Porting and polishing ain't rock science. And the guys who have been building heads for rodders know what they're doing. Ask around - you'll find a guy. You'll save enough on the head that what you save will pay for the tune.

 

Hi guy´s, just a little confused after reading this topic.
Seem to me, that you´re comparing different basicly setups.
It´s not possible to gain compareable more power out of a V8 and a small 1.6l 4 Zylinder MINI Engine.
Also the invest is conversly.
With such a small amount of volume, it´s more expensive to achieve more on power.
The bad porting of the Zylinderhead isn´t really helpful gaining more of power.
out of my personal experience, the invest in Supercharging tuning can be boundless.

 

Nobody is comparing power output......I'm talking about cost of aftermarket performance parts, and tuning. Stuff for minis is just way too expensive.....and after you do the standard pulley, intake, exhaust....you are pretty much tapped out on power. 165hp to 185hp is easy and cheap. 185hp+ and you start having to spend big more, for little gains.

As far as porting the cylinder head......I really haven't seen many people do it...and if it was that easy to gain power from porting the stock cylinder hear, everyone would be doing it......but people will spend $2,500 on an aftermarket head for a reason. I don't think the factory cylinder head castings even have enough material in the castings....you would probably get into the water jacket passages way before you could open up the ports to the size of a dedicated aftermarket big valve head. But I've never really even thought about head work, or a complete head......$1000-$2,500++ for 20-ish HP seems like a big waste of money to me.

There is a reason why 95% of mini R53 owners stop after a pulley, intake, and exhaust.

 

The stock casting is what is used for the aftermarket heads. They are ported, polished, and new valves ground in, new guides probably and new seals. The core charge ain't there because aluminum is all that valuable. $1,000 for 20 hp isn't all that bad in a Mini. What'd your exhaust cost? How many HP did it net? If you do an exhaust it makes sense to do a header and a head at some point as all three work to better flow... maybe a cam too at that point.

 

And I agree, BTW - the prices suck. But you gotta pay to play I suppose...

 

@IQRaceworks
what you´re saying about the prices, I´ll do agree to you. Is here in Germany too.
After I´ve spend more than 8K€ only on engine overhaul and tuning, I ended to write down the costs.

Your experience about increasing hp, doesn´t match mine one.
We do have severals R53 changed setup, up to JCW-Pully, 380er Injectors and appropriate spark plugs.
On PreFaceLift additonal swaped the ECU from EMS2000 ( the black one) to the FaceLift MS5150 (silver one), flashed with a modificated Software, achieved nearly 230hp.



With the old black EMS2000 ECU, I´ve had only the 200hp, as Software was stored before. Original JCW 200hp-Software.

The difficulty in tuning R53 is that you need a good fitting Software.
Porting in Head is limited. The tolerances in casting are really big. My tuner must modified his CNC-Programm lots of time, because sometimes it opend the water cooling channels.
I can show you pic where he has cutted heads to look how less space there is.

 

My issue with parts is that it is never just the one part. Many times you need to replace the torque to yield bolts too plus use expensive fluids you just don't see when dealing with Japanese cars. Doing a clutch on a R50 (single mass flywheel)? You also need to replace $50 worth of one time use fasteners unless you want to risk a flywheel buzzsawing through your lower extremities. You will also need $100 worth of specially formulated oil from BMW to refill the transmission (or $50 worth of Redline MTL), as well as a $25 quart of CHF power steering fluid if you manage to spill any when taking out the front suspension and steering. Oh, and you'll also need to replace the coolant as well since the radiator needs to come out, and between the gallon of MINI coolant (not bad at $20) and distilled water, you can add another $25. You should also replace the oil filter adapter seal and rear crank seal while you are in there as well for another $15-20 in parts. So, your $100 clutch kit just cost you $200-300. I bought my R50 needing a clutch because the previous owners were quoted $1500 for the job due to the labour costs since it requires disassembling almost the entire front of the car, so I am speaking from my own experiences. (BTW, my last FWD clutch was a 3 cylinder Geo Metro and the clutch kit was $100 and special oil (Pennzoil Synchromesh) for that was about $20, with a $5 crank seal for good measure.)

At any rate, the head prices are a matter of demand as others have said. The Tritec engine was really only used in one application that people want to play with and that's the MINI from 2001 to 2008. The LS has been around for over twenty years and was used in everything GM made with RWD. The old school small block Chevy was put in new production cars and trucks from 1955 until the late 90's (in Australian Holdens). They made something like 50 million of them! Not only that, but Chevy, due to Zora's famous memo, openly encouraged modification and sold performance parts from the get go in order to gain market share in the Hot Rodding community.

 

Allmag also sells a 6 speed swap kit and complete transmissions.

 

Yeah, but they are not cheap. I won't spend more than $200 for a complete transmission and they seem to want about 5x that. My budget for the complete swap with mounts, clutch, flywheel, axles, shifter cables, TTY bolts, fluids, etc. is less than $1,000. This includes a new single mass flywheel and clutch kit with all other parts being salvage (as much as possible). I may also just find another Getrag 5 speed and roll the dice with it as my investment in this car is rapidly approaching the point where it will exceed the market value of my MINI. Currently, my reverse idler gear is noisy and that is after replacing it with a new one. The original was quieter, but the bushing was worn and the only option I could find was a complete gear that was new and already had the bushing installed. It was $120, so I didn't want to press it out and risk it even though it was quieter with the original gear. As I have had the trans out and apart 2x already, at a cost of around $50-100 per removal and installation (for fluids and anerobic sealer), and 12-15 hours of my time, the next time has to be a permanent solution. I have found a few 6 speeds for my target price, but the cars are all earlier than 2005 and so the gearing is not as good as the later trans has. Since I am leaving my justa engine stock, I need to keep the gearing as optimal as possible for driveability and fuel economy. I just hope the 6th gear will help on the highway because at best I only see 35-36 MPG, and on premium gas that gets quite expensive (my daily gets 45 highway/55 city on 87).

 

The performance increases are typical for a SOHC 4 banger. Unfortunately, I came from the Miata world where parts are cheap, cheap, cheap. Why does an R53 exhaust cost minimum $700-$1000? I bought a beautiful sounding brand SS exhaust for my NA for $250. I put together a quality suspension on that car for less than $400. Can't touch something like that on these cars for less than $1000. Of course all that money I would have spent has been used to fix BMWs bad/faulty designs...

I'm waiting patiently for the second hand aftermarket parts for these cars to become readily available and cheap, but that market has been scarce to say the least. Last time I was scoping for cheap parts some guy was arguing with me that his used ebay exhaust was still worth $250...

 

It's been well over 10 years since these cars came out, if thing were going to get cheap it would've happened by now .

 

You have to remember though that the MINI is not as popular as the Miata. Many car guys run away from these things because of their bad reputation for being difficult to work on, expensive to buy parts for, unreliable and poorly made. The Miata is known for being nearly bulletproof and cheap and easy to fix. Plus, it handles well and is rear wheel drive-important for drifting. Also, the Miata stayed mechanically mostly the same for two generations while the MINI shares little from generation to generation. The Miata can also run on 87 octane gas while the MINI needs 91. Both are 1.6-1.8 liter engines with similar power figures but Mazda (and Nissan, Honda,etc.) all figured out how to make those numbers without the premium gas. You wouldn't think those things matter when choosing a project car, but they do. People who are buying small, 15+ year old 4 cylinder projects generally don't have a lot of money and so they choose what is known to work and be reliable rather than what isn't.

I actually considered a Miata myself before I bought the MINI, but I am a weird American in that my favorite kind of car is a 2 door subcompact hatchback with a manual transmission. Plus, I got tired of dealing with well engineered Japanese cars and decided to go off the rails and try a European car project this time. I had always wanted an R50, so I bought one and fell down the rabbit hole.

 

You have to remember though that the MINI is not as popular as the Miata. Many car guys run away from these things because of their bad reputation for being difficult to work on, expensive to buy parts for, unreliable and poorly made. The Miata is known for being nearly bulletproof and cheap and easy to fix. Plus, it handles well and is rear wheel drive-important for drifting. Also, the Miata stayed mechanically mostly the same for two generations while the MINI shares little from generation to generation. The Miata can also run on 87 octane gas while the MINI needs 91. Both are 1.6-1.8 liter engines with similar power figures but Mazda (and Nissan, Honda,etc.) all figured out how to make those numbers without the premium gas. You wouldn't think those things matter when choosing a project car, but they do. People who are buying small, 15+ year old 4 cylinder projects generally don't have a lot of money and so they choose what is known to work and be reliable rather than what isn't.

I actually considered a Miata myself before I bought the MINI, but I am a weird American in that my favorite kind of car is a 2 door subcompact hatchback with a manual transmission. Plus, I got tired of dealing with well engineered Japanese cars and decided to go off the rails and try a European car project this time. I had always wanted an R50, so I bought one and fell down the rabbit hole.

 

The R53 is apparently pretty tunable - for $500 I got 211 hp with a minimum 20% torque gain over an OEM Works motor.

That's with NO parts except the Works kit (dealer installed).

That story might explain why I've now talked myself into a 256hp (286tq) Mini that still is 100% OEM (plus warrantied Dinan tune).

That power demanded a real LSD of course - and THAT ain't cheap no-way, no how!

I will freely admit however, that the OP has my agreement - there are other cars that offer more bang for the buck.

Cheers,

Charlie