Thought I'd post up some info & piccies of my Hartge tuned Cooper S, had the car just over 5 years now & it's changed a little in all that time..sorry it's a bit of a long winded post!!
Bought it completely standard apart from the Hartge tuning kit & a Milltek exhaust & manifold..
Didn't really have any plans to modify it untill I joined a few MINI forums & saw what some of the other owners were doing, that's when the modding bug hit;).
Some of the 1st additions were JCW full leather seats, great looking seats & do superb job of holding you tight when attacking the twisties, a 3 spoke steering wheel, a Carbon dash/downtubes/trim rings have also been added over time too
Decided to have a change of alloys & bought some super rare 18" Dare X4s, they only made around 50 sets of these with fitment for MINI's, one of the forums had a group buy..
Full MINI aerokit was also fitted & the trend for dechroming also followed, door handles/fuel filler cap/bonnet & boot badges all painted black, with Carbon Fibre vinyl covering the headlight rings & belt line, real carbon bonnet scoop & mirror caps too. A larger intercooler from GRS was fitted, as was an upper strut brace from GTT which really helped tighten the handling at the front end..
Earlier this month had the old girl on the dyno up at Evolve Automotive in Luton, ran 212 bhp, very pleased with that, fuelling was all good & it's running like a dream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWCzTACp660One of the MINI forums I belong to had a charity track day at the Top Gear track at Dunsfold, managed to get my son to film some of the laps, despite the crap weather it was a great day..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpZs1o0so80Also had a bit of vinyl work done on the roof, the car's got a nickname... 'Zippy'..
The Dare wheels lasted for quite a while but with 18" wheels + 35 profile tyres the ride on Surrey's pot holed roads wasn't really the best, so they were sold in favour of some much lighter Rota Subzeros + 45 profile tyres, much better ride overall, by now the car got lowered 35mm on KW springs..
Ran the car up at Santa Pod for the 1st time last summer, 15.02 at 94.9 mph, was well pleased with that..
The Rotas didn't last as long as the Dares unfortunately, a new set of alloys were brought onto the market from Rota & I couldn't help myself, they had to be fitted...Rota Blitz, I love the look of them, lightweight & fit with ease over my JCW Brembo brakes too, these are definately my fave wheels so far..
Had the chance to buy a 'personal plate plate last year, couldn't resist this one...ha ha!
& there it is, my 5 + a bit years with the MINI, still having great fun with it, wouldn't change it for anything else.
Sorry it's a long post....
Cheers
, mission this year is to get under 14.5. Should be achievable with some more practice..
