Mini Coupe/Roaster Tuning

"Thanks for reading this Mini Coupe tuning tips."

The Coupe is a awesome car tuning project to have. The key to Coupe tuning is finding the right mods you can waste loads of money if you do it wrong.

The Coupe also spawned an open top roadster version with a similar range of engines. A diesel 2.0 was also available in some areas.

In this article we review and look at Coupe tuning and show the best upgrades. Mini Coupe great bases for a tuning project and with the ultimate modified parts like remaps, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will certainly improve your driving experience.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Coupe owners uprate the handling of their cars with fast road suspension modifications as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Good suspension tweaks that substantially improve handling for the Coupe include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe in or out on the front wheels. Toe in for stability, or Toe out to improve cornering. It would also pay to improve the brakes, by adding larger discs and or higher friction pads..

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 28mm - 43 mm. and fit motorsport grade stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

A nice wide torque band and sweet spot of peak power at one third of your RPM range is optimum.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Engine tuning mods.

The following parts are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you start.

• 1.6 L I4 Prince (turbocharged petrol)
• 2.0 L I4 BMW N47 (turbocharged diesel)

Getting the correct grade of uprated upgrades for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your car. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best Engine Mods for your car

1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
2. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
3. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
4. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Alloy wheels, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Lighter flywheel, Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 28mm - 43 mm.).

Typical stage 2 mods often include: Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector, Power/Sport clutch.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Competition cam, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Engine balancing, Sports gearbox.

Your aim when modding your car should be a wide torque band. You don't want all the torque to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a motor sport car.

The aim of our hints is to give a starting base of customizing upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best performance mods and all aspects of modding cars.One of the biggest mechanical modifications you can do on your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road camshaft .

It maximises the intake and exhaust flow and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a remap.

TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

When pushing up the power you will need to ramp up to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

If you find you suffer from flat spots and surges after your sports mods you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Improved injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust.  Contrary to popular belief there is usually a small if any power gain reached by fitting an induction kit, they only become beneficial and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Derestricting the air flow into the engine is a primary goal of performance tuning so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and usually rob you of power.

Sports exhausts can help increase the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust pipe is too big, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of your flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

gas flowing the head will allow you to maximise your air/fuel charge. Leave this to a professional though with a proper flow bench and machine tools A good multi plate fast road upgraded clutch will help to keep that power going where it should.

Never make false economies or expect your standard clutch to cope. The best mods we recommend for your Coupe are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

Turbo engines are just begging to be Upgraded. You will see significant power gains on most modern turbocharged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and significant modifications for your money.

The most significant power gains for NA (naturally aspirated) engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. It is usually cheaper to add a supercharger than it is to bolt on a turbo. Turbos give boost in exponential proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

The nice directly proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine .

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are usually lighter than steel ones. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tires) for your car, a good soft compound tire can really enhance your cars handling.

Large Coupe alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Because of this try to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the OEM setup. In all cases we do not recommend going bigger than 18 inches but 17's suit the handling of the Coupe more in my opinion.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Coupe options in more detail with our Coupe owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Mini tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Mini. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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