Well, I just attended a great tuning event at Helix Minisports in Philadelphia, PA. I was very impressed with Eric and his staff at Helix Minisports. They have a great shop, including a Mustang dyno, and even a chill room with TV and video games. Eric was very accommodating and professional. He added a few things for me at the last minute without so much as a blink. His only concern was packing them into the schedule along with the tuning event. I had Eric and his team install a 15% pulley, injectors, cold air intake, colder plugs, short throw shifter, tensioner stop and a new belt. Eric also fit my car into a tight dyno schedule to get a baseline dyno prior to adding all of those parts. Jan from Revolution Motor Works (RMW) tuned my car on Sunday and did a great job. Jan is easy to work with, very professional, and knowledgeable. All said and done, my 2005 Mini Cooper S started out bone stock (with 11,000 miles on it) at 152 whp / 162 wtq. After all of the parts were installed and the car it ran a 197 whp / 195 wtq. That's an improvement of 45 whp / 33 wtq. I'll post the dyno when I get home and get it scanned. The area of under the curve is pretty impressive for so few mods. My impression driving it is: HELL YEAH! The power delivery is much smoother and stronger across the RPM range. The stock MCS is underpowered in the lower RPM ranges, and that is totally gone now. The car is more driveable in city traffic as well as for highway. Anyway, this is more a review of Helix and RMW, which I have nothing bad to say about either. Big thanks to Eric, Ralph, Mike, and Jan! I will enjoy my car so much more thanks to their hard work. If you're looking for a tuner, I totally recommend RMW. If you're looking for a great Mini shop, Helix is the place to go.
Don't you just love that fresh and clean feeling of more power? It's kind of sad that you quickly become accustomed to it and start craving more. Good numbers.
I previously had my car tuned by Jan in Rochester last spring. I have since had 380cc injectors installed. Jan retuned my car today and smoothed out some bumps in the power delivery. For a mid 2002 Cooper S with 105,500 on the odo it still broke the 200whp barrier on the Helix 'Heartbreaker' dyno. Great time hanging out and chatting with Eric, Ralph, Jan, Tim & Mike.