What have I done?! (R53 Mini Cooper S)

[Crumpet]

Last year I caught the horrible track day bug and, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be going away.

I’ve been using my ‘daily’, a 992.1 GTS, and while it’s obviously very fast and competent, it’s starting to show a bit on the car. Largely because I spend the next few weeks after a track day trying to clear everyone else’s rubber off my tyres, so it perpetually feels like my wheels are out of balance. It’s also not as much fun when constantly worrying about binning an expensive car into a tyre wall or worrying about whether Porsche will refuse to honour the warranty because it’s been used on track.

Anyway, today I got a bit carried away and bought a 2002 R53. I know almost nothing about them other than that I’ve seen many of them hassling me in the corners and I absolutely love supercharger whine! Plus everyone loves a Mini. I did look at a couple of FN2 Civics but I can’t remember ever seeing so much rust on the underside of a car and decided they weren’t for me.

It’s not quite full-on chav spec, but it has been tinkered with by someone in the past. Supercharger pulley is already done, uprated intercooler and plugs etc… It appears to have JCW brakes and it’s got a sports cat and stainless exhaust. And a Barry-boy-tastic gear knob. I suspect it’s probably a good idea to leave the towing loop attached given the total lack of service history!

The bodywork is remarkably rust free for a 24 year old car and the interior is in good shape. It sounded pretty decent, went around the roundabouts better than my Porsche and the brakes felt sharper as well. It was actually quite nice to have some steering feel for once! Im really looking forward to knocking about in it.

The initial plan is to get it to a specialist in a few weeks who’s going to give it a once over, change the oil and filters, make sure the cooling system is up to scratch and flush out the brakes with high temp fluid (discs look newish but I’ll check the pads - they appear to be EBC Yellow Stuff). If he says it’s a sack of st I guess I’ll take the hit and sell it at a loss and call it a lesson learned. The biggest loss possible is only a couple of grand so it’s not the end of the world. Going forward I’d do most of the routine work myself because since selling my TVR many years ago I’ve kind of missed tinkering in the garage.

Otherwise I’ll get the basics done, get a set of Nankang NS-2R tyres on and get it on track. The plan beyond that, assuming I actually enjoy driving it, will be the usual - coilovers, better seat and we’ll take it from there.

I figured £4k total spend on this won’t be much different to a year of tyres, brakes and expensive oil and brake fluid changes on the Porsche. And hopefully more fun!

All tips and criticism gratefully received!

[Crumpet]

Forgot to add; the wheels and tyres are a right state, so will be sorted. But as for the brakes in the photo, I assume they’re JCW brakes? Are they from an R56?

[CrippsCorner]

Been a few years since I've had mine but if I remember correctly, the R56 Cooper S & R53 JCW use the same brakes.

Edit to say now I've looked again they're obviously multi-pot and look more like R56 JCW brakes... nice.

[TimmyMallett]

The r53 was peak bmw mini looks wise, that looks lovely. Every that came after looks a bit watered down.

[Crumpet]

CrippsCorner said:

Been a few years since I've had mine but if I remember correctly, the R56 Cooper S & R53 JCW use the same brakes.

Edit to say now I've looked again they're obviously multi-pot and look more like R56 JCW brakes... nice.

Yes, from what I can gather they do look like R56 JCW brakes and, even with what I assume is old fluid, they still felt very sharp. They seem to actually be quite expensive as well! Trying to work out what fluid to put in, I’ve found ATE 200 DOT4, which seems to be reasonably rated. Don’t really fancy stretching to Castrol SRF as it’ll probably double the value of the car!

As it’s for the track I was thinking to replace the coolant with deionised water and Water Wetter (and then put antifreeze in over winter). I don’t fancy dumping a load of coolant on the track and facing a clean up bill.

TimmyMallett said:

The r53 was peak bmw mini looks wise, that looks lovely. Every that came after looks a bit watered down.

I agree. They’ve got a classic look to them now and, in some ways, it’ll be a shame if I end up making a mess of a future classic.

The best bit so far is that insurance for the year is coming in at £113 with all the mods declared! Ok, so it’s third party, fire and theft, but it’s better than I expected.

In some ways I wish I’d bought an unmodified engine as, from my research, a modified one significantly increases the risk of failures - obviously. I’d have preferred less lower and more reliability. Hey ho.

[M.F.D]

They are indeed 4pots from the R56 JCW. A common and effective upgrade.

Here was my R53 a few years ago. Ohlins, cage, slicks, methanol etc etc. Was a great car, but sold after it not quite being as good as my previous Mégane 250 Cup.