What we've been up to
Fireball's Project "Mary"
It's not me, I swear! They have some MCS they are modding out and have for some reason named it Project "Mary." I guess I'm not the only one with a car named Mary. I have to admit it, Project Mary IS a catchy little title, just one that's taken. So, no, I'm not turboing my car or anything that crazy. Software will probably be in her future, just not yet. Trust me, mary will be tuned by bhs, not fireballed! Hopefully they will change the name of their modding project and there won't be any more confusion!
Mary gets her mods put back on!
Now that tranny #4 seems to be holding up, mary's mods have gone back on. she was returned completely to stock a few months ago when she was returned to the dealership for the last tranny swap. this time she ditched the alta sway bar. It squeaked louder than a mattress in a cheap motel room! the remus is back on, the pro-mini cold air intake, some red nology hot wires, tsw engine dampner, tsw springs and the bhs front strut mount brace/bar. a pro-mini 18mm rear sway bar is in the mail and will be put on soon. i had one of these on mosquito and I loved it! all i have left to do is swap out my 3-spoke steering wheel for a two-spoke and i'm done!
Mary gets her first mods!
Sept 25th, 1,900 miles: Alta 19mm rear sway bar, remus exhaust
God, i missed my remus! I had no idea how much until I started her up. It was like putting on your favorite pair of shoes after a month of wearing new ones. the rear sway bar is great too. I no longer feel like I'm driving a rolling sofa around corners. tight!
September Update
It's been a while since I've updated much of anything...sorry! simon has added all kinds of things to bettie to make her one of the fastest minis around. mosquito now has a new home and has been been replaced by mary. i just got out of break-in on friday, so saturday morning I had her dyno'd. i wanted a good baseline dyno to see what mods really do, since I was suspicious after mosquito's dyno. here it is. amazingly enough, the results were very similar to mosquito's dyno with mods. i can tell immediately that mini has done some performance improvements to the cooper as the flat spots are gone. it will be interesting to see future dynos when mods are added to see if the performance companies really are full of it, as i suspect.
April Update
Mosquito finally got his rear brake caliper replaced!!! woo-hoo! Figures....there's no autocross event in May to go to. He also got the promini intake put on, replacing the k&N one he had. That one will be put on michelle's zoe soon.
Betty is now sporting the new moss mini halo parking lights. I'm not really sure what's been going on with the other team members' cars as things have been pretty busy for all of us lately. I heard a rumor that bob actually washed his car and might wash him again before he heads out to "minis on the dragon" next week. Let's hope he takes lots of pictures!
Mad modding at Casa Spiler
It's been a pretty productive weekend! Mosquito finally got his JCW checkered floormats and driving lights installed, simon painted his chrome headlight rings matte black to match his stripes and is painting his wheels to match and dotbob finally got his wilwood brake kit installed! UPDATE: simon picked up betty's personalized plates yesterday! She's not just Black betty, but she's bad too!
See the gallery below for pictures!
Dyno Day
The weather sucked and I was down with strep throat, but simon came through in going back and forth to Bavarian Hyper sports to get both black betty and mosquito dyno'd. the results were, to say the least, disappointing. that being said, dynoing your car is a great way to see what's really going on under the bonnet!
see betty's dyno here.
see mosquito's dyno here.
