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MIGHTYMINI The Cooper S is pretty potent in standard form but if you sprinkle it with a little bit of Evolve Automotive’s magic it becomes a real road rocket Words & Photography: Bob Harper
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EVOLVE MINI COOPER S
ver the years spent working on BMW Car I must have come across literally thousands of tuning packages for BMWs and MINIs, and it’s fair to say that there have been plenty of examples of the good, the bad and the ugly along the way. Some really deliver the goods, others disappoint – not just in terms of performance, but sometimes in lack of proper development or perhaps the cost of upgrades. I’ve driven many cars whose tweaks must have cost getting on for £1000 per horsepower once wheels, styling and engine mods have been taken into account, but I’ve also sampled cars that have had a major power boost for the rather more manageable sum of £100 per horsepower. The subject of today’s MINI test though must surely rate as one of the most, if not the most, cost effective upgrade I’ve ever come across. Maximum power is up by 58hp and maximum torque has been boosted by an astonishing 85lb ft, and all for the princely sum of £1499, or approximately £25 per horsepower. Over the last few years we’ve driven several BMWs that have had their hidden inner potential fully realised by Luton-based BMW fettler Evolve Automotive – indeed it breathed much needed new life into my previously lethargic 520d Touring – so when we heard that the company had also turned its hand to MINI tuning we had to go along to find out what it could do for the rapid hatch. Currently, Evolve has five different options available to Cooper S owners offering gains of 30, 34, 50, 58 and 68hp with prices ranging from £499 to £2250. stage one involves an ECU remap, stage two adds a cat-back exhaust, stage three retains the standard exhaust but adds a new down pipe, stage four (which we’ve tested here) includes the remap and a turbo back exhaust, while stage five adds an intercooler, too. Strictly speaking it’s stage one that offers the most
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bang for your buck – a measly £16.66 for each additional horsepower – but we wanted to see how the hatch would cope with the more extreme power upgrades, so we sampled stage four with 240hp and 290lb ft of torque. One of the most restrictive parts of the standard Cooper S set up is the exhaust down pipe, so replacing the complete exhaust from the turbo back with a Milltek item allows the Evolve ECU remap to thoroughly strut its stuff. Maximum boost is up from 11psi to 18.5psi and the gains at certain points in the rev range are quite astonishing. A quick gander at the dyno graph reveals that between 4000 and 4500rpm there’s a whopping 75hp of additional power available, and from 2750 to 4250rpm there’s a stump pulling extra 100lb ft of torque on tap. Evolve’s carried out a lot of research into the upgrade and while it’s inevitable that a little more strain will be put on some components, it believes that there will be no longterm reliability problems from such big gains, indeed, the turbo is still within its manufacturer’s rated parameters despite the major hike in boost. On the road, as you can imagine, this additional power and torque really does transform the Cooper S from quick into insanely fast. Thanks to all the midrange shove, you don’t have to wring its neck to extract the performance either, which means that indecently rapid progress can be made without breaking into a sweat. We don’t have any performance figures for the car, but up to (and perhaps slightly beyond!) the legal limit it certainly feels as strong, if not stronger, than an M3, and given it weighs less and has more torque in the mid-range that’s hardly surprising. You can feel the additional poke coming in strongly from 2250rpm and from that point on you need to make sure you’re giving the road your full attention, and that you’ve got both hands on the wheel as it takes off like a scalded
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Extensive rolling road testing has resulted in excellent gains from Evolve’s remaps; dyno chart shows big improvements; bar the air filter the engine looks absolutely standard
marmot. On smooth dry roads, the front wheels don’t actually struggle as much as I was expecting them to do, and they put down the power without too much drama and very little torque steer. However, throw a few more bumps or expansion joints into the equation and it’s less inclined to follow commands from the helm with quite so much aplomb, but as the MINI has such an adjustable chassis it’s generally pretty forgiving and will follow the correct line once the front tyres have regained their purchase on the tarmac. Ditching the standard fit run-flats would no doubt make it a much better steer. The test car has also been fitted with a free-flow air filter which Evolve says doesn’t actually make any
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difference to the performance as the standard air filter housing isn’t very restrictive in the first place. What the filter does do is allow you to hear the full aural repetoire of the turbo and wastegate, whistling and hissing to their heart’s content as you come on and off the throttle or when changing gear. For the first few miles it does sound great, but after a while (to my ears at least) the novelty does wear off a little so I’d stick with the standard air filter housing. If I was going to be using the car for regular back road blasts I also think I’d be tempted to upgraded the brakes, too. While we didn’t encounter any problems while testing the car, given the horsepower and torque gains, chances are you’ll be arriving at every corner
travelling rather faster than you would be in a standard Cooper S. And with some big stoppers sitting behind the John Cooper Works alloys, this MINI really would be just about unbeatable across country, well able to mix it with much more expensive machinery. So to sum up, we’ve got a huge amount of extra power and torque for really not a lot of cash. On a bang for your buck or a smiles per mile basis, Evolve’s Cooper S really has no peers ●
CONTACT: Evolve Automotive Tel: 0871 231 1020 website: www.evo-s.co.uk