Who do you guys use for custom tuning in the St.Louis area? I'm down in Springfield, and I can't find anyone around here who knows anything about minis.

Thanks!

 

With all the MINI's in St. Louis....none of you guys have done a custom tune?

 

FWIW - in the ST Louis Mini club most of the members seem to keep their cars stock especially the Gen 2 owners. Hopefully someone from the club will be able to help. I know some of the Gen 1 guys are always trying to up the performance and handling on theirs.

COME ON ST LOUIS CLUB GUYS - HELP THIS GUY OUT.

 

Well...I guess everyone in and around St. Louis is keeping their mini's pretty much stock

 

I'm only about 2 hours from Springfield in Northwest Arkansas. I DID NOT keep my R53 stock. I don't have a tune though. Might be cool but I can barely find a shop to even work on my mini.

 

From what I have gathered MINI tuning shops are few and far between here in the Midwest. If you can't order it online and bolt it on, you can't find it. I have 2 MINIs and neither one is stock, but it's all bolt on mods. Finding an independent mechanic form minor maintenance is hard enough here in St.Louis. depending on what your trying to do there are a few options.

 

Best to send it out to a good tuner proven tuner like Group4 / PAW. Fast turnaround times, from what I have heard.

I have too heard this about the STL club. Maybe I should attend a meeting to findout 1st hand. Not all STL mini guys are stockers

 

You mean actually send my car to some tuner? Like pay a freight company to load up my car and drive it to them?? I think it would be cheaper for me to sell the mini, and buy something with more power

I know there are options out there for remote tunes...I can pay Jan at RMW $600, and pay the dyno guy $100 to run my car and then have Jan send me a tune....but that's a royal pain. But right now, that's my only option.

 

Sorry, my bad

No you just yank the ECU and mail it overnight it to the tuner.. They will tuner it (after talking with you about the tune you want) and overnight it back. I have heard of some tunes taking only 3 days to be back on the road again.

 

That would be great! The only place I know that does that is GIAC...but I'm sure there are others. Do you know what other tuning companies do that?

 

Send Will Jensen an e-mail.. He is VERY nice and will answer any questions you have.

waj04c@gmail.com

I have his FIMC and it was very good quality. I don't have his tune yet but one day I will

 

Did you contact Will? Are you getting a tune?

 

Yes, we had a few emails going back and forth about getting a new tune. Then I never really heard back from him. I just figured that he's got other things going on ....

 

Will is super busy and a super nice guy. I am sure it must have fallen off his to do list.

Keep reaching out to him, the products are very nice and I have heard great things about his tunes and support.

Also, any word on getting some STL Mini modders together? It would be cool to see a bunch of cars with mods in the STL area.
I am sure they are out there but just haven't seen many.

 

I didn't see Neuspeed / NM Engineering mentioned so far.

They've offered a mail-in-your-ECU tune for a while, $500; a number of posts about it on NAM.

 

I've been looking around for this as well. I'm not even sure where to find a dyno to run on around this town even if I do purchase an ECU flash.

On these eFlash deals do you have to use the ECU that is stock with your mini or can you grab one out of a wrecked mini (2008 R56 in my case) and have them flash that?

I'm not thrilled about having my car out of commission for a week. :-(

 

This is an old thread, and it really doesn't look like anyone from STL even visits this place anymore, but did any of you end up getting a custom tune done?

 

I finally gave up on trying to find someplace in Missouri that knows how to tune minis. I even called a few MINI dealers and talked to their service managers and asked them about getting the newer 210hp R53 JCW flash onto my DME........none of the service managers even knew what an R53 mini even was, let alone what JCW tune I was talking about. They were pretty clueless....unless you wanted a ball joint changed or something like that.

I settled on a "canned" tune from Way Motor Works. I mailed them my DME, they flashed it, and mailed it back. It's ok....nothing spectacular, but its better than it was.

If you can find a shop with a dyno, several places will do a custom tune remotely working with the dyno shop.....but the costs for that gets crazy expensive, and not really worth it in my opinion.

 

After working in the dealership environment for about 26 years, I know what you're saying. It's rare to find an actual enthusiast turning wrenches anymore.


I currently have an Alta/Cobb Access Port with the Stage 1 tune and it's a VERY noticeable improvement over stock. I'm adding the catless DP and exhaust in the hopes of stepping up to the Stage 3 tune, but I'd much prefer a custom tune over canned.
I'd really rather tune it myself, but the software for these cars is out of control!

 

Yes....I agree. I wish there were more software packages available to tune your own MINI dme. There are ways to do it.....it's just a royal pain trying to make it work.

Sometimes I wish I had a Chevy LS motor in my mini.....at least then I would have some more tuning options (and 400+ hp)

 

Did anyone find anybody in the St. Louis area that works on Mini's? Mini of St. Louis is truly by the book. Won't even work on a rebuilt car, quoted me $8200 for a new Body control Module and a wiring harness because 4 wires were "broke" from previous damage. Fixed myself in 45 minutes and $65. But because they noticed 4 repaired wires they said they have to replace the entire body harness before moving forward. Really..?

 

You're joking right? You could buy another used MINI for that much.

 

Coming up on near 2 years since this thread was active. I am also in the market for a custom tune for my 2013 JCW Roadster. Anyone have any new thoughts for St. Louis area tuners or what other options are out there?

 

I gave up and just stuck with my Accessport, although I'll be moving to a Manic tune as soon as funds allow. With the mods I have, I feel like that's my best option now.

 

I have a 2016 MCS I ordered last July. When it arrived, I had Mini of St. Louis install the JCW exhaust with blue tooth and the ecu tune. Very pleased with resulting power increase and sound.

A few weeks ago, I went to the annual St. Louis European car show. Dinan was one of the booths there. Unfortunately I was looking for ceramic tint and visited those vendors first. Next June, am planning a long "stop" at the Dinan display. Maybe a good price? Maybe a free install?