^^Ortholance: All R56 MCS from mid 2007 onward have a half-open bonnet scoop grille.

--->Red Bull: Looks proper with the adjusted ride height, congrats! Any plans on doing the Joey-mod [blacked out headlights] and blacking out the door handles and belt-line? Those are the only bright-work bits left, just wondering if you're going for the all-black thing.

Cheers,
Ryan

 

Ryan
Yes..all chrome will be gone soon including the headlight buckets...I only had the car for 2 weeks and if I could quite my jobs I would get it done this week

I am not sure how others do this but I am going to remove the lenses and paint the buckets black. They go in the oven at 250F for 10-12 minutes, that is supposed to loosen the seal to remove the lense...then reverse the process...any one who did this feel free to chime in with any tips..

The door handles I will do this week, there is a little time involved there and the beltline is my biggest issue....I hate tape and like paint better but until I have time to remove all that trim I have cut vinyal strip on our cutter.

 

my 07 mcs came with the factory chrome scoop and is completely blocked. can i remove that part or drill holes in it, anybody know? I want some fresh air in there!

 

Yes you can...you have to take the scoop off the hood and then you can remove the grill...good idea to do it. I havent done min yet but, I hear you have to pull pretty hard to remove the screen....let us know how it goes.

 

Is there any evidence that's it's desirable to do this, or did someone just do it and tell everyone it is better without anything concrete to back it up. Why didn't MINI do it to begin with?

 

Well IMO your not going to find any performance gains to the wheel....however, with the heat the turbo generates more air cannot hurt to help with getting some air to the engine compartment. At speed I am not sure if your going to get much air because there probably be a low pressure area there...but, M7 does make a scoop that extends out a little and they also make a tunnel that goes to the M7 intake (filter is on top) to get some more air to the intake. After driving, my hood scoop is so hot I will do it alone just to get ny more air to help it cool off some.

I am also going to add the M7 heat shield to stop the bonnet from getting so hot.

Dont know why the factory does not open it up but as you know car manufacturers as exteremly conservative in design, safty along with EPA regulations. Maybe there afraid a bird will fly into the scoop when your diving..

 

I agree with that. There was dumb stuff on my M3, like blocking the brake ducts with plastic inserts that could be punched out.

However, with the scoop, I'm going to leave it unless someone can tell me that it makes any kind of improvement to the car, because removing the blocked intake is just as likely to make a negligible improvement to cooling ,etc. but make the engine bay a lot dirtier and harder to clean.

I'm just more skeptical these days about doing mods everyone says "you just must do" when it seems fashionable, but not necessarily driven by empirical data. Especially when I'm talking about my daily driver and could end up with no real benefit but something less reliable and comfortable to drive.

 

Nice ride Dyno that thing soon, interested in what the mods have done for your Factory JCW!

 

Good point by race tripper, why the factory didn't use it..but it seems to make sense that it would be beneficial for a turbo charged engine that runs better with colder air and generates a lot of heat to have extra cool air forced into the engine compartment throught the hood scoop. Isn't that what a hood scoop is for anyways??? I might hold off though since I don't have any solid evidence either..

 

Couldn't argue that point...the only real value I can attest to is opening up the scoop will let more heat out..I was very surprised how hot that area get on my car after I drive it...I can understand wht some melt...

 

I do hope mine doesn't melt. I have custom striping and clearbra on it. Maybe that's good enough reason to open up the intake. The engine bay can be cleaned with Simple Green and a hose.

 

Well makes you think about getting the hot out when you read threads of melting hood scoops...hey, I think you may have talked yourself into this...

 

I'm not against mods per say, I just need a compelling reason for it, other than everyone thinks it should be done.

But with that said my M3 stayed extremely close to bone stock and it was awesome, on street and track. All that I have done to my JCW is mostly cosmetic (stripes, JCW alcantara steering wheel, shifter, handbrake, silver turn lamps, etc).

 

I have nothing at all against stock...propably go 100K+ with minimal issues. I have an Engineering background so I do like to explore the possibilities of trying to make things work better...even if they do need to...

 

Red Bull - Make sure you ask for the version designed for the Alta down pipe. On my JCW, the standard shield wouldn't line up, as it didn't have enough clearance for the O2 sensor. This new down pipe version has a much larger cut-out around the front sensor. I don't have mine installed yet as the drivers side cap screw is the wrong length and I'm waiting for a replacement from M7 (apparently Mini keeps changing things and is driving M7 crazy). They originally sent 90mm and 120mm fasteners and you need a 100mm for the drivers side minimum. The 120mm is too long for the drivers side as you run out of thread on the screw shank - at least that's the case on my June build JCW.

 

Thanks for the heads up..I was just getting ready to order it...think I will order it directly so I can talk to a person who can make sure I am gettingthe correct part