Mrs. E-tek's new ride! (Sorry: too cold for Bikini shots!)

e-tek · Mar 6, 2011

Being an ex-racer and all-around car-babe, Mrs. E-tek has wanted to get the hell away from her soccer-Mom ride (never suited her) and back to something all hers, with zip and tons of style. For her, this Mini Cooper S, 6 speed, fits the bill perfectly. 170 hp pulling a mere 2400lbs makes for a lot of fun!

(I asked for the obligatory cheese-cake shots, but being minus 18C I could understand her hesitation....Mrs. E-tek has however PROMISED to do a full photo-shoot when it warms up!)

Deafautotech · Mar 6, 2011

that look nice.... BUT is your wife let you to drive???? is your wife willing to fix it if need oil changes, tune up, or worse head gasket?? OR clutch????

hetkind · Mar 6, 2011

How does it do in the snow? We took all our snow tires off Friday and Saturday with the weather clear for 10 days...and it snows today.

Howard

D.J. · Mar 6, 2011

Can't wait for the photo shoot! Nice Ride! Congrats Mrs. E-tec.

PaulsGarage · Mar 6, 2011

Minis are great cars, you're gonna love it!

Kurt4440 · Mar 6, 2011

Looks like it should be good fun and save on gas. What your wife does with your head gasket is none of our business.

p_mori7 · Mar 6, 2011

Might we suggest a custom paint job ?

e-tek · Mar 6, 2011

Deafautotech said:
that look nice.... BUT is your wife let you to drive???? is your wife willing to fix it if need oil changes, tune up, or worse head gasket?? OR clutch????

I'm just the pit crew.....with benefits!

hetkind said:
How does it do in the snow? We took all our snow tires off Friday and Saturday with the weather clear for 10 days...and it snows today.

Howard

It's got summers - so not good in snow right now - but she just drove it back 6 hours from Edmonton where she bought it!

Kurt4440 said:
Looks like it should be good fun and save on gas. What your wife does with your head gasket is none of our business.

Flange · Mar 6, 2011

Cool car.

Being a petrol head did you (i.e. Mrs e-tek) not fancy the Cooper S Works? Lighter and with 210 bhp.

e-tek · Mar 6, 2011

Flange said:
Cool car.

Being a petrol head did you (i.e. Mrs e-tek) not fancy the Cooper S Works? Lighter and with 210 bhp.

Extremely hard to find around here - she looked long and hard to find this fine example.

ddawg16 · Mar 6, 2011

6 Speed? Manual? That puts her in a minority....Female....good looking....and knows how to drive a stick.....(pun intended).

Nice car....but I wouldn't want to take long trips in it....2 adults....both kids.....won't even have room for the dogs much less a suit case...

neverenoughtools · Mar 6, 2011

p_mori7 said:
Might we suggest a custom paint job ?

ddawg16 said:
6 Speed? Manual? That puts her in a minority....Female....good looking....and knows how to drive a stick.....(pun intended).

Nice car....but I wouldn't want to take long trips in it....2 adults....both kids.....won't even have room for the dogs much less a suit case...

It still has a ton more room than a Pontiac Solstice!! :lol_hitti

Jack Olsen · Mar 6, 2011

The Mini is one of those cars that changes your personality when you drive it. Suddenly you're a lane-change maniac. (At least, that's how it worked for me.

)

I've also rented one a couple of times for substitute track duty.

Qtip · Mar 6, 2011

Minis are great fun to drive (we have two) almost more fun in the snow then the dry.

ImportTuner · Mar 6, 2011

The Cooper S is really fun to drive; my daughter bought one last year. Great car

LWW · Mar 6, 2011

e-tek said:
(I asked for the obligatory cheese-cake shots, but being minus 18C I could understand her hesitation....Mrs. E-tek has however PROMISED to do a full photo-shoot when it warms up!)

Praying for warm weather! Praying for warm weather! :shocking:

54FordPanel · Mar 6, 2011

(I asked for the obligatory cheese-cake shots, but being minus 18C I could understand her hesitation....Mrs. E-tek has however PROMISED to do a full photo-shoot when it warms up!)

C'mon Spring!

e-tek · Mar 6, 2011

Qtip said:
Minis are great fun to drive (we have two) almost more fun in the snow then the dry.

Guess I better take 'er out for a rip while the snow's still here!! (though I'm sure I have a few weeks....

)

jimini · Mar 6, 2011

Looks pretty sweet, and looks to be optioned well. I see the motegis and alta intake and tube, did they happen to install a pulley too? Jack is right, I've had some hot rods, but this car begs to be pushed, and its really fun in the twisties! Enjoy, and I'm watching for warm weather updates :beer:

Moose-LandTran · Mar 6, 2011

Congrats.

Have fun when you change the clutch! :lol:

Qtip · Mar 6, 2011

Snow tires + Mini + frozen lake = ice racing fun

4StarCstms · Mar 6, 2011

E you couldnt find one of the original Mini's and redo it?? Now that'd be a blast

Congrats On the new Mrs E ride ... and I agree ... Custom Paint job ... thou she might not appreciate driving a advertisement for mammography's .... cause you know people would wanna touch it ...

AlchemyMetalworks · Mar 6, 2011

E-tek...by the title of the thread I though that was your way of telling us that you were getting a divorce... :lol_hitti

e-tek · Mar 6, 2011

jimini said:
Looks pretty sweet, and looks to be optioned well. I see the motegis and alta intake and tube, did they happen to install a pulley too? Jack is right, I've had some hot rods, but this car begs to be pushed, and its really fun in the twisties! Enjoy, and I'm watching for warm weather updates

Not sure on the pulley - any easy way to tell?

dmeadow · Mar 6, 2011

Congrats! I'm on year 4 with my Cooper S and I still have fun every time I drive it!

nissan_crawler · Mar 6, 2011

looks great. I thought about one, but the dealers here want $5k over msrp for them, so screw that.

jimini · Mar 6, 2011

Posts: 6,224 Re: Mrs. E-tek's new ride! (Sorry: too cold for Bikini shots!)

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Quote:

Not sure on the pulley - any easy way to tell?

Lots of different manufacturers, but most are stainless with 3 or 4 allen socket bolts on the face. The factory one is stamped steel black. A pulley is half the price of that intake with hose and is good for maybe 15-18 hp. Best bang for the buck for a MINI.

Jim

evildky · Mar 6, 2011

the coopers are fantastic drivers, an absolute pleasure to drive, unfortunately they are chrysler powered bmw's and as such have their querks, keep an eye on the thermostat housing, the silicoln gasket gets stiff and leaks

TAMPAGT07 · Mar 7, 2011

Wow. Too cool...My wife and I were just looking at Mini's on the internet yesturday...I love the grey as it would look nice next to my grey mustang in the garage...She likes the blue ones though, so it will probably be blue in color...Very nice ride E.....Actually I'm am looking foward to driving it too, if she lets me....

southernfriedcj · Mar 7, 2011

Gentlemen, the car that is the subject of this thread is a MINI (the BINI is spelled with all caps). :lol_hitti

These are (my)Minis:

e-tek · Mar 7, 2011

Couple (!) oddities with these cars - for those that don't know, interesting, for those that know, further enlighten me please!

- No spare tire on the "S"; they had run-flats. If you changed them out - you got nothing!.
- Battery in trunk - where spare would be.
- bluetooth only works with very few phones
- has a low/flat tire warning stystem - that you have to activate (manually) everytime time you drive!

Anything else?

PaulsGarage · Mar 7, 2011

FYI, you should not have to operate the TPMS every time you drive. Forgive me if you've already read the manual and I'm repeating...

To initialize the tire pressure monitoring system perform the following steps:

-Set all tires to spec: (33 Psi is recommended front and rear I think but check the sticker in the driver's door jamb)
-Turn the key on but don't start the car
-Press and hold the TPMS button (down by the e-brake lever) until the warning light comes on solid yellow.
-Start the car and drive off, the light should go out almost immediately and the system should require no other input from you. It will illuminate the light if one of the tires goes flat.

The system your Mini uses is simpler than the newer ones that use little battery powered pressure monitors in each wheel, the older system is part of the ABS and traction-control so it simply monitors wheel rotation rates, if one is out of whack it assumes a low tire, the problem is it won't actually alert you to low pressure so as long as all the tires are evenly low you won't be warned, even if they all had 10 PSI you probably wouldn't get a warning light!

The moral is to check them regularly just like any car out there. -Paul

Omphaloskeptic · Mar 7, 2011

Mrs. E-tek,
Congratulations! :thumbup:

Mr. E-tek,
OK bub, start prepping that Mini for rallying!

JMartel · Mar 8, 2011

How is reliability on them? Ease of tinkering? I'm hoping to get rid of my 4banger 2WD S10 before next winter and replace it with something like a MINI. Better gas mileage and more fun. And we have a Jeep liberty for bad snow days+hauling stuff.

wrnch · Mar 8, 2011

Hey E-Tek,
What year is your mini? I'm running an '04 Dark Silver MCS. I see you have an Alta Cold Air Intake, what else is she running? Upgraded exhaust and supercharger pully, I presume?

A few things you might want to check out if you like tinkering with vehicles....and by the looks of your previous threads you do.....

1. Check out Northamericanmotoring.com
2. Whalen Shift Knob - A beautiful piece of craftmanship (Google it)
3. Strut Tower Brace - Pick up a strut tower brace. It'll help stiffen the front-end and more importantly it will prevent mushrooming of the strut towers.
4. If you have a Stage 1 kit (a CAI, 18% Supercharger Pully, and Exhaust) I suggest you get a Revolution Mini Works Tune. It put my mini up over 200 and the boost was increased tremendously. It creates a whole different beast.
5. If you really want to get crazy throw down for a "Jesus Head" and go crazy.

Then again this is your wife's car so........maybe just upgrade the scoop and mirrors with the carbon fiber versions and throw some new wheel's on her (the car, not your wife).

BTW: I've never heard of having to manually turn on the flat tire warning system. Mine works just fine every time. In terms of the the tires and no spare in the boot:

Run-flats ride a bit rough, so I swapped out with normal tires. It's night and day. Then I cary a can of that Fix-a-flat stuff as back-up when absolutely necessary. I have never had to use it so far (knock on asphault).

Great buy...just beware of the mini modding madness. Once you start it's kinda hard to stop and northamericanmotoring.com is an equally addicting website as this one.

southernfriedcj · Mar 8, 2011

Omphaloskeptic said:
Mrs. E-tek,
Congratulations!

Mr. E-tek,
OK bub, start prepping that Mini for rallying!

It's not a Mini. It's a MINI. :lol_hitti

MoonRise · Mar 8, 2011

wrnch said:
Hey E-Tek,
...
Then again this is your wife's car so........maybe just upgrade the scoop and mirrors with the carbon fiber versions and throw some new wheel's on her (the car, not your wife).

...

Ummm, da Missus used to race? :bounce:

So, I'd think it would be more along the lines of ...

stiffen (the chassis :spit:

);

tweak (the suspension :spit:

);

new rubber (the tires :spit:

);

for the car.

For and with the Missus, I think E-tek might do the same steps but in a different order. :beer:

Waiting for the pics. Please. :thumbup:

I like cheesecake. :spit:

kartracer23 · Mar 8, 2011

My wife got a Countryman S All4 the day they came out. Pretty nice little car. It did real well in the snow. The local Mini Club does track days @ the kart track where we race, so it will be interesting to see how she transitions from driving a kart at 65 mph through a 90* turn to the Mini that can probably take it at 30 mph max.

https://picasaweb.google.com/pmooreheavin/NewMiniCooperSCountryman#slideshow/5559930574801151330

lowbucktruck · Mar 8, 2011

Very cool! Congrats on the sporty new ride, Mrs. E-Tek!
Wonder if that MINI S is equipped with the the 1.6 Tritec engine or the new Prince 1.6L engine?

snowphun · Mar 8, 2011

lowbucktruck said:
Very cool! Congrats on the sporty new ride, Mrs. E-Tek!
Wonder if that MINI S is equipped with the the 1.6 Tritec engine or the new Prince 1.6L engine?

r53 MCS's like this one were supercharged, the newer r56 is the turbo. My wife has a r56 MCS and it's been rock solid, better than I expected from a German car made in England with a French engine.

Mrs. E-tek's new ride! (Sorry: too cold for Bikini shots!)

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