Hi guys, this is my JCW R59.
The car have been recently upgraded with a number of parts and I would like to share my feedback with you.

This is how it looked till a few weeks ago:
The pictures are from a features on dreamsmini:





Aside from the original equipment (aero kit, black driving lights, black/red interior, nav etc) I've fitted Tenzo R black/red wheels and Advan Neova, KW springs, I painted the side scuttles red and a few minor things.

Recently I decided I wanted more power and to tune the handling accordingly.
As I live in Italy the choice for the exhaust system was obvious: Supersprint.
I talked with the guys at the factory (I don't live far) and as it was the 1st Roadster they would have worked on they offered me a good price for the whole system.
The system fitted is actually the oversize one (65mm / 2"56), with a revised centre pipe to fit better in the smaller space available on the R59.
I went for the downpipe + cat kit:



They told me the cat placed under the car would have worked much better, but there was the issue of the CEL...

As I wanted to make it quite louder I went for the centre pipe (non resonator).

As for the back box, for a while I thought to go for the black tips, they showed me the lipless matt black ones for the F10 M5 and they looked fantastic...like these:

In the end I went for the classic chrome, the black disappeared in the diffuser.
I was slighly shocked on how loud it was once it was finished...with the roof down is amazing!
We also tried the JCW muffler with the front Supersprint section and while it sounds different (less drone, but a bit unrefined at low rpm) I'm not sure which one is better.
We've talked about a a new JCW-specific muffler that'll combine the best of both worlds...we'll see. I keep the SS for now.

More pictures coming...including Evolve R ECU tune and Ohlins coilovers!

 

ABJ....

Bellissimo!!!

Love your roadster; love Italy!!!
My ancestors from San Giovanni Rotondo... Visit frequently ....
Italy is made for roadsters .... What kind of feedback/ reaction are you getting over there ?
Ciao,
JoNack

Sent from my iPhone using NAMotoring

 

Looks fantastic!!

 

ABJ-

Nice seeing you on NAM...great looking R59 Keep us posted on the upgrades. From what I've gathered, the Ohlins suspension parts are considered among the best. Also, how cool to be able to work directly with SuperSprint...another great manufacturer.


-Steven

 

Have to agree here, fantastic look. Makes me want to look I to driving lights for my Lil Raggi. Have agree with BluToy about working directly with a manufacturer. Keep the pictures and commentaries coming.

Bill

 

ABJ,

Love the car and your mods. Like Bill said - Keep the pictures and commentaries coming!

 

Finally I had some time on my hands.

I've been lucky to drive on the Mugello racetrack for the International Mini Meeting.
If you follow the MotoGP you'll know this track pretty well.
It was my 1st time on that track, I have to say it's made for very powerful cars, lots of high speed corners, 400 hp is the right amount...
I was hitting 230 kph in the longer straight!
The mini performed flawlessy, and the weather wasn't bad, so I could drive with the roof down.
The exhaust sounded fantastic, a few friends of mine who was watching from outiside told me the pops and burble on the overrun were awesome...I'm really happy with this exhaust!
The engine is very strong, torquier, responsive, and the power stays even with the car very hot.
The suspension are still on the factory-recommended setup for the road, so it still has some roll and maybe a bit of weight on the front lowering it 1 cm would increase grip.

I published a video of my first track session. I used a Gopro with an external mic placed behind the rear seats.


Last weekend I've been on the mountains (Passe del Maniva):

Here the car really shone. No need for 1st gear even on the tighest U-turns.
The tarmac wasn't so great, I was amazed by how the car mantains its composure and gets the power down.
The sound was bouncing off the cliff side and with the roof down it was amazing. I got a video of this too, I'll try to get it online as soon as I can.

 

More pictures of the Mini meeting on the mountains here:
http://www.mini4fun.com/m4f/project/...b-mini-italia/



A glimpse of the road:

 

ABJ,

Thanks for posting pictures and your trip report! Awesome stuff! Also, love the look of your JCW R59. In fact, I decided to opt for red stripes on my black R59 after seeing your car. Looks so aggressive.

 

Alfio-

Spectacular road...sounds like the perfect drive Looking forward to seeing the video. Thanks for sharing!


-Steven

 

What a road! I am so jealous that you get to take your roadster on roads like that through an incredible countryside..what a feeling that must be.

I knew a guy who had a supersprint exhaust on a Ferrari 308 GTS - under full throttle, that thing sounded like an F1 race car! Your MINI is coming along nicely, keep the pics and videos coming.

Bellisimo!

 

Nice car! Love the mods you've done and great photography as well.

 

I've received the pictures from Supersprint, as well as the dyno charts.

Here's a brief overview of the work they've done.
First they tested the car as stock on their Maha dyno.





The car came with 226hp and 280 nm as stock, which already very good!
They told me they tested a few others JCW and they have always between 220 and 230 hp. On the same dyno a tuned Countryman JCW ran 248 hp, a stock Cooper S LC1 184 cv around 182hp, so I'm confident the results of mine are real.
They use a water spray to cool down the intercooler and get consistent results between the various runs. These are very long as they are done in 5th gear, they come much closer to real life acceleration under stress than many other systems.

Testing done they removed the stock exhaust.









I was disappointed in the quality of the stock JCW exhaust. The edges are not fully welded but of the "can type" and the gas is obviously coming out much more from the left side, as you can tell by the left outlet being much more yellow and burnt.
The size of the piping is a small in my opinion, 57mm. The Supersprint is 65mm..much better!

They told me that they had to change the routing of the centre pipe because the space under the car is smaller than previous Minis and the system is bigger (the Supersprint for the Cooper S is 60mm).
So I ended up with a completely reworked system! The advantages of going directly to the manufacturer...
I guess the next customers will earn from my experience.

These are the lipped chromed 90mm tail pipes in the GP diffuser.
They fit and look really well...I may go for lip-less one day, but I'll stay chrome, the black ones diseappear.



Notice the huge reinforing braces of the Roadster! No wonder it feel so stiff.
No centre silencer there!


Here's the front pipe with the HJS 100 CPSI cat. I could choose between 100 and 200 but as I'm having the Evolve tune and no wire extension the 100 is better for performance and there's no risk of CEL.



In good company! ML63 AMG. I was amazed by the number of exotic cars that pass under the hands of these guys. Just a few examples when I was there: Exige V6, Morgan Plus 4, classic Porsche 930 3.0 SC, the ML, GT86....


More picture of how the system look finished. The main pipe got a bit burnt with the dyno testing .




Close up of the tailpipes...I love them!


Dyno charts coming up next (stock VS exhaust VS exhaust+IC+tune)

I'm waiting for the pictures shot at the workshop who fitted the IC and Ohlins coilvers.
In the mean time I received the AEM intake...I have to say that the car sometimes feel a bit rough at low rpm since I fitted the intake.
I'm going to ask Evolve if they can send me a rivised tune so I can load it with their excellent Evolve-R cable system.
I sent them the dyno charts and data from the testing in Supersprint.
They told me that the car was still "fresh" and would have probably gained some power after a while, after the auto-adjustment have taken place.
I guess they are right because the car feel faster now that just after I left the Supersprint factory.
I think I'll go there again once I have the new tune, so we can see how much power it really has. I'm hoping 265-270 at the crank.

 

I've just found out they posted a picture of my car at the racetrack as the cover of their Facebook page...nice!

http://www.facebook.com/Supersprint

 

Great posts Alfio The exhaust turned out great...so nice to have it custom fit. Also, very impressed with the stock JCW HP figures.


-Steven

 

I forgot a picture of the downpipe, it's this one (official picturer, I haven't got one of the actual part fitted to my car)

The connection between the downpipe and the cat is with flanges, a sealing ring and springs, to allow movement without a fragile flex pipe.

 

I've just received the dyno charts.
They sent me the best and more plausible of the various runs done in the different setups.

Here we go...
Stock

226 hp and 282nm (against 211 hp and 280 nm claimed)

With the Supersprint full exhaust:

233 hp and 290 nm. The gain, + 7hp, is pretty decent considering is just the exhaust. I've never believed huge power gains given on the mini by exhaust companies...
Here's the comparison:

The gain is mostly above 4800 rpm.
The throttle response is still very sharp and no torque loss anywhere.

Then let's get serious
With Evolve intercooler and remap

258,5 hp - 320 nm
Notice the boost curve (purple). It never reaches 1.4 bar and has no spike in the low range. Drivetrain says thanks...

Also compare the air intake temperature.
With the Evolve intercooler it stays under 35°C (26°C ambient)
With the stock one it reached 75°C with the exhaust (30°C ambient), 55°C stock (24°C ambient).
I can tell why i never felt any power loss on the track.

Compared with the previous one with just the exhaust:

The power delivery is still very linear and progressive (good to get the power down), there's more torque everyere and massive power gains in the high rpm range.

And finally as it was stock and with the mods:
I'm satisfied with the power delivery and while the car didn't reach really huge numbers the fact that it runs cool, with not much boost it makes good power and it's very nice to drive makes me happy.
It should be pretty reliable too thanks to the work on the downpipe and intercooler...actually I believe it's even more reliable than stock!

I'm curious to see what the AEM intake does and also if Evolve can extract something more without compromising the drivability.

What do you think?

 

I had some fun with my gopros...

 

That video is just awesome! Thank you for sharing!

 

Thanks again for the great info. you are making really good power and as you stated, not over stressing the engine by running huge amounts of boost. I'm curious with your mods, what your 0-60 times are now?


-Steven

 

I didn't record any figures but I would guess .5 second faster than stock with the Neovas and the increased power. It feels like around 6 seconds 0-100 kph, which should be about right given the power to weight ratio.

 

Wow!

 

Here's a few more pictures:

Tenzo R wheels before fitting:


Ohlins package

One of the dampers disassembled:

Fitted





Evolve Intercooler fitted (some trimming of the grill required...nothing hard, just a few clips to make the grill stay more flush with the bumper and gain a few mm.)



Sorry for the quality but these were taken by my mechanic, I wasn't at the workshop at the time.

 

Sweet thread. Those Ohlins are just godly. And I wish I can drive whatever course or road you ripped it up on:

 

Thanks. Not many updates recently. We have a big meeting in September, and the car will be probably tested by a magazine.
1st I have to address a small power delivery issue, I'm not sure if it's the AEM intake.