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Would you recommend the motor mounts you have over the OEM, not considering their longevity?
Well, you mentionned that you want to keep that quiet and smooth idle, so you might not want poly engine mounts. At idle, my steering wheel vibrate, along with my boost gauge.
Well, you mentionned that you want to keep that quiet and smooth idle, so you might not want poly engine mounts. At idle, my steering wheel vibrate, along with my boost gauge.
Gotcha, I'll stick with OEM then probably. Poly LCA bushings sound like a no-brainer though.
I'm still here! Not much to report with the MINI, but I did give her a little detail yesterday. No money to do any modifications at the moment, but I don't anticipate that being the case for too much longer.
I've not had the MINI the past month; my dad needed his brother-in-law's truck to pick up some lumber. I drove the truck when we weren't getting lumber. Very different animal from the MINI, but still fun! It was a '99 Ford F-250 Super Duty, the 7.3L turbodiesel model in 6-speed manual.
Getting back to the MINI is great! Looking forward to getting the basic mods started soon.
Back again with some more thoughts on modifications. I will be beginning soon, but I've decided I will only do the basics for now.
I will be doing the following mechanical mods:
- 17% reduction supercharger pulley kit from WMW
- DDMWorks intake w/ K&N filter
- 25.5mm RSB from Hotchkis
I have some questions about the cosmetic mods I'm thinking about. I have recently started researching automotive lighting and have decided I want to do a full LED conversion for the exterior of the car. I will be doing 6000K lights for the front of the car to match my xenons. I have found a website, superbrightleds.com, which matches up the appropriate LEDs you need for each bulb on your car. Seems like a great site. I'll get all my LEDs from there (brake lights, turn signals, side markers etc.) except the fog lights and high beam/DRL lights. I'm going to be getting these fog lights from Amazon.
Here's where the questions start: if I were to put LEDs in place of my current halogen high beam/DRL bulbs, they would scatter and perform poorly, since my pre-facelift MINI has the stock reflector lenses. However, I know that facelift MINIs have projector lenses, which would cooperate properly with LED bulbs. So, I need the OEM projector headlights in order to upgrade my high beam/DRL lights. If I bought a set of xenon facelift headlights, would they just be a plug-and-play replacement?
I also want to do the facelift tail lights. I know that MINI actually produced a retrofit kit (63210309436) when they did the facelift, but it has been NLA for quite some time. Does anyone happen to have a kit laying around or know of a place that still has them in stock?
I ordered and installed the full gauntlet of exterior LEDs from SuperBrightLEDs a few weeks ago. The only bulbs I did not order were fog lights and DRL/high beam bulbs. I ended up returning the turn signal bulbs because they hyperflashed and I ordered another set that have integrated resistors to fix the hyperflashing. They should arrive in 2 days. I am very pleased with the other bulbs and I think I'm actually going to replace my current front marker LEDs, which are Ziza's, with ones from SBL because my Ziza's have at least 1 flickering diode on each bulb. Not good. I'll take full exterior shots when I install the new turn signal LEDs in a couple days.
Today I installed fog light LEDs from SiriusLED on Amazon, link here. They are 4000 lumens each and operate at 6000k, which should match my xenons perfectly.
Install was easy:
Turn the wheels all the way right to install the right fog light.
Remove the clips and 2 screws from the wheel lining and pull the cover back a bit. You won't have much room with the wheel on, but if you don't have jacks or your driveway is sloped (like mine), this will still work just fine.
Rotate the fog light socket 45 degrees clockwise to unlock.
Pull out the socket and disconnect the wiring harness.
Connect the new socket harness and reinstall.
Turn the wheels all the way left for the left fog light and repeat.
The new bulbs, while much more bulky than the OE H11s, fit just fine and the wiring tucked away neatly inside the housing. They have a heatsink and fan at the bottom of the socket to keep the connection cool. The fans are actually pretty noticeable when sitting in the car with the engine off - a low frequency humming is heard - but once you fire it up it's imperceptible.
I'm very happy with the color and I'm sure the output is just fine, but I'm writing this before I've had a chance to test them at night. I will report back with some night shots later on today. The day shots don't do them justice, especially the comparison between the old and new. Even in the daytime, I can tell they are much brighter and of course the color is pretty white.
Night shots. I think the fog lights are not 6000k; they're probably more like 6500k. That's alright with me as the SBL front marker LEDs I'm going to get to replace the Ziza's are also 6500k.
I used a brass brush on my rear calipers, cleaned up really nice. I also painted the retainer clip with brake type red paint. I will try to post a picture tomorrow.
Your car is looking great, I like a clean engine compartment.
Last edited by Whine not Walnuts; Dec 26, 2016 at 06:01 PM.
Night shots. I think the fog lights are not 6000k; they're probably more like 6500k. That's alright with me as the SBL front marker LEDs I'm going to get to replace the Ziza's are also 6500k.
Haha nice choice in lights I just got and installed the same ones yesterday. I haven't gotten the chance to drive at night or the need to turn them on while driving but they look great. What exactly does the x,xxxk value mean, I know as you go up it gets more "blue" but at what point. Also which SBL leds were you going to get for the markers, I'm currently looking for some that will match. Thanks
I used a brass brush on my rear calipers, cleaned up really nice. I also painted the retainer clip with brake type red paint. I will try to post a picture tomorrow.
Your car is looking great, I like a clean engine compartment.
Thank you!
Originally Posted by Piff
Haha nice choice in lights I just got and installed the same ones yesterday. I haven't gotten the chance to drive at night or the need to turn them on while driving but they look great. What exactly does the x,xxxk value mean, I know as you go up it gets more "blue" but at what point. Also which SBL leds were you going to get for the markers, I'm currently looking for some that will match. Thanks
That's the temperature of the light. SBL has a chart, here. It could be that the factory xenons are actually around 5,000k, but I think I had read they were 6,000k and the current front markers are 6,000k and they match pretty well so I don't know. I'm going to get these in 6,500k from SBL.
I have Ian Cull's V7 module which has a feature that turns the fog lights on automatically with the headlights, so they're always on at night. The SiriusLED kit is perfect for fog lights, they don't cast too far or high and they're very bright.
@sevin - did you have the Xenon bulbs before this conversion? I would like to have brighter headlights but myR50 has the normal halogen bulbs. The link to the bulbs on superbrigthleds sounds like they will fit the original reflector Xenon bulbs but not the halogens.
@sevin - did you have the Xenon bulbs before this conversion? I would like to have brighter headlights but myR50 has the normal halogen bulbs. The link to the bulbs on superbrigthleds sounds like they will fit the original reflector Xenon bulbs but not the halogens.
Yes, my car was optioned with the Xenons. I'm not sure how different the pre-facelift lenses were between the Xenons and halogens. I don't think you will have a problem going to LED from halogens, I think you would have more problems trying to replace the Xenons with LEDs.
Also want to mention that the new fog lights will sometimes turn themselves off with no warning. I'm not sure if this is an issue with my Ian Cull module or the fog lights themselves, but I've had both lights turn themselves off a few times while I've been driving. I'm going to disable the auto-fog light feature on my module and see if the problem persists.
To follow up, attached is a picture of my rear caliper after I brass brushed it and painted the retaining clip red. It cleaned up so well that the picture makes the reflection appear to be gritty.
Last edited by Whine not Walnuts; Dec 30, 2016 at 12:27 PM.
To follow up, attached is a picture of my rear caliper after I brass brushed it and painted the retaining clip red. It cleaned up so well that this picture makes the picture makes the reflection appear to be gritty.
So as it turns out, the MINI is a positive ground vehicle, so the front turn signals I got from SBL did not work. I had to order the non-CANBUS variants again (which are not polarity sensitive) with load resistors to get them to work. That stuff came in today and I wired the load resistors in with the front turn signals and now I have no more hyperflashing! My car now has LED fog lights, brake lights, turn signals, front markers, and side markers; the works. It looks fantastic. The LEDs are brighter, draw less current, come on and off instantly, and will probably not burn out anytime soon. Very happy with the outcome. I'm probably going to hold off on high beams/DRLs since I expect the LEDs will scatter incorrectly in my pre-facelift reflector lenses.
Also, still needing you guys' advice on the parts above. Haven't placed my order yet and I really don't want to be putting in more than one.
I looked and didn't see that you had done it so I would recommend going ahead and servicing the SC while you have it off to do the pulley. So, water pump, oil for SC, and the green crush gasket for the intake piping. I can't remember the exact name of it but its on WMW site if you're ordering from there.
Depending on if you're leaking any oil you could also go ahead and deal with those while everything is apart.
I looked and didn't see that you had done it so I would recommend going ahead and servicing the SC while you have it off to do the pulley. So, water pump, oil for SC, and the green crush gasket for the intake piping. I can't remember the exact name of it but its on WMW site if you're ordering from there.
Depending on if you're leaking any oil you could also go ahead and deal with those while everything is apart.
You don't have to pull the S/C to do the pulley. That said, a service for the S/C is probably due. And thanks for the reminder about oil leaks, I think I need to do my valve cover gasket.
you should try autocross TRIAD does events right in greensboro last year there were 2-3 mini's at the events. Your mod list would put you in SMF, I've not ran that with triad but with tar heel I took 1st in the one event I did run. I normally run my jcw in DS. Switching to STX this year the tire wear is killing me
You don't have to pull the S/C to do the pulley. That said, a service for the S/C is probably due. And thanks for the reminder about oil leaks, I think I need to do my valve cover gasket.
I had a feeling you might say that. I was going to add that it's probably due at your mileage and you already have everything apart so why not.
