Hey Guys,

Like the title says. I have always been a MINI fanatic. Searched high and low before buying my first MINI - I actually test drove a 2005JCW R53 during my search. At the time I was not real impressed with the speed and the big deal breaker was the color.

I went to a MINI dealer and drove an R56 and felt like the car was much faster. Long story short I ended up used R56 with 21k miles with every option I wanted. I attempted to use the COBB access port for awhile, but kept getting a superknock error and finally COBB admitted that CA gas doesn't do well with their maps and product.

The turbo went out around 76k miles and the wife was still driving it with intermittent turbo issues until she received a low oil pressure light and pulled the mini to the side of the road.

I have always loved the whine of the supercharger and I have an itch to find an R53 so I can do some MODS

Cold Air Intake
Front Mounted Intercooler
15 or 17 % Pulley
ECU Tune
Exhaust

Coil Overs and some sway bars etc.....

I would prefer to find a JCW but they seem a little harder to find. So for now I am looking ONLY for a 2005 or 2006 with the LSD option. Low miles would be preferred. Seems like I find them with 115-145k Miles

My other option is to buy a used N14 motor and bolt my JCW turbo and then do the same mods, ECU tune, Intercooler, Intake and Exhaust.

This is not a daily driver I have a 535i for that. Just looking for something to have some fun and make pretty zippy.

Opinions on the R53 with those kind of miles? Again not asking about reliability as a daily driver, just don't see how it could be worse than the damn R56 issues.

Eventually I think I would get a Cam and Larger injectors, seems like it should go pretty good then.

Just looking to have an open discussion as an enthusiast all opinions welcome

 

the supercharger sound is intoxicating, just be aware it's not gonna be as fast as a r56 with mods unless you spend a serious amount of $ at RMW. I've owned several of both and currently track & autocross a modified R53 and a mostly stock R53 JCW, I sold all the R56's.

I may switch back to a R56 once there are more tuners out there for them, currently there are not very many doing it, and the tune / piston 3 failures are too prevalent

 

That's what I am afraid of. I don't have any seat time in a decently modded R53 - so it's hard to compare it to my stock R56 which admittedly was pretty quick for a stock vehicle.

I am still toying with the idea of just keeping it and doing an ECU tune from Mario Kart on Here with some bolt on upgrades. It only has 80k miles on it and is in nice shape. Just not sure I want to spend the time pulling the motor and putting another in. I was just thinking about buying the R53 and then doing some easier bolt on mods vs replacing the motor.

 

when I build an r56 it'll be with some of jans pistons and probably jans tune too

 

I have no first hand experience with the R56's....but from all the posts I've seen on here, I though there really weren't much difference in power? The R53's have the power come on faster and quicker, whereas the R56's take a while to built boost, and the power comes on smoother, but not as fast.

 

R53 has fast throttle response, but take a look at an r56 dyno, they make a lot more torque and at lower rpm, that translates to faster on the street/track

 

still no R56 around that can beat a well done R53 around the track
Every single National Championship on the road is by a RMW R53 or R50

 

I think I can give some insight into the R56 S having owned a N14 and a N18, untuned, so this is from the perspective of the base version. Hands down, the N18 is a much better engine. While it make only a few Hp more than the N14, the way it makes low end power is much better (I think I read that is due to the VANOS it has). The Butt dyno is much happier with the N18. Ultimately, they both hit about the same top end at the tracks I go to, so that shows pretty well the Hp they are making. The N18 also doesn’t suffer from the problems that the N14 suffers from. It is cheap and easy to get modest Hp gains from a turbo engine. A stage I Manic tune on a N18 will take an S to a JCW type of power. And I think you would find it to be track worthy. That said, a factory JCW would be fun for the track, however, the N18 engine didn’t make it into those until late in the Gen II model run.

The downside of a R56 is the reputation that the early ones got and because of that, it never got picked up as a race car (like the R53). This means that there was very little in the way of development of go fast parts for the track for the R56. Also, the design of the car does not lend itself to adding in good brake ducting like you can with the R53. This is one reason I have not yet added a tune to my MINI. If I go faster on the track, I will need better brakes than what I currently have. Without better cooling, I don’t see that happening.

For what I do (track DEs), the car is great. It is a really good road car that does well on the track. However, if I was to develop a serious MINI track car, I would start with a rust free 2005-2006 R53, like RMW said

 

If you do want an R53 I have one of my old customers cars for sale that is perfect. It has had everything done so it literally needs nothing. But has all the mods done too including an LSD. It's not the cheapest car, but cheaper than building it.

 

You can shoot me a PM with price and some info

East Coast though?

 

email us and I'll take some pics tomorrow
info at waymotorworks.com