

Definitely not a loss of traction... with these mods, that's easy to do and I'm familiar with what that feels like on this car. UNLESS somehow there was intervention from a nanny that thought I was crashing and took drastic measures? But most certainly in the second case, all wheels were pointed the same direction (or within a few degrees).

 

If it was nanny intervention, your traction control light will flash. I've got similar mods and with traction control on, it'll cut the fun short pretty hard in first or second. I had a pretty bad loss of power in the same RPM range as you and a new coil pack, plugs, and wires solved my issue.

 

Yea the DCS light or traction light would have popped up very quickly. If its not the BPV , you can check the coil pack for corrosion on the terminals. The terminals can corrode and cause some issues. When was the last time the coils and plugs were done.

 

I had the exact same issue, it was my fuel pump. every couple of minutes, it would act as if it died, no cels, all other electricals stayed on, after a few peddle presses later, it would kick back on like no problem.

 

Since the car only has 40k miles, I assume the plugs, wires, and coilpack are original. Under the hood, everything is extremely clean with no visible corrosion anywhere. I was planning to do plugs and wires anyway, so I guess I'll add in the coil pack for good measure.

I'll have to look up the DIY on the fuel pump. Without research, I'm hoping it's not one that is in the tank....

-Jeff

 

its under the back seat, on the driver side access hole. extremely easy to get to. all together with gathering tools, and putting tools away I think I did the fuel pump and the fuel filter in about an hour.

 

you also might want to look into the recalls, I think the 05-06 mcs had a high pressure fuel pump (hpfp) and they had issues.

 

no hpfp on the r53 as far as I know.

 

Right, no HPFP on the R53. Sounds like the fuel pump replacement is straightforward. I did the sparkplugs and wires last night which had no effect on the yo yo at 2800-3200, however I have not had a recurrence of the complete loss of power for multiple seconds yet.

If it happens again, I'm leaning more towards the fuel pump rather than the coil pack....

-Jeff

 

Here is the fuel Pump : 16146765121 It comes with the pump in-cased in a module housing and neck, also includes the one side fuel level sensor. ( Two level sensors in the tank. )

https://www.ecstuning.com/Search/SiteSearch/16146765121/

 

So it's been a number of days since the last time I had the complete power loss issue. Today however, I took a 90 degree left turn at a good clip and lost power, and reflecting back to both other times this happened, it was immediately after a left turn. Does this sound like a failing fuel pump? Or something w/ the fuel pick up?

I guess I should at a minimum take the pump out and look at it....

-Jeff

 

I would take it out and see if there is dirt or something in the pickup. Has the pump been changed or wires messed with.