I looked into this a while back. I just think it costs way too much money ($4000 without a tune). I ran into a guy in Manchester NH with a home-brewed version of this. It only cost him about $2500 to do himself. As for how it handles, I don't know either. The system is NOT OBD-II emissions compliant, so it WILL throw engine codes. And I'm not sure if a tune would help this problem either. Supposedly Alta can custom build you one, but like I said, it still seems too expensive to me for what you get. The kit installs a larger (yes, LARGER) supercharger pulley (5% larger) and puts a turbo in the mix. I believe how it works is it uses the larger pulley to help get more power early and to avoid any kind of turbo lag. I haven't done a whole lot of research on this, but if you do get this kit, you can run it with the stock components. If you do get a tune, you will need to replace the intercooler (another $1000). I just checked the Alta website and they don't even have it up anymore so they might have scraped it.
Revolution Motor Works was working on a Rotrex Supercharger kit that made 295whp, but the 440cc injectors couldn't handle it, and they were going to get 550cc injectors and push it to 8000rpms. I don't remember hearing anything else about it after that. I don't know if they scraped it or not, but it was beastly! Anything over 350whp is useless in a MINI unless you spend sh*t tons of money and make it a track only MINI. Do some more research on it. I'm sure with $4000 you could spend on the twurbo kit, you could make the same amount of numbers with other mods, and it'll be more reliable since there's not a lot of people with the twurbo kit out there and a lot of people with modded engines. Check out some big valve head kits, stroker kits, cams, and other engine components. You could probably get a 300hp MINI for that same price, tune included!
