Whooped By a New Mini

[MingBluS3]

last night i had this Mini cooper (s) infront of me and he was basically givvin it, as he took off round the roundabout i decided to chase after him thinking that i would catch him and overtake, not the case.... it was very fast and has ****** all over me... I have posted threads recently about power loss and i think i have a problem.

Also going round the roundabout i felt the car losing major traction, so this morning i went to the garage and checked my tyre pressures, they were 30psi on the fronts and 20psi on the rears, i have 18's. That explained the crap handling preformance last night, but not the overall engine performance...Audi told me this morning i should have 34 in the front and 32 in the rears..
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked2.gif

While i talk about performance when i put my foot down in 6th gear at about 70-80 mph, the pick up is awfull and i feel i should have to downgear..where has all my torque gone????

any ideas would be well appreciated

 

[Mike.M]

what mods have you done if any?

 

[AL_B]

My S3 also has performance problems too, and has done for a while. See AmD rolling road day. Fuel economy is right down too. 22.5mpg around town (not booting it) and about 24-26 on a motorway run.

Still got to get the dealer to look at it.

Yet, a few weeks ago, I ****** all over a new-shape Impreza (not the 300bhp one obviously). I had a standing start, he was already rolling in 2nd gear. I was 1/2 car length in front up to 60/80mph then I just pulled away. Wierd. Sometimes my car feels breathless, yet it obviously still has some performance in there. Strange.

AL

 

[Mike.M]

I got the samco hose which helped mine a lot as I am sure that at top end (5000rpm) the hose was collapsing and starving the engine as AmD and others have found...........changed it and I feel the improvement both bottom and top end as she seems to get the power and keep it.

Changed the DV too.

I average 26.2 according to the computer. I use £20 of Optimax doing about 150 miles during the week

 

[dickys3]

How heavy are those mini's? I couldn't beat a saxo vts last month (Which has now prompted me to get her chipped!). At least the mini is a bit more respectable!

 

[Mike.M]

average weight as its a grown up now with all the extras etc...friends girlfriend has a Cooper S and its nippy.

Cooper S time to 60mph is about 7/8 secs so would say its your car having some probs

 

[RichA3Turbo]

[ QUOTE ]
MingBluS3 said:
last night i had this Mini cooper (s) infront of me and he was basically givvin it, as he took off round the roundabout i decided to chase after him thinking that i would catch him and overtake, not the case.... it was very fast and has ****** all over me... I have posted threads recently about power loss and i think i have a problem.

Also going round the roundabout i felt the car losing major traction, so this morning i went to the garage and checked my tyre pressures, they were 30psi on the fronts and 20psi on the rears, i have 18's. That explained the crap handling preformance last night, but not the overall engine performance...Audi told me this morning i should have 34 in the front and 32 in the rears..
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked2.gif

While i talk about performance when i put my foot down in 6th gear at about 70-80 mph, the pick up is awfull and i feel i should have to downgear..where has all my torque gone????

any ideas would be well appreciated

[/ QUOTE ]

Dont get to ***** with Cooper S's!

They are capable of serious power and handle VERY well. AmD do conversions for 270bhp and that would make it one seriously quick car!

Rich

 

[Paul-RS6]

my manual and sticker in petrol flap says 36 psi for 18" all round for the lesser of the two loads they state.

 

[philsudbury]

Could it have been cooper s works? They dont look all that much different but they are quite seriously tweeked!

 

[MingBluS3]

AL B - Sometimes my car feels breathless, yet it obviously still has some performance in there. Strange.

This may interest you, i just spoke to a mechanic who i know who has his own VAG tools etc, when i had my last S3 he told me which fuses to remove to stop the mileage ticking up...which is when he proved how competent he was with electrics, he only does electrics now and makes a hell of alot of money out of it... He actually mentioned just now on the phone that he recently fixed a GTI that had its ECU burnt out my a Tuning company in oxford, he replaced and reprogrammed the ECU...and saved the guy loads of money. It was cheaper for him to fix it that get the car transported back to the tuners.

Anyway i mentioned to him my problems and he straight away said that he thinks he knows what the problem is, he called it a "Power Swing" noticeable in high gears and is a gradual deterioation of perfomance and he said it will be getting worse over time, i kept mentioning that it must be a turbo problem, and he assures me that it's more likely to be something else. Next week i am going to his place to hook up his laptop and he is going to test the boost pressure etc and see whats happeing with the rest of the car.. I ll let you know what happens. He knows exaclty what he is doing and i trust him to give me the correct and final answer to my problems.

Just one other thing he mentioned is that if your coil packs go and you drive for a period of time after you could have potentially damaged you catalyst, my coils went last year and i had have to drive a few miles to get out of trouble... he said he'll check that too..

 

[NWMark]

Cooper S Works, 200bhp in a car that weighs roughly 1250Kgs, would be faster than a standard S3.

This is the dealer option though and is quiet expensive alternatively there are many tuners out there that can get the cooper S to 200bhp relatively cheaply and would still look like a standard Cooper S /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Mark

 

[Grant]

To say a Cooper S ****** on you, you must have a problem there or what has been said already you may have been up against a modded Cooper S or a Cooper S Works.

At 70/80mph in 6th, my car will pull all day... but that is probably due to the increase in torque from my remap.

 

[s8n]

Even if you were up against a Cooper S works, id say you'd eat it. I eat the tune'd minis down here for breakfast!

 

[Mike.M]

food.......yum!

 

[Ryanc]

would have thought you should have whupped him,especially 60+ where the s3 has tons of grunt and the mini runs out of steam.get a boost guage mate,see if your running the full complement of boost first.regards Ryan

 

[mramage]

MingBlueS3, I'd be very interested in the outcome of your report as well. I'm getting the same feeling you are. Kinda of a "sure it would pull harder than this before..."

Last week I got a new DV fitted (std. Bosch), in the belief it was causing some of my odd "down on power" feelings. Like yourself, most notable in higher gears. Think my old DV wasn't great, but not completely shot as I suspected.

What gets me is that I've been driving our Corsa a lot recently and it seems to pick up better at 70 than the S3 does. That's not right!!!! I've never felt that way before. Like yourself I always feel I'm dropping a gear when I didn't need to in the past.

Last night I had some trouble with a Metro GTa! On the motorway! ***! Yet other times the car really feels strong, wanting to leap forward.

Not sure if fuel is anything to do with it. Towards the end of last year I switched from Optimax and didn't notice a difference at first. I don't know if was making some other difference or not. Guess thats a different thread though.

Another difference (and sorry for the long post) is that I've changed job and the car sits in stop-start traffic morning and night. Unsure if this is altering ECU settings and robbing me of performance.

Phew. Keep us updated /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Banwell]

On the subject of power swing - I get this too.

I mentioned it to my dealer and asked him to check ECU codes for faults, but he reported back that all was okay - I think he only test drove the car.

But try this - it works for me - reset the ecu from the battery. This is how I noticed the fault in the first place. My battery used to keep dying on me until I had it replaced and on recharge, with a freshly reset ecu the cars performance was noticably stronger.

It really weird as the traction improves too??????

 

[jojo]

I think im getting this power swing thing, its when the drive by wire throttle adjusts to your driving style or driving conditions. Like giving you laggy performance driving aroung town, and lightning throttle response when youre having a blast. Thats the feeling i get anyway, if it at all makes sense /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif.

Also, i think you can reset the car's ECU bye turning your carkey into ignition, but not physically starting the car and then holding the throttle all the way down for 5 secs.

Joe