I’ve heard out of all the minis that the Chrysler engines were bulletproof.
Love my R55 but I would rather have something more reliable but not new. Maybe having 2 minis works out to one daily driver!

So I was wondering as I’m looking at used 1st gen cars, is there any easy was to tell if it has TriTec engine,

Like do all R53’s have them? Is there a way to tell by certain years or vin numbers etc?

thanks

 

All R50/53s are tritek. So anything 06 and older.

Nik

 

Adding the R52 here because they used the Tritec up until 2008.

Good reading from a former Mopar engineer on NAM,
Unbreakable Lump had some awesome posts:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-the-team.html

:

 

HAHA.

No.

 

Yes they are bulletproof compared to every mini made after they are exceptionally so, many 250K mile cars running around.

They will need regular service like anything else, a couple O rings like to leak

 

They're generally leaky and asthmatic engines, and fairly heavy for only having 1.6L of displacement. 10k into one gets maybe 300hp (on original induction scheme).

 

Thanks for link to Unbreakable Lump's posts! Very interesting reading there.

 

Yup....bullet proof, except for knuckle heads who changed their oil every 20K miles with Walmart's Best.....

 

Even a Lotus Elise has about 200 hp or less depending on model.....

If you wanted 300 HP in a 3500 lb car get a Subaru WRx Sti....You can be just like my 80yr old parents, the age of most folks who own Subaru's....lol.

 

How often do you hear about engine failures on R53?

 

What? Who wants a 3500lbs car? Certainly nobody who starts with a Mini as a platform for modification...

But expecting an engine with good flow through the head in 2020 doesn't seem unreasonable. Heck, the 00's Honda motors flow about twice as much CFM through their NA heads and make more power than these do with blowers AND they're lighter.

Solid chassis, somewhat-reliable engine, lackluster combo in stock form. The Elise / Exige (the one worth getting) are also track weapons and exceed the Mini in every conceivable fashion for relevant performance applications.

 

I do time trials and I'm in the same class as the Elise and I smoke the doors off of them. The supercharged ones are no joke but the regular ones ehh