Bought a really clean 2005 R53 (manual) with 107k miles, a blown head gasket and a rattling flywheel. I have the engine out for rebuild and installation of the Valeo clutch/flywheel kit. I am also looking for recommendations on super charger rebuild options and other parts sources. Right now I'm looking for coolant hoses. Any suggestions on who offers the right deal?

 

Without question, Aaron @ Outmotoring.com is the man. He is a walking encyclopedia for anything MINI and if fact owns a couple of R53's himself. I just invested $3200 in parts and labor to do major maintenance for my 05 S with 145,000 miles and he played a vital role with parts recommendations that turned out to be spot on for me. Hope this helps.

 

I used RealOEM.com to get all the part numbers for all those hoses and tees then purchased them from FCPEuro, ECS Tuning and/or Pelican Parts.

The only part of my cooling system now that has not been replaced in the past 18 months is the heater core.

 

Coolant hoses, you get Genuine MINI options on some and aftermarket on others. Most are near close to the same quality on those parts. Unless you are trying to keep it all OEM/original.

R53 S/R52 S/JCW go with the valeo dual to single mass conversion. On the supercharger sneed4speed has rebuilds now which we list. Otherwise you can do an HP upgrade to Harrop but its a full system upgrade with add ons.

 

Don't overpay for hoses just because they have a different stamp on them. I bought these exact ones and the fitment on EVERY hose was dang near perfect. I was very impressed with the quality exp for the price..

https://www.ebay.com/itm/30410990592...mis&media=COPY

 

Have been wondering about this set. Does it include absolutely every hose, even the oil cooler ones? Not sure if those are shown in the picture...

 

I don't belive it did. My kit did though replace all of the hoses , even the little ones that run under the intake box to the T's and heat core hoses ect... I will try and find my EXACT kit I'd used.. it even replaced a few troublesome intake hoses like the one that connects the boost tube to the bpv.. it very well might have though because I did have some hoses left over unless they were sent as a whole to fit all model r53s or something..but here a pic of my exact kit I'd used

 

Good info here, thanks
Surprising you can buy a complete set of hoses for the automatic models but not the manual; gotta order one-by-one.
Also need an oil cooler. Recommendations?

 

nah it's missing some (oil cooler coolant hoses and a few that go down to the hardline that crosses over {there's a chicom kit sold in British ebay that has every hose though). I wouldn't recommend the silicone hoses since they're a bit thicker and you can't use the spring clamps in some of them so you're stuck with worm clamps. Silicone also has poor oil resistance and you're right under the leaky PS reservoir.

Silicone also sweats much more than rubber so you'll need to top off w/distilled water from time to time (I think glycol molecules don't permeate through silicone). Granted, I won't pay OEM prices but if I were to do it all over again, I'd have rejuvenated the rubber hoses (I kept them so may still do that).

I left the heater hoses alone because it was near impossible to change them w/the engine in place so do take care of them before putting the engine in.


China also has a wicked tree branch hose setup that ditches that clamp rats nest bmw decided to go with. I've yet to try and gotta be careful not to pick an r50 setup as it's different (no oil cooler)



https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256...57850988%21sea

 

Original oil cooler or relocated? If relocating w/sandwich plate, I'd consider ditching the r53 coolant hose setup and go w/an r50 setup (check fitment tho, I was just eyeballing). Less leak points, and a bit cheaper to buy genuine (I think I saw complete kits on ebay for not that much).