Content > Lauri's Mini Cooper S

I have owned my Mini for one and a half years now, and have got to know it very well during it. The car has a lot of potential and funfactor, but there were certain things in my Mini that were starting to bother me and needed to be corrected. The goal was to make it more stable in the corners, improve the sounds and of course, add more grunt under the hood. After spending considerable time browsing between forums, shops and my bank account, I finally made decisions and placed some orders.

It all started to come together when we received couple of huge shipments from orange-tuning, a german shop that has becomed one of our favourites for it’s great service and selection. As you can see from the picture, the carfreaks are seriously preparing for the track season. At the same time as we were unpacking the shipment, a delivery guy dropped of a package from Lohen. Christmas came a bit early this year.

The parts ready to be installed:

- H&R Stabilizers
- Lohen Stage1 for Cooper S
- Lohen Protector
- Milltek Cat-Back exhaust
- Motul RBF600 brake fluids

Finally at friday the 13th (dont ask), I drove my car to a place called Sami’s autopaja, a very small workshop located in vantaa. Sami is part of a rare breed of honest and experienced mechanics, which are not common these days. Everything else was installed in no time, but removing the old pulley proved to be a difficult task as it was attached very tightly and had very little room to work with. I had bought the pulley removal tool from Lohen, but it requires a puller attached to it. Since there was not enough room to use a traditional puller, we had a problem. Forge had a tool that was perfect for the job, but the only company that sells the tool in Finland is Doc-Power. They ask 290 euros for the tool and were not very cooperative when asked if they could rent one for couple of hours.

The pulley was not coming off and my options were to remove it by force and risk damaging the supercharger, or to pay an ridiculous 290 euros for the proper tool made by Forge. Pasi saw the Forge’s tool and said he could produce all the necessary parts to attach to the Alta pulley remover. We measured the Alta pulley removal tool and made a round plate on top of it, drilled some holes for the bolts, welded on a center nut and a handle to hold it steady. It’s not pretty but it did the job, 290 euros saved in half an hour. Thanks for your help Pasi!

With our tool, the pulley was finaly changed and everything was now installed. The KW coilovers were also set to more comfortable settings, as I predicted the H&R stabilizers would allow the suspension to be more softer without compromising the ride stability too much. Too bad that adjusting the rear requires detaching the whole coilover, since the adjustment screw is on the top of it and there is no way to get to it from inside the car.

The results

When I picked the car from the shop, I slowly drove trough the parking lot and was a bit afraid because I didn’t notice any difference in the sounds or the way the engine felt in lower revs. when I finally entered the highway junction and opened the taps, real magic started to happen! The engine came alive like never before, and the extra power it produced could clearly be felt in mid- and high-revs. The Milltek Cat-Back which was playing mute moments before, suddenly provided a beautifull soundtrack to go with the power. It almost feels like it was made for the motorkit, and comes in no surprise that Lohen includes it in their stage2 kit. Here is a short video where you can compare the sounds between the stock and Milltek Cat-Back exhaust:

Download Original vs. Milltek Cat-Back in HD quality
Codec: WMV HD 720P Size: 54MB

 

After driving around for couple of weeks with all the tunes installed, I simply cannot believe the difference they made. It would have been great to get some dyno results before and after the operation, but dynos are still a bit uncommon and inexperienced in here. Recently our guys bought some Racelogic’s Performance Boxes and with the help of Moogie we measured some values before and after Mini got beefed up. Both values are measured with the same equipment, tires, similar weather and two ~80kg persons.

As you can see, there is some improvement. But believe me when I say the numbers dont mean everything. The power can clearly be felt and the factory-smoothness is replaced by a more hardcore racing feel.

Final toughts

Discarding the few setbacks, the operation was a success. The Lohen Stage1 kit performs very well and should be a safe choice in terms of reliability. I strongly recommend this kit for anyone who thinks their Cooper S is lacking power. The price of the stage1 kit is £495 (731 eur) without fitting. I also bought the £19 (28 eur) Protector” which prevents the belt from damaging critical components if it was to snap. Lohen offers kits up to stage4 (only two available atm.), the stage2 kit would have cost £1,395 (2062 eur), and is a bit expensive for the extra 15bhp it offers compared to the stage1. Of course it includes the Milltek Cat-Back which makes it more reasonable.

After this short period of testing, I can definitely give a thumbs up for all the parts used. I still have some work ahead to improve the driving feel and especially comfort. The KW Variant2 Coilovers (kelleners edition) haven’t quite performed as well as I had hoped for. Even when the stiffness is set to soft, the ride is very bouncy and far from comfortable. I dont recommend big and heavy tires used with this suspension, especially if your roads are as bad as here in Finland. Replacing the stabilizers with H&R improved the corner stability remarkably, there is noticeably less body leaning in the corners. A must have product for most of the cars. The next upgrades will most probably be the brakes, as the braking efficiency is simply not good enough even for a car small as this.

I would like to thank Lohen for their great product and good customer care. Also big thanks to Frank at orange-tuning for supplying us with parts.