as far as i can see its the only way too fly.more power less stress better sound better on fuel.those are my thoughts.has supercharging had its day or can it move the game ?just too confuse you and myself i somtimes miss my supercharged mini:confused:

just too confuse you and myself i somtimes miss my supercharged mini:confused:


ROFLMAO, I think everyone would switch to turbo if the price was right, I suppose it is right for those attempting to do it themselves as they outlay is parts only:biggrin:

I'm sure there will be some good quality budget kits availble in the future;)

Twincharged is the way forwards:biggrin:

I've driven turbo diesels, for work, for the last 12 years and loved them; the MINI has been my first experience of a supercharger.

I had been aware of turbo lag, but never gave it a second thought until I tried driving a car with a supercharger. Now that I've got used to a supercharger, any turbo that I've driven (new Cooper S, with twin scroll turbocharger included), feels like it's being towed by a very powerful car joined to the one I'm driving by a very large bungee cord!

Yes, turbo chargers impose less stress on the engine, ultimately produce more power and the benefits in terms of emissions and fuel consumption are so great that we are never likely to see superchargers again. However, it's very sad because nothing else responds instantly like a supercharger does :(

Tigger.

The only reason I bought a MCS was because it was Supercharged. I am in the middle of doing the third stage and (apart from ICE, which is budget restricted) of Mod and I still love the fact it is supercharged. Would I go down the Turbo route? No, because I believe there are cars better designed for turbo delivery on the market and the supercharged is a major part of the mini's character

Is a turbo the way foward?

Ahh, this is one of those great debated that crops up from time to time and will never be settled. :D

Reading the opinions of what people think is very interesting.

I rather like the whine of the supercharger.. makes the whole thing far more dramatic for a MINI and finally with that loud whine means whenever your other half keeps moaning at you all you have to do is put your foot down and then you can't hear :p

The only turbo I have is on my Caterham so turbo can be fun but I just can't help thinking that Supercharged is the way the MINI was supposed to be, and that in a way BMW fixed something that wasn't really broken with the R56 then suddenly realised to make the car more viable to a wider range of potential buyers they switched it to turbo for many reasons like those previously mentioned by people.

Some of the best cars are supercharged tho..... but then again there are some really nice turbo ones out there :D:D:D

Turbo without doubt will always deliver more power, or with 'like for like' SC power , puts alot less stress on the engine AND still gives better ecomony. Turbo will always be quieter and IMHO sounds much more powerful and effortless. For me SC cars with most aftermarket cat backs sound a bit cringful but hey Im old ,what do I know.
DIY Turbo kits may be very tempting to the consumer based on price, but as maybe 75% of a turbo conversion cost is actually other items needed to make it work properly , + existing parts needing modding / fabricating / welding + the large amount of man hours to complete, then I see most ending up as expensive unreliable mistakes and/or ending up for sale on E-bay as 'Abandoned project, all parts available to complete ' :hmph:

Some people even build there own manifolds as well............

http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138216

Roland


How much would all the parts cost from you to do a DIY turbo conversion? Or would you just not supply the parts for the reasons you posted above?

nope. i would'nt want anymore than i have at the moment. This weekend at the ring showed that the car wnts for nothing in the power department. just needs beter brakes / suspension and more driver skill ( although bloody hard as your pushing to 120mph and a bike screams passed at 165 + mph just missing your wing mirror.....lol)

Turbo shmurbo if you ask me, whats the one thing everone no matter who it is, your nan, your mats or just a random, they all comment on the whine. With turbo its gone just another turbo car, yeah big power but just lost 60% of the mini's character.

Owning both and driving both, turbo is the sensible option, but life is for living, so give me supercharged any day;):D

nope. i would'nt want anymore than i have at the moment. This weekend at the ring showed that the car wnts for nothing in the power department. just needs beter brakes / suspension and more driver skill ( although bloody hard as your pushing to 120mph and a bike screams passed at 165 + mph just missing your wing mirror.....lol)

Turbo shmurbo if you ask me, whats the one thing everone no matter who it is, your nan, your mats or just a random, they all comment on the whine. With turbo its gone just another turbo car, yeah big power but just lost 60% of the mini's character.

Totally agree, a MCS with well set up suspension & brakes is more important than loads of power. This is an area I'm now working on, but sadly not before Castle Combe in 2 weeks time

Hi Jaws, for the reasons mentioned above we would never offer our conversion (or parts of) as a DIY kit. It also prevents copying.

may be the future is what VW are doing with supercharger and turbo the supercharger is used for the first 3000 revs then the turbo kicks in an idea pinched from Lancia on there mad rally car The Delta S4 from the mid eighties

Twin turbo is the way forward if you could get it to work correctly! :D Little tiny turbo for around town and moderate throttle and also will seriously increase exhaust pressure and spool the bigger turbo much faster. All a nice theory if there was space and someone crazy enough to build one :D

Turbos the way forward?? You have to decide what forward is and that will be something different to someone else. Forward for me? Yes I hope so..... but i'll let you know the honest answer in due course right here >>> http://www.miniproject.co.uk Unbiased, fully documented results. The gains, the hurdles and what did and didnt go quite right. :)

may be the future is what VW are doing with supercharger and turbo the supercharger is used for the first 3000 revs then the turbo kicks in an idea pinched from Lancia on there mad rally car The Delta S4 from the mid eighties

VW are having serious problems with the 1.4 TSI engine as the engines are taking a real hammering as there is no let up on it, Supercharged at botom end and turbo'd at the top makes the too much strain all the time on the engine. What was t be the next big thing the TSI is very close to getting scrapped as they move to a new turbo line up

nope. i would'nt want anymore than i have at the moment. This weekend at the ring showed that the car wnts for nothing in the power department. just needs beter brakes / suspension and more driver skill ( although bloody hard as your pushing to 120mph and a bike screams passed at 165 + mph just missing your wing mirror.....lol)

Turbo shmurbo if you ask me, whats the one thing everone no matter who it is, your nan, your mats or just a random, they all comment on the whine. With turbo its gone just another turbo car, yeah big power but just lost 60% of the mini's character.
you are right about the sc whine:cool:but the noise of the turbo on full chat has character of its own.on a side note i would not have drove the ring on standard brakes:eek:suspension yes brakes no way.

super charger wine well worth 20bhp in grins

you are right about the sc whine:cool:but the noise of the turbo on full chat has character of its own.on a side note i would not have drove the ring on standard brakes:eek:suspension yes brakes no way.
yup i know, but i never went too mad and i do know the ring quite well as this was my 6th visit and have clocked up 40+ laps. But thats being rectified virtually as we speak for visit number 7. 2 of the guys with us this time went out and had pro tuition over 10 laps and they were shocked at how much you don't need to use your brakes if you take the right lines, however on a busy day you don't always get the lines

VW are having serious problems with the 1.4 TSI engine as the engines are taking a real hammering as there is no let up on it, Supercharged at botom end and turbo'd at the top makes the too much strain all the time on the engine. What was t be the next big thing the TSI is very close to getting scrapped as they move to a new turbo line up

Seems odd considering they're fitting it to the new Scirocco and they announced only last year they're replacing the 1.6 with the 1.4TSI

Seems odd considering they're fitting it to the new Scirocco and they announced only last year they're replacing the 1.6 with the 1.4TSI

Based around the Twincharger unit, the new 1.4-litre TSI unit will replace VW’s 1.6-litre FSI in both Golf and Passat before the end of the year.

Unlike the Twincharger, the new TSI relies solely on a small but highly efficient turbo to plump out its power and torque curves, doing away with the supercharger completely.

The Scirocco will benefit from the option of two engines VWs TSI twin-charged straight-4 producing 168 hp, and the 200 hp 2.0T FSI engine featuring in the Mk5 Golf GTI, the Passat and Jetta.

So it seems for now the technology of twin-charging is moving forward.

Essentially what you have is a FWD Evo with a Mini shell on top... Turbo is the the way forward for unnecessary power gains and a sure fire way to ruin the character of the MCS. How 400bhp is usable day-to-day on the road is beyond me.

Personally I would never want to turbo my Mini to sound like an Evo clone... I like my screaming jet fighter sound track ;) .

Essentially what you have is a FWD Evo with a Mini shell on top... Turbo is the the way forward for unnecessary power gains and a sure fire way to ruin the character of the MCS. How 400bhp is usable day-to-day on the road is beyond me.

Personally I would never want to turbo my Mini to sound like an Evo clone... I like my screaming jet fighter sound track ;) .

+1;)

I feel really sad now because I know how old I'm getting when I cant remember what or Hubie's twin charged car sounded like going down the track, mainly because I had to have a helmet on.

I must admit it was a blast running it on 18 inch everyday street tyres, but what was more impressive was with the slicks on at 2900lb we were in front of the 2200lb turbo car until I missed 2nd and still run a low 12 1/4 mile.

Maybe twin charge is the answer for every day driving, It defintley handled the 3 hr LA traffic quite nicely.

Beauty of a turbo is you can have either fully variable or 2 position switchable boost control. Gives optimum power level for every situation. :cool:

Does every situation include "0 - whatever " acceleration test:nice:

Turbos have benefits ,fuel economy,noise dampening,"free" power from waste gasses,
In turbine and compressor design they are however simple devices and very expensive to produce a high tech solutions to inherent problems . they have been around for many years and are well known /commonly used
They do suffer in longevity /reliability if made to work beyond their scope -blade damage ,inbalance,seal failures, are common on older units and they do work in very harsh conditions - hotter than hades and very very high rotational speeds
Twin charging has its technical problems airflow wise ,and still in its infancy,although ultimately will be the solution being the best of both worlds .
The return to chargers recently from Jaguar/merc/MINI was a good idea and proved effective ,given the poor choice of charger used - even the standard charger on the MINI has been used to increase the cooper engine from 115 bhp to 280+ bhp WITH incredible reliability
- I doubt the stock turbo on the new car will achieve the same feat

I.m not in this field but I am reading that the big manufacturers are developing electric superchargers??

Electric chargers could be used and work ,but they could only be used for very short bursts,the shear amount of energy the charger uses cannot be found from electrics- it is inefficient to use alternator derived power as it is coming from the engine anyway,and batteries would have to be very large and only used for short periods
The free driven aspect is the strongest point of the Turbo and why so commonly used

Ballbearing/roller bearing turbos mean the latest turbos rarely cause problem. As with a SC it can be oversped but as the trend is to use 400-500bhp spec turbos on a 1.6L engine your unlikely to ever do that in the way you will with a SC running small pulley and increased rev limit! . Nearly all aftermarket problems are installation faults , poor conversion design , Incorrect oil feed/drain design , incorrect coolant plumbing, incorrect manifold or downpipe design. Also boost/surge/mapping issues which get blamed on the turbo. My design is 99.5% as per the day I designed and fitted it. And requires no changes .It also just went straight through its second MOT last week.:smile: