’08 to ’13 MINI Comparison

After having the new MINI for about a week now, I can definitely comment that everything feels “tighter” in the suspension (not in the understeering sense). Most likely this is due to brand new bushings all around the suspension compared to my ’08 with nearly 100,000 miles on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it…

XPEL Ultimate Clear Bra

This will probably be one of my most invisible mods lol. I had this done for my evo, and LOVED it. Looks like it’ll look just as clear on black as it did on white. I went to a local clear bra specialty shop here, and the film they used was XPEL Ultimate. This film…

First “Mod”

First mod! Cravenspeed Dipstick! I, like many others apparently, have had a difficult time reading the oil dipstick – however, my number one reason for purchasing this dipstick was because I heard the OEM dipstick can actually break – a bit of a nightmare apparently. So, decided to go ahead with this new Cravenspeed dipstick,…

Daily Driver/H-Street MINI Cooper

Bought a brand new 2013 MINI Cooper built to order to replace my 2008 MINI Cooper for the 2014 autocross season! The main reason for doing this was to have the car spec’ed exactly the way I wanted it, and particularly so that it could have a chance at being competitive at SOLO. The old…

2013 MINI Cooper Order Timeline

9/27/2013 signed the papers 9/30/2013 on order Mini Lounge 10/1/2013 Scheduled for Production 10/7 – vehicle is in body shop 10/8 – vehicle is in paint shop, estimated completion today 10/9 – vehicle released to carrier, awaiting transportation to port of exit (awaiting transport) 10/10 – vehicle is being transported to the port of exit…

Switch to Stock FMIC

Decided to swap to stock FMIC to run in STU & also to save weight. Autox doesn’t really pick up too much heat – you get a lot of time between runs to cool things down and spray things down, so an upgraded intercooler doesn’t do too much.

Waxing Bolts

Waxed a bunch of the bolts on the bottom of the car to prevent rust. Noticed a lot of high end OEM cars come with this lately, including some on the Mini as well: