MENUTuning the Mini Countryman
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The Countryman is a brilliant project car to carry out. Plan ahead and research Countryman tuning to spare yourself making the usual costly mistakes we regularly get told about.
The Mini Countryman really good project cars and with the best performance upgrades like remapping, turbo kits and camshafts you will noticeably maximize your driving opportunities.
Let us examine the options for your Countryman tuning and point out the premier modifications.
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Improving the handling for people first priority in your Countryman tuning project.
Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you Countryman often enhancing your drive.
We would go to a maximum drop of 29mm - 39 mm. on most models. You risk grounding out if you go lower than this.
Our aim in Countryman engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.
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.
These mods tuning modifications are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.
- 1.6 L I4 (One/Cooper)
- 1.6 L Prince turbocharged i4 (Cooper S)
- 1.6 L BMW N47 diesel i4 (Cooper D and One D)
- 2.0 L BMW N47 diesel i4 (Cooper D Automatic and Cooper SD models)
Second generation
- 1.5L BMW B38 turbocharged I-3 (Cooper)
- 1.5L BMW B37 turbodiesel I-3 (Cooper D)
- 2.0L BMW B48 turbocharged I-4 (Cooper S, JCW Countryman)
- 2.0L BMW B47 turbodiesel I-4 (Cooper SD)
- 1.5L BMW B38 turbocharged I-3 + electric motor (Cooper S E)
Getting the best performance modifications for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.
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How to tune your car
- Improve the handling
Focus on Suspension improvements, such as coilovers and make sure the bushings are in good order and that the alignment is correct. Then focus on improving the brakes, with a big disk brake conversion kit and fast road brake pads.
- Remove restrictions
Focus on the intake and exhaust with filters being the common point of restriction in a tuned car. Intercoolers may also become restrictive on turbo engines so this may also need to be uprated.
- Burn more fuel & air
Increase the fuelling so it matches the air coming into the engine. The ratio is important so you need to improve the fuel pump and injectors, so the head mods, big valve conversions, fast road camshafts and forced induction upgrades extra supply of air is adequately met.
- Test and replace any weak parts
Weak areas are commonly the clutch, the turbocharger and pistons and crankshaft in a highly tuned engine. Makes sure these components will cope with your power aspirations.
- The Tune or Remap
A cars ECU controls the fuel, timing, spark and even the turbo in some cases, so to fully extract your gains you should remap the car last and this will fully release the power. Some cars are easy to map, and others require piggyback ECU's or aftermarket ECU's but this is the most vital step of your tuning project.
Modifying to Stage 1:
Sports exhaust, Remap, Suspension upgrade (drop 29mm - 39 mm.), Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel.
Modifying to Stage 2:
fuel pump upgrades, Power/Sport clutch, high flow fuel injector, Ported and polished head, Fast road cam.
Modifying to Stage 3:
Sports gearbox, Competition cam, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).
Your targets when modding your car should be a wide torque range. You don't want all the power to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a competition car.
In this article we shall give your a good starting base to the best modifications for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance part.A fast road camshaft is one of the best NASP power modifications you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.
The intake and exhaust valve durations play a huge role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car challenging to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a performance chip for the best performance gains.
When pushing up the power you will need to pay attention to to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.
Most power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after tuning parts are done can usually be traced to timing or fuelling issues. 
To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve the injectors on your engine.
If you are increasing your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.
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 achieved by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you raise the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!
For most Countryman engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of supplying cold air.
Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow through the engine but do not go too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.
Gas flowing (porting and polishing) 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 When you tune up your Countryman you will often find that the standard clutch starts to complain so get an uprated clutch.
The best mods in our opinion for your Countryman are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.
NASP engines do not achieve big power gains if you remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story.
A remapped turbo will give big power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine. Adding forced induction will see phenomenal power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. It is usually simpler to add a supercharger than it is to fit a working turbo. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.
Superchargers will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine .
Alloy wheel upgrades.
As alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of track legal slick tire. The drawback to large alloy wheels on your Countryman is that you alter your effective final drive ratio so this will have a negative effect on performance.
For this reason endeavour to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the standard factory sizes. In all cases avoid going over 17 inches.
For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Countryman options in more detail with our Countryman 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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We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which mods work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually updated.
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