Drive ability on the Stage 3 tune with the turbo has been great. No issues and all the datalogs have been excellent. We reduced the timing a fair amount to make sure we could make power safely on the JCW internals at this boost level. Since everything looked good it was time to get Vlad back on the dyno and see what kind of numbers came back. All in all I'm good with a smidge over 290 horse and 280 torque. Others have hit higher numbers on stock internals but this is as far as I'm personally comfortable pushing him until the internals get upgraded.



That means I'm done with my mods for the moment. Hmm, this is a strange feeling. It's like like I've got an itch somewhere I can't scratch. But I guess I can live with it for a little awhile... Whew glad I made it through that. Anybody got any recommendations on good coil-overs?

 

That's a scary car right there. The guy who works at Mini in NYC (LRDVDR) did a Coupe tune like that too, but he said his ran real rough at idle for some reason.

 

Yep massive props to LRDVDR for what he's done with his Coupe so far. It looks like it should be a monster when he's done. But you touched on the reason I started designing the X51 turbo. There had to be a way to have Garrett level performance but without the headaches that go along with one.

Truth be told my original inspiration for designing a turbo started with a post from OldBrokenWind. Not sure which thread it was, but awhile back he was cataloging all the challenges with getting a Garrett to work right. It was obviously a love/hate relationship but he refused to give in and his persistence paid off. I tried a couple of other hybrids out there but my results proved less than optimal. So I figured why not design my own. It ended up being more difficult, time consuming and expensive than I'd presumed (duh) but I'd have to say the results look rather promising.

 

Jesus H. Christ....

 

LOL. Technically the JCW internals can take quite a bit. A stock N14 JCW in Brazil was running over 2 bar with meth on 102 RON and a very aggressive tune. It eventually broke but I doubt that surprised the owner.

On a separate note I've been planning to install some front splash guards that my awesome wife got me for Christmas. Of course the only problem with the R56 front splash guards is they don't fit the JCW. But thats nothing a heat gun and some burnt fingers can't fix.


Of course the 235's still stick out past the splash guards but hopefully they'll cut down some on the schmutz that gets slung down the side of Vlad.



All in all I'm happy with the fit. Took a little bit of time (heat, mold to vehicle, blow on fingers, lather, rinse, repeat) to get them molded. I'll probably go back and do the same with the rear guards as they're off just enough to bug my OCD.

On the tuning front Nick is working on the standalone boost controller version of the tune for the X51. I'll be using a Cortex electronic boost controller purchased specifically for this phase. There are a lot of boost controllers to choose from but the Cortex EBC has some really nice features like multiple profiles and map by gear.



The boost by gear allows you to set boost limits and curves for each gear using 3D maps which gives you a great deal more control when it comes to fine tuning the boost curve. This is the forth gear setting for profile #1 for Vlad.


One of the nice things about a system like this is gives you the ability to create multiple profiles for each map. You can create a profile to have fun with, one for the track to maximize traction, one for wet weather or even a valet mode. It creates all kinds of possibilities.

 

Another minor update: Ordered a KS-3 knock detector from Phormula in the UK. Pretty nice system that's configurable for your specific application based on piston diameter. It has adjustable gain and threshold setting to help dial it in and help eliminate false positives. The unit has a TI microprocessor to apply filters and FFT analysis on the waveform from the extra Bosch knock sensor included. Looking for a specific frequency help eliminate valvetrain and other engine noises from triggering the unit. The only thing that could make it better is if it tracked crank rotation and ignition events. This would further reduce false positives since detonation tends to occur within a specific window. It would also allow the system to tell you which cylinder produced the detonation. The last ones not that important though since the ECU will record that information for you.

I'd planned on buying this a while ago but other mods got in the way. Now that were starting to push the envelope on this engine it was time.

 

Recently I've noticed some delamination of the carbon fiber center caps on the OZ Racing Formula4 HLT wheels. Can't say I was particularly please to note it.


I got these wheels and tires from Tire Rack in November 2015 so I called up Tire Rack with the order number expecting to have to buy replacement parts. A very helpful young lady by the name of Katrina answered the phone. Nice to get a human being right away rather than having to select five different menu options only to leave a message. Long story short I e-mailed her pictures and was informed that four new caps would be at my doorstep on Wednesday. No charge, not even for the shipping. It was a refreshing break from the norm you expect in this day and age. Tire Rack may not be the least expensive retailer out there, but service like that is how you win repeat customers.

 

First off hello R58 JCdub brother. This is a really sweet build. I'm also a N14 R58 driver. It's a pretty well put together little street beast. I saw you asked about coilovers. I'm running Fortune Auto coilovers. There great but not the softest things for the street. However there made just for you as end custom springs rates damping and valving oh and 32 way adjustable. Look into them there starting become well known in the community.

 

Awesome. Thanks for tip. I looked at their website. I really like that I can choose either Swift or Hyperco springs and choose your own spring rates. Price is pretty reasonable as well. Do you remember if you went with the standard 6K front / 4K rear spring rates for your Coupe or did you go for a more square setup since our CG is a little further aft? And would you change any of the rates if doing it again?

 

Yeah the 4k read was on back order so I went 6k on all 4 corners. It's takes time to dial them in being 32 way adjustable so I would start all the way stiff and work backwards for there. Takes way to long to start soft to hard. I believe I'm 3-4 clicks away from full stiff.

 

For the front's, do they come with camber plates or new top mounts or do we have to use MINI hardware like most other units? Also, for the rears, are the adjustments done on the bottom of the assembly, or on the top, like a Koni Yellow?

 

Hey i think you got the last set of those 235/40 17s! any other tires on your short list worth looking at? In that size it looks like there is a few cheap tires or full on track day tires, I'm probably going to end up with dunlop direzza z2

 

Yeah I wish I'd known they were going to stop making them in this size. I could have sold a kidney and stocked up lol. They've been great so far and the wear has been much better than a 200 AA rating would suggest. I've heard really good things about the Z2 and the wear rating is the same as the RE-11's (200 AA). Just be aware that it's pretty common with V tread tires to get noisy as they wear. I really liked the Toyo Proxes T1 Sport in this size. Asymmetrical tread design, great traction wet and dry, good ride, quiet, 240 AA wear rating, and about $115 each. Once these wear out I may try the R1R, Nitto NT05 or Yokohama Advan Neova.

 

yea the directional tread is what im not liking with most of them - nothing to do with the pattern just noisey, only rotate f/r (wear), already wants to follow to groove of the road....necessary evil from the looks of it though.
Proxes T1 look pretty good - tirerack seems to be phasing them out also though no available stock in size

Amazon had a set of 4, went ahead and ordered them. Prime free shipping, but got hit with tax

 

Short update. Been doing some more tweaking and noticed a slight coolant smell when boost climbed over 25 psi. That usually indicates the head is lifting so I pulled the head this weekend and installed ARP head studs, new head gasket and cam bolts. Definitely had a small amount of head lift. When I was removing the head bolts the center aft bolt had some corrosion on the threads. When pulling the head gasket sure enough there was a small amount of discoloration at the top, inboard area of the gasket. Everything went back together smooth as silk. Test drive went great with no leaks or issues.

Next up is the Phormula install. Since there is no second mounting point for a knock sensor I will be stacking the factory and phormula sensor. Normally stacking them is not the best solution as there is limited contact space with the top sensor. So I've taken an extra thick stainless washer and trued it on a lapping stone. That will sit between the two sensors to better facilitate sound transmission.

 

Wohoo! ARP studs does a body good. Finally got a chance to do a really nice pull at 25.4 psi and no head lift. Kinda sucked that I only had Saturday to get the job done. If I'd had more time I would have liked to port and polish the head. Oh well, still looking for a JCW donor engine I can build the right way without time constraints. If the search takes too long a may pull the head back off and port it anyway. At least I won't have to worry about replacing the studs.

I've been running the factory hot side tubing with a muffler delete pipe and decided it's time to finally clean up some of the flow a bit. Never did like that sharp bend at the bottom of the hot side. I'm even still running the N14 noise maker. I'm surprised the diaphragm is still holding together between getting sprayed with meth and running this level of boost. So I'm looking at new hot and cold side pipes. I was originally looking at NM Engineering which makes truly outstanding products. Their cold side tube is 59mm at the bead roll so it's a full 2.25 inch OD pipe. Same dimensions as the inter-cooler fittings. Strangely enough though their hot side tube is smaller at 54mm. Not sure why that is. There's not much difference in price between NM and CTS Turbo so I'm considering giving CTS a shot since they're using 2.25" pipe on both sides. Of course that still leaves the squished hard plastic tube on the passengers side that needs some attention. Ah so much to do, and so little time.

 

I ordered the boost tubes from a vendor I haven't used before and they botched it. Just an oh well we made a mistake, no apologies, no sorry for the inconvenience, nothing, zero, zip, nada. So I said the hell with them, their crappy customer service, and canceled to order. Did some more searching and it turns out our forum supporting friends at ECS Tuning carry it as well. Wish I'd known that before... oops, sorry fellas. So ECS gets the business instead.

 

Thanks for the order, we appreciate it. We are always here for you also if you need anything. Fellow R58 JCW owner also.

 

I noticed in the photos that the CTS cold side tube appeared to be tapped for a meth nozzle. Advertising photo's can be misleading sometimes but it is confirmed. So if someones thinking about methylating their Mini this would be one way to get it done. Ideally, you want one nozzle located in the plastic cold side pipe near the intercooler to take maximum advantage of evaporative cooling. If however you don't want to make a permanent modification to that pipe or aren't feeling that handy with a drill and tap, then this might be a solution for you.


The quality seems very good and even the clamps included look decent. All my pipe clamps will end up getting changed to T-bolt clamps but we'll see how these hold up to 25 psi first.

 

Installation of the CTS kits were completed yesterday with no issues or lines blowing off in map C. The kits were very nice quality but there's two things I think everyone should be aware of. Neither hot or cold side kit includes installation instructions. Pretty hard to screw up the cold side installation but the hot side hard pipe takes a bit more care. In order to insure plenty of clearance around the shift linkage counterweight the longer section of pipe goes at the top. Second thing to be aware of is to check the tightness of the plug that comes installed in the cold side meth bung. I checked before installation and was able to snug it down some more. On the first test drive I thought I might miss the sound from the noisemaker but when the X51 spools up that's all you can hear from the front anyways lol.

 

Was stuck at home sick today. Got thoroughly bored and decided it was past time to get the KS-3 hooked up. If I keep procrastinating at this rate I'll be late to my own funeral. I didn't pull the knock sensor bolt to measure it when I ordered the longer bolts but luckily that WAG didn't come home to roost. Got Vlad up in the air and took a look at the landscape before messing with anything. If anyone else decides on one of these installs I'd recommend you do the same as I and disconnect the battery before going any further. The battery hot wire to the starter is going to be inches away from where your going to be turning a ratchet, so disconnect the battery first. Everything came apart easy enough.



When comparing thread protrusion after stacking everything up it looks like I was off by about 1/2 a thread engagement. Better to be a tiny bit short than too long I suppose.



Add a little Permatex red thread locker and reassembled. Note: The sensors will try and rotate a small amount as you get close to final torque. So take that into consideration when it starts to snug up. Also pay attention to the factory knock sensor harness as you want to keep it off the starter.



Next up was running the harness through the firewall on the drivers side and routing to the center console. This would be the part where I usually get bitchy as hanging upside down under a dash just irritates the hell out of me. But I just couldn't work up the energy for it. Anyway, got everything hooked up and powered it on.... All the LED's light up and... Nothing happens, DOH! The power adapter that comes with the unit goes into a cigarette lighter so I pull it out and try it in the wife's car. Same thing, ah crap I bought this thing back in March so hopefully they don't give me a hard time on warranty.

So at 4:59 I email Phormula with a pic of the unit not completing the initialization process. At 5:21 I get an e-mail back apologizing for the inconvenience and letting me know that a new unit would be shipping out the next day. Taking the time zones into account, someone in the UK answered my piteous cry for help at 10:21 pm. Gotta love the Brits.

 

Got the replacement KS-3 in yesterday. Plugged it in and set the frequency at 7.5kHz, Currently have the gain set at 11 and the knock alert threshold set at 40. When you look at the face of the KS-3 the number after knock on the left is not knock events but a real time indication of the noise level centered around 7.5kHz. The number after max on the right is a peak/hold indication showing the highest number recorded since it was powered on or reset.

Time to test the system and fine tune the gain. Map B with meth to 6,800 RPM results in a max of about 34. Turned off the Aquamist to kill the boost. Even with the wastegate open the turbo still makes 9psi at 6,800 whereas my JCW would hit 7 to 8psi. Got almost the same number so it was time to induce some knock. All my maps are designed for meth so I switched to map A which has more aggressive timing than B or C, bypassed the failsafe and let her rip without the meth. Got 78 on max, lights started flashing, beepers started beeping and it was time to say whoa horse, whoa. I'd say we have a successful test there.



I originally had the KS-3 sitting in the center console for testing purposes but I needed a permanent mount that made it easier to see and hear an alert. Just sticking it to the dash with velcro wasn't going to cut it. Luckily, I was able to re-purpose an iPhone 5 mount from CravenSpeed that I no longer had a use for.



All in all I'm super pleased with the product and especially like the peace of mind of being able to see a knock event when it occurs. Prior to installing the KS-3 the only way of knowing a knock event occurred would be a diagnostic read of the OBD after the fact. Which doesn't do you a whole lot of good in letting you know if you got a bad tank of gas or have some other issue your not aware of.

 

On a side note I got tired of trying to get water spots off of the vinyl stripes. Being that they were five years old and starting to crack they had to go. A little sunlight and a heat gun did the trick. Of course then you've got the wax lines which a little elbow grease and MEK took care of. Followed that up with some rubbing compound and a little wax and no more lines. So in the vernacular of my redneck ancestors Vlad is now "neked". Looking at this picture reminds me I still have to do something with that belt line, bleh.



Been trying to figure out if I like this look better, or if I should go with a completely different style of stripe. I kinda like the stripes on the Manhart JCW F56 but with my original colors. Red on the front and back, with black on the top. Looking for some idea's that would go with the factory paint scheme.

 

Black it the **** out. lol

 

i started blacking out/color matching on mine (eclipse grey not black) and it ends up being to much imo.
that red roof jumps out though lol... maybe do it alternating red on the black...black on the roof to tone it down some. I would pull some red down on the body though, amber wheel arch lights look horrible..I've wondered is the one from the rear (red) fits in the same arch