You can see by my sig what mods I have. While traveling through some hot weather with the air conditioner running, I heard some pinging while climbing a hill. Could this be resolved by a more effecient IC, cooler plugs or what? I currently have NO type of ECU upgrade/reflash. Unfortunately, California's highest octane pump gas is only 91.
Any suggestions?

Thanks for any input.

 

You can get into an endless debate about what mod caused the pinging. The fact is that you have got pinging in hot weather. At this point, you are looking at either improving the cooling abillity of the I/C (water misting installation, DFIC from M7 (or both)), a lower temp (180 degree) thermostat, colder plugs, and, and, and. Or, you could blend 100 octane racing unleaded with the 91 octane pump gas. Risk of pinging is the only reason I have held off mods to my car. Being tethered to gas stations that sell 100 octane racing unleaded is NOT what I want to be with the MINI. I have already had that experience with my Corvette; I don't want to repeat it with the MINI. I would be curious to hear what you decide to do.

 

Thanks CAMINIFAN.

I will be seeing a fellow named Scott at Central Coast Coopers this coming weekend to adjust my WMS Extreme Swaybar away from body parts to, hopefully, get rid of the creaking noise I'm experiencing. At that time, I will ask him about my options. I am considering the Mini Madness Water to Air IC. It's about $1500 but claims about 25 more ponies. If this will help take care of the pinging, I may opt for it.
Anyway, I will keep you informed of may work for me.

 

Hey, before you do any thing else, there's a good, recent, ongoing thread on this.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=74535

You're not the only one who has had pinging in California, and there do appear to be a couple of easy, inexpensive solutions.

It's a good read!

Best,

-- Don

 

I talked with a guy in AZ with this IC and he claims it added 30HP to his MCS convertible. He gets 215WHP on a dyno, so it must be true. Go for it!

cheers,

 

An additional consideration is the underdrive crank pulley - 2% on top of the 14.6% s/c with the JCW package gets you to just under 17% s/c reduction. The water-to-air IC sounds almost too good to be true. If you decide to take the plunge on the water-to-air IC, please post your results. Depending on the current miles on your car, you might check into the de-carbonization process that VBG has posted about. At a minimum, it will tell you if you could dodge the ping bullet on the cheap (even at $200 for a shop to do the job, it is less than the water-to-air IC). Maybe an intermedite step is to throw a can of the stuff in your gas tank on your next fill-up?

 

After reading a technical article on the water-to-air I/C that MiniMania is selling, I decided to start a thread about the benefits of water-to-air ICs. The thread is at:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...02#post1059702

Hopefully we will get some posters with actual experience with a water-to-air IC implementation that will share their experience. Lets see what materializes.