1st Gen R53 Cooper S For my next trick: Water Methanol Injection

Gauge Pod is done as far as I can do, so tomorrow its off to get Hydro Dipped, with a Carbon Fiber finish!

I am going to have the three dash panels done to match and the S-Lite Factory Rims also.

Examples Below, photos to be posted next week.

 

Not a lot of updates right now, I am waiting to get the Gauge Pod back from the Hydro-Dip guys and need a little more Money for the Tank in the rear of the car.

BUT I did find what is going to be my third gauge, which should get here today:



Dual Intercooler Temp Gauge

This I pretty neat as you will be able to actually see what the efficiency of the intercooler and the W/M injection.

 

OK Time to get back to work!

Got the Gauge Pod Back from the finishing Shop:

 

OK so the Gauge Pod is installed in the car but not wired yet, that will be tomorrows projects with the Bentley Book and the Soldering Iron!

Also the Howerton Water/Meth Hatch Mount Housing gets here tomorrow, so I will have to hear a bunch of noise from the Gf.

Anyway here is some photos as we all love Mod P0rn:

 

Here it is installed but not wired:







Here is the Rat's Nest that I will be making look Factory tomorrow.

 

Time for a little RANT:

Everyone like to say that you should not mount gauges on the A-pillar, "if you have an accident the gauges will fly out and hit you" I am now going to TOTALLY DISPROVE that internet crap!

In the shot below you will see the two tethers that hold the A-piller in place if the side curtain airbag deploys. (marked by red arrow)



The Tethers then slot into these holes on the body:



Also you will notice that the Curtain Airbag does NOT even go into the A-pillar, only the anchor strap for it does, it is designed so that the A-Pillar panel can pop away about 2 to 3 inches.

 

I have been working on completing this project and Sunday did all the wiring for the following:

ProSport Intercooler In/Out Temp Gauge
Cooling Mist Gauge/Controller
Innovate AFR Gauge

I got them all wired and the wire all run to the correct locations but not all hooked up so far. I took the car to the shop yesterday to have the Bung welded in for the AFR, and they ended up keeping it over night as the header had to come out to get it welded properly, so that is installed and done.

I drilled and tapped the holes for the Prosport Intercooler Gauge sensors tonight and will install the in and out horns tomorrow and solder the sensors up.






and if time permits I will try to get the Howerton Engineering Water / Meth Tank installed and wired up tomorrow, I already solder in the connector and the wires and hose is run in the car already, I just have to figure out the best and cleanest way to get the connections, tubes and wires to the pump housing.

 

I got a few hours today to do a little more work, I got the Tank Housing wired in and installed in place.

Here is a shot of the Vent Line, which exits the bottom of the battery box through a grommet:



This shot is the 'enclosure' wired in but, not yet mounted.



Wired, Mounted and the rear section of the car put back together:



Tomorrow I am going to try and get the Intercooler Temp Sensors / Intercooler Horns install, I got them wired up today, I think I might have to remove all the intake side stuff to get them in.

 

I got the gauge sensors installed but finished to late to take photos. I will clean the car tomorrow and take some photos of the sensors and the gauge(s) working

 

Got a Chance to Wash, Clay Bar, Polishing Cut, and Wax the MINI today, its been a while and it really needed it.

So here is the photos of the Gauge Pod Working:



I still have to setup the Water/Meth Kit, its totally installed. But not configured yet. I had the Bung welded in the other day so the AFR is working now. You can see the Intercooler Gauge working also, its wild under boost the air going into the intercooler is as high as 220ºF the split seems to be about 40ºF at 50+MPH.

This Photo shows the Wiring coming into the engine bay, I used an existing grommet/hole building a waterproof plug from the grommet:



This photo is of the exit side of the intercooler horn as it heads into the intake, you can see the temperature sensor and the Water/Meth Jet (marked by the blue arrows):



This photo shows the in and out temp sensors (marked by blue arrows):



Here is the Hot side temp sensor, if I had it to do over, I would of put it a little farther back. I can tell you that I am NOT going to do it again as I took the in / out horns, and the intake out of the car to install all this and it was a total *****!

 

I will in about a year or so as that one is brand new (maybe 3 months old) and the other motor mounts are also new. So i figure I have at least a year before I change it out, and replace all the other mounts with the neoprene ones.

Thanx for the compliment, now i just gotta figure out how to setup the Water Meth controller.

 

CoolingMist SUCKS!

So got this thing all installed and primed the system today and put the controller in setup mode and it lasted about 3 minutes before it took a dump.

It did not blow the fuse just died!

So I am going to pull this POS out and replace it with a Boost Gauge till I can afford the Howerton / AquaMist setup.

So the moral of the story don't buy the CoolingMist system.

 

You must be that Di¢k's Garage Guy from NAM. As he is the reason that I left NAM.

And to answer your question, I LIKE to do things and I like to learn, and yes I dont like to just throw money at a situation, I get a certain sense of accomplishment from knowing that I did it myself. Yes, sometimes I fail, but then again I learned how it all works and I am willing to take the risk and share my experience with others so that they may learn from my experiences good or bad.