Thats all well and good. Are they still doing this? According to this post on 12/12/12 the MINI was for sale and they appear to be done. evolve MINI R56 Cooper S - Page 47 I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to N14/N18 Tuning I know nothing.
:cornut: Thanks Nathan VERY MUCH. I don't want to destroy my fragile little MINI Margi(08 R56 N14 BRG MCS/JCWm) for name sake and other reasons. Jason
I spoke to Imran over the phone, they still actively tune these if folks are interested. I have not made any decision. Both Evolve and DNA / Battle tuning state they can tune a JCW turbo on an MCS. Just a question of how far you'd like to push it with the engine.
:cornut: Thank you but 'my little voice' is saying, "don't do this, tweeks only." And Nathan's advice does carry a modicum of knowledgeable authority and common sense around these parts. Jason
From reading their group buy thread there were folks with JCWs in their signatures commenting/asking questions and Battle Tuning replying... so not sure the N14 JCW is out.
Nathan admits he's not up to snuff on R56 and I'm not an authority either, but you can certainly reach out to these companies and speak with them. Call around, see what they tell you. Either way, I still need to make my decision but seems like there are options from mild to wild (though the wild end hasn't been proven from what I've been able to find yet) depending on your tolerance for making our cars a potential boat anchor. :biggrin5:
FYI, Cobb stopped tuning for MINI in 2012 and no longer support the product. I wouldn't consider AccessPort to be a viable option.
Ok so take what I say to be as valuable as what your paying for it. I'm a R53 guy, and life time ago I turned a wrench for a living. I'm not sure how much you want to spend or what kind of power you want. The safe way would be to pull the engine apart. Have everything balanced get forged pistons and rings designed to take lots of boost. Then add what you want to the out side and do a tune. I just think the R56 has a much higher strung motor. If you to be safe make it strong first, then the sky is the limited. For the record I hate turbos. I know they have their good points but I have seen bad things done with them. To point, when people over tune and don't take care of the bottom end of the motor first. Be careful I think BMW/MINI have tried to get as much out of the R56 as they could and still be reliable. Good luck and be careful. I hope soon your posting picks of the mods. P.S. I'm not trying to start a SC vs turbo debate. what ever you have is cool with me.
I agree, building the block would be the thing to do. It's all a balance of mating desired power goals with the mods to support it (internal as well). I happen to love turbos (go figure haha. I've only owned one SCed car though). But I can't help but think about the R56 reputation for blowing up a bit here. Is it because... - The engine is DI and leads to carbon which leads to knock which leads to extreme stress which the engine isn't designed for (especially when tuned and margin for extra stress is less). or... - The engine is already tuned from the factor to within an inch of what it can stand. (I have to doubt this. What manufacturer doesn't leave a little head room? Who knows) or... - The engine has an inherent design flaw (piston ring gap I keep reading about, not my area of expertise) and I've got a lemon no matter what. or... - The engine is not being tuned properly or being tuned too aggressively with knock and high AFRs from the get-go from Tuner X. (Granted the same talented tuners who successfully tune the R53 are tuning a more complicated engine, but the fundamentals of a "safe" tune are still there. Push the engine until the your parameters are unsafe, then back it off, no?) Or maybe a combo of all bulelt points... I can take care of the carbon (yearly walnut blasting in my garage here we come!), and if you do your research you hope you pick a safe & reputable tune/tuner. It's the inherent design flaw and/or the engine already being high strung from the factory which I can't cover and I can't speak with authority on.
I don't know witch it is. It has had its problems but I believe they have worked them out. I do believe it is easer to push a R56 over the edge then an R53. I'm putting out 15psi with my pulley its the temps that I want to get down next. Boost is only part of the equation.
A combo with number two dominating. Originally, for the R56 jcw engine, nothing was changed, the engine was left alone, and the engineers blew too many of them up for BMWs taste trying to wring more power out of them. So they changed tack, slightly modified the engine, and only slightly increases HP, much to everyone's disappointment. It's reliable, but it's still close to what the engine's ceiling, there just isn't much more there to get safely. Fast forward to the F56, where there will be a huge difference with either the GP or JCW models versus stock S in terms of performance. BMW learned something, as R56 JCWs sat there like lead weights on the dealers lots. It took them 12 years, but they finally listened to peanut gallery. People don't want JCW's with funky aero and tacky badges, or GP's with a bunch of vinyl stickers. They want GP's and JCW's with more power. I'm willing to wager neither will be tuner friendly either though.
Was this when the JCW came as a tuning option back in 2008? U.S. R56 MINI Cooper S owners finally get the JCW treatment - Autoblog They noticed problems when they took a stock MCS and added the JCW treatment? I wasn't in the MINI world back then, just trying to get my bearings or find articles to read up about this. thx.
Yes, that's pretty much the upshot of what happened; they couldn't make a ton more power out of the existing Prince without an unacceptably high engine failure rate, so they dialed it back quite a bit. The engine can make quite a bit more power. For about ten minutes. You won't find articles about the development of the JCW, just a hunk of Prince engine shells outside the R&D department. I believe it was referenced in MF, at least in the comments in one of the early JCW threads. You can't get around it, without substantially strengthening the internals. Yes, there are some people who have increased power and are still running, but IMHO they are living on borrowed time.
Does "support" go beyond repairing or replacing the unit? If you install one of their canned tunes and your engine throws codes, will they do anything about it?
Yes, but you have to pay. Go to anyone with an Access Tuner, and they can sell you a custom tune. The AP is not unsupported. Dave
Sorry but not quite sure what your going on about... Stock R56 MCS came with about 175bhp, the JCWs came with 210-225 in stock form. Its not just the power, its the torque and how its delivered... The JCW turbo is much more suited to making power the the redline and a tuned MCS can easily safely handle 220bhp and its great on the road for point to point driving. When they released the GP2 people were surprised at how quick they actually were despite the "not a large increase in power from the JCW" but people in the UK are seeing 220-230bhp in stock form and the real time performance of the car is comparable to 300bhp FWD cars that are slightly larger. Peugoet also extracted 260bhp from the engine in its RCZ and its also used in many forms of motorsport including the BMW 320Si WTCC cars. Sure those cars have been heavily modified and running fully forged engines but it goes to show whats possible. People mentioning the R53 being bullet proof is not a good comparison, that engine produces less power, way less torque and doesn't have to deal with DI.
George.... You need to understand.... Some on here are seriously afflicted with a nasty case of R53itus.... There is no cure for them.... The R53 will always be better..... However, Thepenl's R56 is doing some amazing things...
My R53 is bullet proof and runs circles around the R56. It makes MUCH more Power than an R56 and 200 TQ does me very well. DI injection done wrong by MINI is not a defect I have to deal with. I like my walnuts with a cold beer. :beer
We're not talking stock, we're talking what you can do with the engine. How many R56 are making 300WHP? How many R53's? THAT'S what we're getting at. Sorry, but you are not getting anywhere NEAR the performance of a 300HP hot hatch--think Focus RS--it's not even close, not even the same universe. And you are talking BHP, we are talking WHP, which is another 15% difference. Heck, there are a bazillion R53's making 250HP,--at the wheels, and doing it reliably. Only a few R56's. THAT is criminal IMHO. The power increase between the MCS and JCW is much less than everyone hoped. Between the JCW and the GP, much, much less. BMW acknowledges this by saying it's all about handling. It is to a degree, but the power has been disappointing, and they know it. It will be addressed in a big way with the Catfish (F56). As for Peugeot increasing output, how do you think they did it? I never said it wasn't doable, only that it wasn't doable reliably without a significant improvement in the internals, which BMW wasn't willing to do secondary to cost. The Prince, in MINI guise, is close to maxed out. If you're satisfied with the outputs of the F56, that's great, but for the life of me I can't understand why you can't see where we're coming from, even if you don't agree with it. I'm sorry, but the Prince has been a disappointment, and in more ways than one.