Tuning the Mini Coupe/Roaster

"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 by as much as 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 introduction Video tutorial to car tuning. Be sure to subscribe and support our new channel.

Modifying to Stage 1:

 Alloy wheels, Remap, Lighter flywheel, Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 28mm - 43 mm.).

Modifying to Stage 2:

 Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector, Power/Sport clutch.

Modifying to Stage 3:

 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 NASP 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 remap one of the most cost effective and significant modifications for your money.

The most significant power gains for NASP 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.

For more information 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.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

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.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Mini. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

If you liked this page please share it with your friends, drop a link to it in your favourite forum or use the bookmarking options to save it to your social media profile.

Check out TorqueCars new YouTube channel, and see their awesome new content...