I think I am staying with stock exhaust. While test driving different Coupes, the first one I test drove was apparently owned by a youngster. The after market exhaust on it (which I normally refer to as a "fart can") was so noisy at highway speed. Like I stated above with four more 7.5 hour trips to Wisconsin before October, I don't want any extra noise.

With mine being a S, the stock exhaust sounds fine to me. I did test drive a stock base model and understand what you are talking about. A modest exhaust mod would sound good.

Now that it is warming up, my next project is to clean her up good and touch up all the stone chips. Unfortunately, my weekend schedule is about booked through May so it might be a while.

 

There's a world of difference between the exhaust notes of N16 (no turbo, normally aspirated) motor in my Coupe vs. the N14 or N18 turbocharged Cooper "S" models. The stock exhaust for the N16 motor used in several models of the 2nd generation MINIs is, um, uninspiring to say the least. This REMUS exhaust sound is subtle but still transformative - it sounds like a real sports car now, not an appliance.


The full monte

Next task for Project R58(X) - complete brake job, fore and aft. Got all the parts (all OEM), now just need to set aside the time.

 

Now this was a project that needed doing - replacing all of my Tire Pressure Monitoring Sensors (aka "TPMS"). The sensors I had were original to the vehicle, meaning that they were about nine years old. Each sensor is connected to a tire valve, and each has a battery that typically only lasts between 6-10 years. I figured that my 2013 Coupe was on borrowed time, as far as the TPMS System was concerned, so I resolved to replace each sensor and then utilize the much more capable TPMS monitoring app installed in my Android radio head unit.


Note the date on the sensor (07/05/13)

The process to change out the sensor is fairly straightforward, only a few tools are required - a tire iron (preferably two), an 11mm deep socket wrench, a Valve Fishing Tool, and method to break the bead seal between the tire and rim. I have a bead breaker, but it can also be done (carefully) with a jack and a block of wood. Plenty of YouTube videos out there on replacing a TPMS Sensor that show some of the DIY methods of gaining access to the inside of the wheel rim without having to have the sensors installed at a tire shop.



New TPMS sensors and tire valves.

The only real wrinkle I ran into with the installation was with unscrewing the nut on the outside of the valve stem that seals the interior gasket on the valve stem to the wheel rim. On my Coupe that nut would not break loose, and the OEM sensor did not have an accessible interior bolt to stop the stem from spinning while turning the exterior nut on the valve stem. I ended up having to drill out the interior of the valve stem to separate the stem from the sensor. I formed a plastic bag around the sensor on the interior of the rim to catch chips - trying to vacuum out chips from the inside of the tire is truly an exercise in frustration (don't ask me how I know this).


Sensor separated from the valve stem after drilling out the core of the stem.

Installing the new sensor with the new valve stem is simplicity itself, IF you use the fishing tool linked above. Space is tight in the interior of the tire around the hole where the valve stem is located, especially if you have relatively big hands like I do. The fishing tool allows you to route the valve stem and sensor assembly, substanially reducing the risk of having the sensor fall into the interior of the tire. Again, trying to retrieve a dropped sensor as it slides around on the interior of the tire is incredibly frustrating.



Stem and sensor assembly installed by using the valve stem fishing tool. The block of wood is keeping the gap open between the tire and rim while working. Keep away from the block of wood in case it slips and flies off into your face.

Wet the seating surface of the tire with soapy water before pressurizing the tire - it makes reseating the bead to the rim much easier while filling the tire. You'll use the soapy water again after pressurizing the tire and checking for any air leakage on or around the new valve stem. I saw no leakage with this installation.

The software in the Android head unit recognized the new TPMS sensor after driving about a quarter mile or so. Pressure and temperature readings were then quickly displayed on the radio head unit.


TPMS display in the Android radio head unit screen.

I should note that the Coupe did not recognize the new TPMS sensors - the new sensors operate by sending out a 433 MHz signal that tells the Coupe and the Android head unit that all is well. The mystery here is that the old OEM sensors also use 433 MHz; I was hoping that the Coupe would recognize the new sensors automatically. That didn't happen, however. Bottom line is that the Coupe still displayed a TPMS warning light in the speedos display window. The Coupe's TPMS sensor detector eventually defaulted to a disabled condition, and the warning light disappeared from the display window in the face of the speedometer. The disabled TPMS System still managed the send an error light icon to the Android head unit, however. That displayed warning light is pretty subtle on the Android head unit, making it easy to ignore. I need to find a way of having the Coupe skip the self-test operation entirely for that light to go away, I think. I have't yet discovered a way to cancel that self-test, yet. If anyone knows how to do that, please share.

 

Did you have to attach a 433 MHz receiver to your head unit so it could display or are they sending via Bluetooth?

I plan on replacing mine whenever I do my tires next. Being a 2012 model, I figure along the same lines as you, if they aren't dead already, they are dang near it.

 

Via a receiver dongle that connected to the head unit via USB. I was hoping that the Coupe would recognize the new sensors and not think that they were missing.

 

I am guessing there are two aspects that have to match frequency and language. I work with RTK GPS and most manufacturers have a 900 MHz radio available on their base stations. Some are encrypted some are not, some use spread spectrum some do not. It isn't easy to match all settings from one brand to another. I imagine it is about the same with the TPMS

 

Going to ignore the TPMS Inactive issue for the time being, it's a minor irritant only. I would like to find a way to disable the MINI's TPMS altogether, just need to find out how to do that:



I have a suspicion about the TPMS receiver module, which in the Coupe is inside the rear bumper cover. Hugely expensive if bought new (part number 6 793 122-02). I'd like to find a used part to test against.




Up next - complete brake job.

 

Now to the brakes. I actually started assembling all the parts for this a few months ago - I wanted to wait until I had a good block of free time to do this task without interruption. The job itself was actually not difficult to do, the only significant struggle was with compressing the piston on the rear brakes. Because the MINI incorporates the rear emergency brake directly into the rear caliper, there's a ratching type of action that goes on when you pull up on the emergency brake handle. The upshot of that is that you can't just simply compress the piston, the compression has to take place along with a clockwise rotation of the piston.

It took a significant amount of force to get the rotation action started, to the point where I actually bent the handle on the screw handle. Once the compression/rotation started it got a little bit easier, but not by much.


Compression with rotation


Piston fully compressed

Compressing the front caliper pistons was a walk in the park by comparision, didn't take much force at all. Straight compression only needed, no simultaneous rotation required. Gentle force to push the brake fluid back up the lines, the tool made that easy:


Compressing the piston in the front brake caliper


Front caliper piston fully compressed

The brake parts were all OEM genuine MINI, so no fitment issues. I also replaced the wear sensors in the front driver's side disk and the rear passenger's side disk. Front sensor clipped in easily enough, the rear sensor took some fiddling to get it fully seated in the disk.


Front wear sensor fully seated

I replaced the all the clips and rubber bellows, and removed, cleaned, and lubricated the pins in each caliper. I used Permatex Ceramic Synthetic Brake Parts Lubricant - the bright blue color helped to keep track of where the grease was, helping to minimize any risk of getting grease on the friction surfaces of the pads and disks.

I noticed one curious thing about the Coupe's emergency brake cables - when the car is in the air and the wheel suspension is at full extension, the emergency brake cables got very tight, with tension and zero slack in the cables. It was like having the emergency brake engaged, albeit slightly, so the rear wheels didn't want to spin freely. I tested that notion by lowering the lift and having the rear shock mounts resting on two jack stands, just enough to take the weight off and slightly compress the rear springs. Sure enough, the wheels turned easier. I'd call that a flaw in the engineering design of the rear suspension.



Right rear suspension uncompressed (note the top of the jack stand). Emergency brake cable assembly is taut.


Left rear suspension slightly compressed, showing some slack in the emergency brake cable assembly.

After putting everything back together, brakes work very well, maybe even better than when they were new.

 

On the need for a complete brake job, these images. While the rear brakes were in decent shape and probably could have sufficed for the time being, the front brakes were in terrible condition. Judging by how little metal was left, these disks would likely shatter on a hard stop:


The inboard disk surface was totally rotten


Not a lot of metal left on the disk


The inside lip would literally crumble along the edge


The slotted disk would crush internally without too much force


Painted "Top Hat" and disk slots

Post-installation. I used caliper paint to protect as much of the non-friction surface of the new disk before installation.

 

Good info on the rear brake calipers! I have this project coming up sometime this summer. I have never had a rear caliper with the E-brake incorporated previously.

My fronts are wearing funny, back looks fine. When I tear it down, I will decide if I am doing the back as well. I might have a front wheel bearing worn. Steering is fine but when turning intown at about 10 MPH I hear a rubbing noise. Only thing I can figure is wheel bearing getting sloppy causing the disk to rub the pad while turning. It only has 45,000 on it which isn't very many miles for them to be bad. Have to wait till I get her in the air and see.

 

I did the front brakes on my Wife's 2013 Avalanche last evening. Took it to my brothers as he has a 2 post lift. When I got ready to compress the caliper he got out a caliper tool that is designed for what I need to do the rear on my Coupe. I was like "Cool! That should make things much easier when I do the rear brakes on my Mini."

 

Sea Salt must have done most of that, pretty rusty.

 

Or, where I live, winter road salt.

 

Winter road salt aye, and prob poor quality cast iron has a role here as well. Foundry quality can be all over the map WRT what gets dumped into the crucibles. Metallurgical science in eastern Europe can be a little, um, loose.

 

Here we go - the cool project - adding a vital function gauge cluster to the Coupe. A fair number of folks have installed true gauges in their R-series MINIs, particularly for two essential vehicle health monitors - oil pressure and coolant temperature. Both are more than "nice to have" options, and while having a real gauge to measure oil pressure is less common in contemporary automobiles, many (most?) cars have a gauge to measure coolant temperature. But not the MINI - I thought that was weird. So I bought the two gauge kit from Cravenspeed and set to work:



I had some adventures installing this kit, particularly in working within the tight confines of the Coupe, both in the interior as well as in the engine compartment. I did have to make some adaptations to the very good installation instructions provided by Cravenspeed, owing mostly due to the fact that this is an N16 (non-turbo, normally aspirated) motor.

First, I wasn't a fan of using the copper and brass hard tubing to connect the electronic oil pressure sending unit to the clever multi-port adapter that mounts in place of the OEM oil pressure sensor on the engine. On the N16 engine the existing oil pressure sensor port can be found either in the engine block itself above the oil filter canister, or in the base of the oil filter housing itself. In my case, it was in the latter location. This pic shows the multi-port adapter installed in the existing oil pressure sensor port at the base of the oil filter. This location was fairly easy to get to, but only after I took some significant time to remove the exhaust manifold heat shield and the bracket holding the lambda oxygen sensor cable connector:


Oil sensor port in the base of the oil filter



Cravenspeed multi-port adapter



Oil pressure tubing installed

I wasn't a fan of this arrangement (think how vibration can affect this connection point), so I scrapped the hard tubing setup and replaced that with a 48" braided stainless pressure hose I bought from Amazon:


-4 AN Steel Braided Hose with 1/8" NPT Male To -4 AN Block Fitting and 1/8" NPT Female To -4 AN Gauge Fitting


Steel braided flexible oil pressure hose installed. Note OEM oil pressure sensor also installed on multi-port adapter.

There is tight clearance between the exhaust manifold heat shield and the OEM oil pressure sensor, which is built to take the heat coming off the heat shield. The clearance is more than adequate to not come in contact with the sensor and its cable connector. Photo below shows the exhaust manifold upper heat shield removed and lamda oxygen cable bracket removed. Removing those interferences was vital to installing the multiport adapter and routing the braided steel oil pressure hose.


Note the straight oil pressure hose routing does not interfere with the oil filter housing.

I wanted to get the electronic oil pressure sending unit out of the engine compartment and away from heat and vibration. The flexible steel braided oil line hose was long enough to be routed with minimal bending outside to a mount point below the driver's side headlamp. Zip ties were all that were needed to securely mount the sending unit:



Directly below the sending unit is the driver's side foglight. Behind that is the windshield washer fluid reservoir.

That completed the mechanical installation of the oil pressure sending unit. Next will be the coolant temperature sending unit

 

The second portion of the Cravenspeed Gauge Cluster installation project involved replacing an existing T-connector in the upper coolant hose (MINI part #17122754222) with a Cravenspeed-fabricated T-connector coupling. Replacing this coupling supports the installation of a temperature probe that resides within the return coolant flow coming out of the top of the radiator. The T-connector is unique to all 2nd generation MINIs, R55 through R59, that use BMW's Rp automatic transmission. Those MINI models have an additional coolant line that goes to the transmission - manual shift models do not have this secondary coolant hose, so a straight-through style coupling is used.


From the Cravenspeed installation instructions. Circled areas show the coupling used by the two types of upper coolant hose. This coupling is replaced in this installation.

The new Cravenspeed upper coolant hose coupling is used in either configuration - manual shift MINIs have a plug that has to be fitted where the barbed shank shown below is located. The new coupling includes the coolant temperature thermocouple that will send its signal to the coolant temp gauge.


New Cravenspeed T-connector coupling with thermocouple fitting (left); at right is the OEM upper coolant hose T-connector coupling that is replaced in this installation.

It took some muscle to weedle the three hose connections apart after moving aside the coolant expansion tank to gain access, tight confines don't allow for much leverage when prying the hoses apart. I had to make up about ½ gallon of coolant that was lost while disconnecting the OEM T-connector. Once it was all fitted together and clamps installed everything popped back into place without fuss.


Post-installation

Next - making up the electrical connections.

 

Before going any further with these installation comments, kudos do have to go out to MCMC Mini Cooper in Montgomery County, who has put together a very comprehensive series of YouTube videos describing the installation of the Cravenspeed gauge cluster in his 2009 MINI. There are three videos of interest here, along with dozens of other videos that describe his discoveries with his MINI. MCMC's channel is here:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr6wKxGVUBnjJ36R4-Wqzdg

With regards to the wiring installation, volume 3 of MCMC's gauge installation videos gives some great insight as to how he approached this task, including a very clever implementation of the hi/lo warning function offered by the Marshall gauges used in the Cravenspeed gauge kit. Highly recommended:

I only had one significant issue with installing the gauge cluster in my 2013 Coupe - the very tight clearance between the gauge pods and the microphone used when speaking through a phone via Bluetooth. It took some real back and forth fussing to get the only exact position required by the central tach gauge, the new gauge pods, and base plate used for the entire assembly atop the steering column. The steep rake and closeness of the Coupe's windshield made this exercise a time-eating trial to get the fitting-up properly done. The challenge is to make this work without pinching any wires and then keeping the central base plate properly aligned so as to not interfere with moving the steering column up and down and forward and back. A strong magnetic screwdriver with good lighting is critical so as to not drop the base plate screws into some inaccessible location requiring a near complete disassembly of the steering column. Don't ask me how I know this to be true...

Aside from fussing with the gauge pods and tachometer gauge, the rest of the wiring is straightforward, routing the sensor wires through a firewall plug and then scoring good connection points for always-on and switched-on hot wires that include installing an inline fuse for each. Then finding the appropriate wire under the center console to tap for the instrument lights, and ensuring a very good ground point connection for the entire wiring harness for these gauges, completes the electrical work.

If working with your vehicle's electrical system is not something you have much experience with, please disconnect the negative battery terminal before fiddling with the wiring.


Looking good!

With regards to gauge accuracy, the coolant temperature gauge tallied almost exactly with what was reported by the OBD-driven coolant temp displayed by the Torque Pro app. Do the math to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius:


Torque Pro screen - coolant temp upper right. 97° C = 206.6° F, pretty close between the two.

As far as oil pressure is concerned, what I'm seeing is 21-25 psi at idle, 30-35 psi at cruise, and then spikeing up to 60 psi when stomping on it. These are all on the lower side of normal operating oil pressures, maybe. But the important thing here is that I have good baseline to watch in the months (years?) to come.

All in all, a good project, I'm very happy with how this has turned out.

 

After some digging I have found that the OEM receiver identifies the the transmitter via a hex number. If you buy aftermarket TPMS sensors and a programming tool (all that I have found can only program their own TPMS sensors) you actually copy the info from the OEM and program it on the aftermarket. I am curious if your if the app in your head unit has the ability to change the hex ID so it could read the stock hex ID instead of what came with it. This way no matter if you are using OEM or aftermarket TPMS sensors it in theory could see the info.

I really like the display with the pressure/temp visible.

 

Still unsuccessful in getting rid of the "Inactive" warning, which disappears within half a minute or so after startup. I did put all the old sensors inside the spare tire, hoping to get rid of this, but that didn't work. Any advice would be welcome.

 

I am not sure but I think TPMS can be deactivated in BimmerCode or using NCSExpert. If I get a chance, I will check Bimmercode one evening this week.

Otherwise if if your Android App has a way to change the hex key or ID for the wheel sensor and could be made to match the stock hex ID both systems in theory should work. The radio doesn't care if it is transmitting to one receiver or multiple. In order to do this, you would need a TPMS tool and some aftermarket TPMS sensors. I just purchased an Autel TS508 Diagnostic & Service tool along with 8 wheel sensors as my stock sensors have two with low battery and I am setting up a set of winter tires this fall. The TS508 can only program Autel sensors, this is true of every unit I looked at.

I could have got by with a lower $$ unit but I needed one for my 2013 Chevy Avalanche. I do a lot of my own maintenance and you need one to rotate the tires on it. My 2006 avalanche there was a relearn procedure in it, the 2013 isn't that way. Along with my two brothers that live local, we will get our money worth out of it. Each of us has bought certain specialty tools that we let the others use. Kind of sharing the wealth or expense depending on how you look at it.

 

I was digging through this issue in BimmerCode a few weeks back and I did disable this “inactive” icon for a little while, or at least I thought I did, but it reappeared a week later. So I dropped the spare tire, broke the bead seal and shoved the four old TPM sensors inside the tire. The idea there was that the MINI could still sniff out the old sensors from inside the spare, and because the sensors were inside the pressurized volume of the spare tire then they would not kick out a TPM warning. I thought that would be a clever way to fool the car into thinking that all the old sensors were in place and working as they normally would. Too clever by half, as the MINI wasn’t fooled a bit.

 

I would think the sensors in the spare would work provided all of them are still operational, i.e. they have good batteries. If you know anyone with a TPMS tool see if they can get a reading from them. My guess is either a weak or dead battery in one or more of them.

 

Does your Android TPMS App have this screen available?

If you can "pair" with your OEM units, I would replace the ones that you got with the App/receiver with ones that can be cloned to your OEM. That way both the Mini and aftermarket TPMS receive the data.

If it does pair with the OEM, I would consider purchasing the kit so I have the PSI/temp readout. I have had that on my Chevys for some time and it is nice. The whole 25% low or high pressure setting doesn't do much for the tire life. It is sure a lot easier to check tire pressures on that app verses take off all the caps and put a pressure gauge on.

 

My setup has similar screens to these, mostly. I'll take a closer look.

 

I just bought a system for $33. It has the caps instead of the internal sensors. They offered it either way but with internal, it was $40 something. I just want to play with it and see if I can get it to recognize one of my Autel MX-Sensor 315 & 433 MHz sensors that has been cloned to my Coupe's info.

If not, I figure I might put them on my trailer.