Well what do you know… one of my good cycling buddies turns out to be the GM of Dinan Mountain View. Dinan is one of the premier BMW tuners in the US. And since the Mini Cooper is owned and produced by BMW, Dinan has a host of upgrades for the Mini Cooper S.

I call up the GM and we talk about some options. I research the Dinan upgrades and there is nothing but great things about them. R&D, performance, quality, service are all top-notch. They’re not cheap but their upgrades are not hacks or experiments. Everything is designed to work together as an optimized and reliable system.

So we go for the power upgrades today. The most important of these upgrades is the Boost Upgrade kit. It contains the single greatest performance upgrade for the Mini Cooper, the smaller supercharger pulley. The Mini Cooper S is supercharged. To get more boost from the supercharger, the pulley is reduced by 15%. This is the safest and most reliable pulley reduction available. Then the kit also, changes the fuel pump delivery system to handle the demands of the increased supercharger boost.

Dinan Boost upgrade kit
High Flow -Cowl Induction Intake
High Flow Throttle Body, 59.75mm , Stock is 56mm
Performance Software

Here’s the Dinan facility in Mountain View. The company is headquarted in Morgan Hill with a lot more staff, equipment and space. The Mountain View facility is huge too and is immaculate.

This is the GM, Jeff Hecox’s 2002 race car.

This is the bored-out throttle body by Dinan

Dinan Cowl Induction Intake – This is genius. It looks like stock, has K&N filter and is fed cold air through the vents by the windshield.

And finally, here’s the 15% pulley reduction kit with new fuel system.

Here’s the Dinan technician starting the 7 hours of work.

This is the Mountain View General Manager, Jeff Hecox. He’s the nicest and most knowledgeable guy on the BMW/Mini planet.

After the job was done, my son inspected the work and gave a skeptical thumbs up. “What did they do dad?” he asked. Then as we entered the freeway, he yelled. “OH MY GAWD! YEAHHH”. We both cheered as the car screamed like the supercharged beast from the movie Mad Max. The car screamed as it accelerated and accelerated. Wow. It’s a 205 hp car now but this is a Mini. In most cars that are bigger and heavier, it’s like having 300 hp. This car is fast.

And here’s the videos of some mild test drives:

catching up to a motorbike:

Click here to view the embedded video.

from a standing start:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Mini Cooper S is one of the best handling cars around. The steering is very quick and accurate. The car is low to the ground, lightweight and there is little overhang weight in front of the car and the rear of the car.

To steer the Mini Cooper S into a corner is to experience automotive nirvana.

But it can be improved. Easily! So I hear, so let’s put it to the test. The two upgrades involved today are the H-Sport lowering springs and the R-Speed rear sway bar.

The H-Sport lowering springs lower the front and rear of the car by 1 inch. This is important since the front of the car is already low and lowering it much more will compromise suspension travel too much.

Again, my friend Sean from Sunnyoaks Muffler was up to the task. He installed the springs and it came out perfect. The stance of the car is now perfect with the dreaded wheel-well gap reduced. The handling of the car is improved as the car just rails through corners with authority.

The other upgrade today is the rear sway bar. This is considered by many enthusiasts as the single greatest suspension upgrade for the Mini Cooper. The Mini is a front-wheeled drive car. And like many cars, it is tuned by the factory to have understeer at the handling limits. Understeer means the car wants to go straight in a corner when the approach speed is too fast. The reason for the programmed understeer is it’s safer. The driver will react by letting off the gas and braking and the car will then be able to turn properly. Enthusiasts don’t like understeer. We prefer ultra-accurate steering and at the limit, maybe a hint of oversteer. This will make the car a turning demon and corner speeds will be a lot faster. It also makes the car easier to control in a turn with the throttle. The downside is the rear of the car can swing out at the limit if the throttle is lifted abruptly and brakes applied.

So the sway bar upgrade is to make the sway bar bigger and dial out the understeer. So here’s a photo of the sway bars for comparison. Top is Mini Cooper, middle is Mini Cooper S and bottom is the R-Speed Sway bar. In addition to being thicker, the R-speed has adjustable stiffness points and has urethane bushings to reduce play.

The operation is tricky as the old bar has to be threaded out of the suspension without removing the shocks and brakes

The operation is a success. The car has almost no body roll now, it turns like it’s on rails and the ride comfort is as good as before. Oh, and I painted the brake calipers red too while I was at it.

So I can hardly hear the exhaust on this car. That needs to change. I find out my exhaust of choice, the Borla Sport is $900 plus installation. That’s not good!Then I find out there’s mod floating around enthusiasts and it’s called the one-ball exhaust mod. The Mini Cooper S has two muffler balls that work in series. The modification is to cut off the first ball, the resonator and just go direct to the muffler. It makes it louder, saves weight and increases power.

Here’s my compilation of the info from NAM.

videos:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So I go ahead and do the mod since this seems like the smartest mod on the planet. Also I have a good friend Sean who owns Sunnyoaks Muffler who can do a great job on this at a great price.

I am not disappointed. The mod is perfect. It sounds great, just a bit louder than before, more power and 20 lbs less weight. WOW

Here’s a video I took. It sounds a little bit deeper when the car is moving and the engine is under load. Notice that engine gurgles a lot. That is actually normal. It caters to the enthusiast audience and gives the car a more sporty/retro exhaust note. This was made more pronounced in 2005 and 2006 Cooper S cars.

The sound is not perfect of course. The sound is a bit raspy and tinny. This is the natural sound of the Mini Cooper S and the One-Ball mod just amplified it. It’s not the throaty, snarling exhaust note of high-end exhausts. But, for $50 and all that lost weight, this mod is an A+.

Click here to view the embedded video.

May 19, 2007. Day 6:

So the euphoria continues. Now that I have a good feel for the car, I start scheming for some upgrades. Most people buy a car to get them around. Some people buy a great car that not only gets them around but gets them there in style and very fast. Then there are the tuners and modders. They buy a car and upgrade the heck out of it until it fits their personality and driving style. At the end of the day, I’m a modder.

Mind you, there are more severe forms of car addiction out there. There’s the club racers who take their car to the track at every opportunity. There’s the car builders and there’s the car collectors. Someday, I’ll get there but I need a lot more time and money for these advanced levels.

I’m finding out some of the things that can be improved with the car.

- needs to be louder so I can enjoy the spirited driving experience more. I can hardly hear the exhuast of this car.

- could handle even better, lower stance

- more power. why not.

- ipod compatible

- carry my bikes

- improve the ride quality and handling by ditching the run-flat tires. Mini Coopers, like most BMW’s use run-flat tires. This allows the manufacturer to go without a spare tire in the car. Unfortunately, these tires have a harsh ride, are not the best handling and are expensive.

Here’s photos of the interior and some creative lighting photos.

I’m finding out there’s a whole lot of upgrades available for this car. A great resource is North American Motoring at http://www.northamericanmotoring.com.

On Mother’s day, I surprised my wife by telling her I was buying myself a new car. I know, bad taste but what’s a man to do? I’ve been looking for a used Mini Cooper S for ages and a couple of days ago, my RSS feed told me that my car had arrived at Craigslist.

The car was a 2005 Mini Cooper S in Hyper Blue color. It had 9000 miles and was in absolutely perfect condition. The car has my favorite wheels, the R98′s aka webspokes. It had the Sport and Premium packages which include Xenon headlamps, sunroof, sport susupension and stability control. The body and paint were flawless and the interior smelled like brand new.

The owner was an engineer from Microsoft who babied the car but hardly drove it. He was relocating to Hongkong on Tuesday and needed to sell the car over the weekend. He was selling it about $4000 under market for SF bay area pricing. He was my ideal seller and I was his ideal buyer since I was ready to buy. Ready to buy if my wife said yes, of course.

Well she said yes we did the deed during her special Mother’s day weekend. She’s a good woman. So we took him home and I promptly spent the next six hours cleaning it. When my kids saw it, they promptly named the car ‘Bleny’. That stands for blue mini and is reminiscent of a character in the movie ‘Finding Nemo’.

First impressions: WOW, this car is fast! The supercharger whines like mad max and the car pulls hard. It handles awesome and is very comfortable!

Here’s Bleny:

So there, the start of great things to come. It’s going to be a great season.