TL;DR - first post is 2 years of history, look at pictures/bold headers


Purchase November 2012

I bought the mini in MA. I was in the market for a fJCW but was looking for anything BUT a red one, however once I found this one and took it for a test drive I had to have it. It had been sitting on a used lot at a local toyota dealership for a few months. I negotiated what I believe to have been a great price, maybe even a steal (even with what comes later). According to car fax the car had had 4 (or maybe 5) owners before me and had 54k on the clock. Not a low mileage mini by any means, but at the time i figured it was good enough for me, and after that test drive I didnt care if it had 200k miles on it was going to me mine.



First picture at the dealer, I got to drive it into the show room to check it out - I take horrible pictures

I later learned that my car was built in June of 2008 one of a first shipment of 50 factory JCW's to the US to be used as demo cars at Mini dealerships. It served this purpose for the first ~500 miles of its life, which while I'm sure did take a bit of a toll on the car I think that's pretty cool!

HPFP failure November 2012
After purchase I quickly found out the car needed a new HPFP (that saga detailed here) as I was having issues with it stumbling on start and not making power. MINI of Boston replaced it for me under the 100k mile HPFP warenty. While researching how to get it fixed I also learned that my JCW had 2 years of extended maintenance left and that it was transferable to me! This was fantasic news and has covered a lot of maintenance things for me: oil changes, fluids, even pads and rotors (and on the JCW brakes alone it was worth every penny I didnt spend on it).

Clutch failure and first mods April 2013

I drove the car happily and with a heavy foot from november 2012 to late April 2013. In late April at 3am in the rain my clutch decided it was done. I called around for a quote to see what it was going to cost. I quickly learned it was not a simple job like on some of my previous cars and got back quotes in the thousands for dollars I then decided I'd take on the job myself so I ordered the Bently manual. This was at the tipping point, this was when the bug hit me, and where this build thread really begins.


When I did the clutch I decided to install a Craven Speed adjustable short shifter, NM's cover for it, as well as the NM Engine Torque Arm Insert. As for the clutch I made lots of calls and spoke to a few of our well known/liked vendors and at the time the general consensus was just go with an OEM clutch. I also chanced it and had a local machine shop that I trusted machine the surface of the dualmass fly wheel (even though many say you shouldn't). Through the clutch job I learned WAY more than I ever intended to about my mini.

With the new clutch I realized I hated the clutch peddle travel and found Burger Tuning's 'BMS Short Throw Clutch Stop' which is literally just a taller bump stop for your clutch peddle so that it doesn't go all the way to floor beyond the engagement point, and to this day has been the best "dollars:smiles ratio" purchase at $10.

Water/Meth injection November 2013

Next up came my Water methanol injection system install, after doing a bunch of research I decided to go with the Aquamist HFS-4 Mini system from Howerton Engineering. Great guys over there helped me through a few issues I had during set up and got me up and running quickly, can't say enough about the customer service (thankfully good customer service becomes a theme throughout my build). Mounted my gauge in craven speed double flex pod, another great product. I opted for the red gauge as I thought it would match my orange dash lights best but shortly after install I wished I opted for blue. Only b/c when I'm not really paying attention and the gauge lights up I some times think something is wrong, as red flashing lights typically aren't good (that said 2 years with it I've gotten used to it), I really do wish they'd over a green-yellow-red option.


JCW Recaros November 2013
My cloth seats were some of the most uncomfortable car seats I had ever sat in, and after a few owners and 4 years on the road they were pretty beat up with stains and tares in the bottoms. I started to look around for options, I really wanted racing bucket seats for some reason (because racecar?) but realized I really did want to keep my factory airbags and heated seats. I spoke my local MINI parts department to find out what a new pair for seats would cost, this came in close to $1,500 a piece. I then seriously started looking into those awesome seats I had seen in orangecrush's build. With Minis $1,500 quote for OEM seats the European JCW Recaros now seemed "reasonable", I just had to find them. This was a fun task at that time as it turns out Mini had run out of the Right side seat, so I had to find a seller that had their own warehouse with stock. The only place I could find these seats for under 2k each at the time was over seas, I ended ordering them them from SCHMIEDMANN in Denmark and had them shipped via British Airways freight to an airport near me. Picking them up from customs at the airport was a whole different story!

So these arrived, I ripped out my other seats, did the whole passenger seat weight sensor matt transplant from my old seat into the new recaro, which required ripping apart my brand new seat. swapped the rails over and bolted them into the car (all thanks to some great write ups here on NAM). I picked up some Schroth Quick Fit harnesses off the forums market place and used them for my first auto-X event. WOW, talk about planted. and these seats are comfortable for my daily commute and grocery getting!!


Autosport labs' Racecapture/Pro telemetry and logging system November 2013 Link
I decided that if I was going to do auto-x and track days I should have some data supporting how awesome my driving is! ok really just to compare how the car was fairing over time, and to see if over the course of a day/month/year my lap times were getting better, and I'm a bit of a data nerd so the more data the better! I found the Racecapture/Pro made by autosport labs (same guys that also make the megajolt) it was a project on indiegogo that was fully funded in early 2013 and is open source with a growing community (which is important to me). Out of the box it will measure gps (location/speed), acceleration (cornering, braking, bumps, etc), voltage, and can also add sensors to it, currently I have a boost sensor and RPM added to it. On top of all of this there is a great on board scripting language that allows you to do some cool things with the data on the fly. The RCP also has bluetooth so you can pair your phone to it and have a virtual dashboard of all your data, if you're at a track it will detect this and displace your progress on the track and lap times automatically, and one of the coolest features you can have it upload your data in realtime to their website so others can watch your race (or just track time, or oddly your commute home) in realtime!




race-captrure.com's Web interface - HPDE session at thunderhill



windows application for reviewing data - Auto-X run that I spun it in a slalom




The Turbo Saga June 23 2013 - September 1 2013
June 23rd 2014 - I get the dreaded half engine limp mode light on the tach, Mini had just done my annual service a few days before so I drove to the dealership and asked them to look it over. Official diagnosis was bushing failure on the turbo wastegate valve, as such the valve was no longer sealing and therefore not creating boost. The dealership quoted me $5800 for parts and labor (including a few other things while they were in there) I decided to do it myself and make some changes to the turbo system. This took me a few months: researching, ordering parts, waiting for parts, returning wrong parts, waiting for more parts, working a few hours at a time when I could find it in the apartment complex garage. The car was finally running as expected at the beginning of September, and I was thrilled!


Parts list
- JM Turbo Coopers Ported Dominator GT
- JM Turbo Coopers Fully Ported Stage III Manifold
- JM Turbo Coopers 3" High flow catted downpipe
- JM Turbo Coopers R34X 3x4" Exhaust with Muffler
- JCW Air intake
- Wagner competition intercooler
- GFB Mach 1001 BOV
- Ignition Projects IP Coil
- Custom Stage4 tune from Battle Tuning

















obligatory go fast pictures








thank you
I'd like to take a few seconds and just talk about a few of these vendors who really went out of their way when I needed some help/support/'reassurance':
-Arric from JMTC spent a LOT of time helping me with information for this build, I sent him, no joke, 50+ emails while researching and putting it all together, he went above and beyond to ensure I had the best experience possible, he happened to in my area one week during a business trip and he took time out of his schedule to check out what I had done and help me with a fitment issue I was having with his exhaust (completely my fault). That on top of all the great info on their website I can't recommend them enough.
-John from Battle Tuning also went well out of his way to make sure I was getting exactly what I wanted/needed, and worked with me on a pretty short time table to get me my maps before a trackday without even a hint of hesitation.
- a few members on NAM that have gotten random PM's from me asking about their experience with certain parts/vendors, everyones input has been amazing. Thanks!

Alright this first post has gone on long enough and that brings us up to about 8 months ago... there's plenty more to come

 

the stock pile of random parts has gotten large enough to get me to take the mini off the road for a few weekends while I prep and install them!

this time around it's just a bunch of little things ... but the interior is out, the car is on jack stands, and the hoods open so it's been a bit hectic

 

Nice start to what should be a very intriguing thread. Throwing some serious dollars at it early...jealous

 

quick shots of this evenings work:



mounted up



unboxing

 

I'd love a video of what that exhaust sounds like

 

I don't have a video of it on my car, but here's JMTC's video:



once my cars back together I'll see what I can do about getting a video/sound of it on my car, it's loud I can say that much, and it IS loud in the cabin, but I get so many random people commenting/complimenting it. One guy asked me if it was the stock JCW exhaust, he was hoping that's what his JCW sounded like from outside, heh

I'll be honest I've considered switching it out for something quieter in the cabin, but to me it just sounds so good I have a hard time pulling it off. Which is why part of what I'm doing now is installing some sound deadening to make the car less of a tin box/amplifier ... we'll see

 

Ah! You got a CAE shifter! Congrats! Good to see your own build thread. I'm surprised I didn't see this earlier!

I remember when I installed mine, I could not figure out that shifter rod bit for a week. I would drive the MINI to work for a week w/o reverse before figuring it how and how tight the fit is into reverse lol

 

yeah after 10 minutes with yours CAE shifter I knew it HAD to go in my car, plus the higher seat position of the recaros made my craven speed too much of a reach

yup I currently have the same issue, haven't quite gotten that part adjusted yet ... but who needs reverse?! (right, I do, to get it out of the garage it's in)

 

Sorry to be "that guy" but I'm curious: with everything you've done, what kind of power are you putting down? Love your whip though!

 

Yeah, totally a biatch to reach with it's on the lowest setting. Initially it's nice, but then the "synthetic" weight of it just didn't feel right. With the CAE you now know how direct it is and the instant gear change is nice.

Haven't driven in the MINI in nearly 3 weeks now so it's absolutely killing me. I miss my shifter. If there were one in my M3 then I'd want to drive it all day as well....

Also, when you've finally figured out the reverse gear, put some loctite on there (blue preferably) so it never comes loose. It did when I found the right threads for reverse and then to never lose reverse again I just put loctite so there isn't any question.

 

thanks! To be honest that's something I'm curious about too, but I have been chasing down a "boost leak" once that's figured out I'll get it over to a dyno, hopefully in the next few weeks, but believe me I want to know (I also want to have my tune tweaked with the results)

 

a CAE in the M3 and the mini would never see the road again, give the mini a chance


BRILLIANT!

 

Here's a quick summary of the work that I did a few months ago and never wrote up b/c I was frustrated that the car was down on power after I did the work (I'll try to get some reasonably sized pictures of stuff soon):

- I gutted the interior from the dash back and the headliner to install sound deadening and some insolation in hopes of making the large surfaces less like speakers for my exhaust to rattle. This worked pretty well but the r34x exhaust is still just too loud (never mind all the car alarms I set off daily as I drive by)

- Installed my CAE shifter. this thing is amazing, I have to valet my car daily at my office parking garage and I swear the guys fight over who gets to drive it (and the mini is no where close to the nicest car that comes in there daily) it's because of the CAE shifter.

-NM hot side tubing, I got this as a combo deal from a forum member and figured it couldn't hurt to remove some of the restrictions (the numbers I've seen around here suggest if it does anything it's not much, but hey it replaced an old part and shouldnt negatively impact it)

-NM intake - I wanted to try something different from my JCW intake, and the NM intake fit the bill, the sound is great you really are able to hear the turbo spool up, more so than w/ the JCW intake. That said I'm not entirely thrilled with the intakes mounting, the only mount points are the rubber elbow that connects to the turbo inlet and ONE of the old airbox mount points (which is in a rubber grommet) and the whole thing kinda vibrates when the car is idle. It makes no noise/doesn't hit anything it just bothers me when I have the hood open and the car is on. Things that vibrate eventually brake.

-GFB DV+ - this was another thing I got off the marketplace from another member, I figured I'd try it out. it went on easily, but I took it off while troubleshooting why I was down on power, and haven't put it back on yet (see next post) but i did find it to be a tight fit with the JMTC GT Dominator as it has a larger turbo inlet.

-New sparkplugs - I finally got the dumb spark plug socket for these cars and installed my colder brisk plugs.

- Integral Audio SoundStage + woofer - I've always hated the stereo in this car and had come from (what I considered ) a nice custom stereo in my previous car, so while the interior was out I ordered and installed the Integral Audio system. it's Amazing (I think it still needs some more bass, but it's hard to hear much over my exhaust at the moment, I'll fix that hopefully next week)

- GP2 rear defuser - what can I say it looks great and I wanted it, maybe someday I'll get the other under body panels and make it "functional"

- replaced some of the old vacuum lines and the Pressure Converter for the turbo wastage control, the hoses were getting old and I had read reports that they'll start to crack and leak causing the waste gate to not close/seal as well as it should.

- fixed my aquamist set up, it had stopped spraying a few months before, turns out the fuse fell out! simple fix

- modified my valve cover to take a hose clamp on the PVC return tubing as it was leaking from old age and dripping some oil on the block (which originally made me think i had yet another leaky valve cover)

- New Depo LED tail lights I wanted to clean up the look of the mini lighting so I picked these up, and really like them.

- LED reverse bulbs - these are awesome, the reverse lights are actually useable now!

- LED black side turn signals, also refreshed the look of the car I like it

- Rear seats- swapped in black leatherette rear seats I had bought off a guy locally, as my old cloth rears had seen better days.

 

FINALLY tracked down what I thought was a "boost leak". The car wouldn't push more than 10psi at full throttle (which is about half of what I was doing before). I had read in NAM about people with larger turbos/tunes having issues with the DV+ (granted they were seeing TOO much boost, I wasn't seeing enough) but I thought that would be a good place to start trouble shooting so I pulled it off. Once I was done I realized to get the part out I hadn't disconnected the solenoid control wire, meaning it wasn't connected. So I tossed my old factory diverter back on (b/c the DV+ had some fitment difficulties with the larger turbo that i didn't feel like working on). and I took it out for a drive and I was instantly greeted with a boat load of boost! I was happy.


Any one drive around for a while while down on power and then once you get it back feel like your car is trying to kill you? i had the same feeling when I went from stock to my stage4 tune. it's how I know my mini's performing correctly I feel like it's trying to kill me.

 

lol. glad you're enjoying your CAE shifter. I wish they made one for the MX-5!

The shifter and the iPE made driving the MINI daily a treat every time.