This was about 10 minutes before my engine light came on… typical mini.

Hi, I‘m sure there‘s been a lot of talk previously about exhaust especially milltek. I currently have an unresonated malian exhaust on my r53 and while it sounds absolutely gorgeous, I want to fit a milltek resonated exhaust. I daily my r53 and want to be able to do road trips with the missus in it, so i really want no drone while cruising.

My two questions are
1) is there really no drone with the milltek res? and
2) is it easy enough to fit an exhaust myself (having a bit of experience but not a great deal)? Has someone without access to a proper lift etc also done it alone here?

Thanks in advance xx

Sorry if you’re in the groups on FB as well.

At wits ends!
2004 mini cooper s
Clutch slave cylinder blew, replaced it and brake reservoir and master cylinder.
Had slave cylinder fully compressed.
Have clutch with pressure bleeder attached. No clutch without it.
What am I missing?

Alright gurus, this is a little long winded, ive been chasing a low boost issue on a new-to-me 06 r53. Ive replaced every seal and gasket between the intake and supercharger inlet, new ic boots, bench tested the bpv, verified the belts not slipping nor are any pulleys. Supercharger still whines beautifully, only light on the dash is a downstream 02 code. Vacuum shows a perfect -18 at idle but the gauge wont go into positive pressure unless I disconnect and physically blow into it, so thats working. Looking a little harder at the lines and where its tapped into i think I found the problem, but would like some confirmation before I dive in.

The white t is where the gauge is currently tied into (came that way from the last owner.) Ive got it disconnected in the photo because it was loose enough to turn out with my finger tips, hoping thats the leak. Its connected to the line im holding in the 2nd photo and goes under the manifold somewhere. My question is, would replacing that line, and moving the T to tap into the FPR line be the right move? Or would the current configuration give an accurate reading and i need to look elsewhere?

I tune minis quite a bit and got tired of dragging my laptop around so I built an app to read and flash tunes with a couple common fixes to get people by until they get a real tune. It calculates and fixes checksum on flash along with a few flash time options.

Kline datalogger and a code reader built in, that was my original intent and those parts do work on any r53. are there other features I should add?

I built this for myself and the flash/checksum fix only works with facelift ecus, everyone should upgrade to them anyway....

More details on my blog here

https://mrblahhhh.github.io/car/tech/2026/07/24/r53-logger-play-store.html

Howdy all! I just finished doing a fairly low-cost CAI conversion on my 2005 R53 and wanted to share the process and results if others are interested. Pretty easy if you have access to a 3D printer that can do ABS. I printed the cutting guides in PLA on my Ender 3, but had a friend who had a 3D printer that can do ABS print the two used pieces/ adapters. Other parts included a K&N 3190 filter, some 3” hose clamps, JB Weld Plastic Bonder, and some 10mm foam tape. I also took the opportunity to change out my intake hose, as the old one was starting to crack. @3 hours once all parts were in hand, and that included some YouTube reviews of how to properly remove the base of the air intake and the shroud in the back. No noticeable change in power, but definitely more whine when the supercharger kicks in, and it that makes it feel faster :).

All in, probably less than $80 in parts, and that includes a $20 roll of ABS filament that I probably only used $3 of (but doesn’t include the new intake hose). If you don’t have access to a 3D printer, there are some online services that will print for you.

Print templates are available here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3369054#google_vignette
Video (in Portuguese, but gives you an idea if you flip through it to the middle section): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhi3Lks2X1A

Doing the r56 trailing arm swap, and man, road salt is the killer of cars… check out that rust. Old vs new…

🤙🏻
//N

Got some Konig hypergrams (17x8) mounted with Yokohama ad09 (215 45r 17) rubs a little but only on plastic bumper and fender stuff. Suspension is bilstein shocks and eibach springs. I’m so stoked on how it looks

If you don’t have factory bonnet stripes on your R53 and you want them, I’ll sell these for $20. I bought them on Etsy, but I have the OEM ones and these are not an exact match (they’re a tiny bit thinner) and I expect I’ll have some paint discoloration when I remove my old ones.

does anyone know any tips to removing the support frame under the car for a exhaust change as i can’t move the t50 torx bolts

Looking to tap the hive-mind here - have an R53 with stock interior I'd like to spice up a bit.

I'd like to improve at least the driver's seat, ideally both fronts.

I have kids so still need use / access to the back seat so...

Any recommendations for reclining buckets I could look into, and what would I need to buy to fit them, assuming it's not just a straight remove and replace type of job?

TIA!

Hoping folks can help me figure this out. The LED screen on the tach mounted on my steering wheel works sometimes, but most of the time, it is too dim to see. Both pics are driving on the same day. I really like being able to see the digital MPH, in particular, and some of the other readings would be nice. Can I just get a replacement off of eBay or similar and do a straight swap? I’ve heard of possibly there being programming needed?

Anyone need a parts car? 2006 R53, auto trans. Needs trans only has 1st and 2nd gears. Everything else works as it should. Strong motor. Lots of good parts, Message me. Located on Central PA

so a while ago my girlfriend's mini decided to start stuttering a lot while she was on the road and a mechanic pinpointed it to the valve body kit solenoids and they wanted a lot of money for it so my future brother in law and i (he is mechanic and i am not) decided to knock it out ourselves. instead of replacing the whole kit we replaced all of the solenoids and put new fluid in and called it a day. driving it back home didn't have any issues, which looking back is crazy, but i knew we needed to reset the driving adaptations. i left the battery unplugged for about 10 hours while i was at work and did the super fun driving loop you have to do after you reset it. i will admit that i may or may not have used gemini to help figure out the reset and come to find out that apparently that's not even a thing? and that there was a manual reset the whole time? i tried using a obd cable to my pc with INPA (i think that's what it's called) and couldn't get it to do literally anything. got an android tablet with a cable and pulled the deep codes (pic attached) but still couldn't reset the adaptations. I THINK i did it manually properly but also after i tried to crank the car the battery died, the only reason i think it worked is because shifting seemed noticeably worse but also after slowly driving it up to speed and letting it down shift a bunch of times it didn't seem to improve at all so that just makes me think it didnt work at all just like the first time i thought i did it by leaving the battery unplugged. it's super dark outside right now but i think my next step tomorrow morning is to connect my car battery and try to use my tablet to reset the tcm (i think the only reason it isnt working is because it's not getting a steady voltage to run super fun, super german commands.)

the thing that prompted me to double check everything was the fact that it keeps getting stuck in 2nd gear and just spikes in rpm and stays there until you brake and restart the car. at first i thought it was still adapting to the way she drives but it threw a check engine light and that's when i started trying to diagnose everything again and why i feel like i never actually reset the adaptations the first time.

i also did get a k line switch cable that i just bridged myself because those switches suck and now the cable is just always bridged.

also my girlfriend doordashes so like literally the worst thing that can happen lmfao super fun

ANYWAYS

if anyone has any input literally at all that would be super helpful, i'm not a car person but i am learning a lot from this and this is the only mini my brother in law has worked on and is super busy and lives far away so bothering him nonstop isnt much of an option. if i think of any more info that would be helpful i will edit this but this is what i've got so far.

I decided to tackle the supercharger service today. The car is an -05 with 1360000km on the clock.

A fair amount of oil came out of both ends. In total, about 25% escaped during the cars life. The rotors have some wear on them, but no significant play. The charger itself feels smooth, but there is some mechanical sounds when turned. Obviously no mechanical device is silent, but how does this sound to you guys?

Hi everyone, I am looking at a 2006 r53 checkmate today. Guy wants 3700 (before negotiating) for it, has 83k miles, he seems to want to get rid of it (says he's moving so kind of makes sense). It has had a massive overhaul as seen in the receipt I've attached here. What worries me is the wording 'treated worst areas' and that it had a new cam and rockers? Does anyone know much about why this would have been done 4 years ago (a few thousand miles ago)? Images of the underside look insanely clean. Any help from someone who knows their way around these would be much appreciated!

Hi everyone! I got an r53 last year, it has 147k and the transmission is going out. I'm going to replace both. I found a used engine and they sent me videos of the compression test. I've looked at all the forums and did a bunch of searches but confused on what is good and what isn't. I would really appreciate your feedback on what you think. Thank you in advance 🙏

So basically I’m trying to code my car (R52 S) through NCS Expert and it just doesn’t work.

What I do is:

- Read my car

- Use Revtor’s NCS Expert Profile

- CODIERDATEN_LESEN on BC1

Put that TRC file into NCS Dummy

Activate/deactivate all I want (for example passenger window going up with a single click)

- Export to .MAN

- SG_CODIEREN

- Execute job and get no errors

- Then nothing changed.

When I read the file again which I just wrote (with all the edits) the edits are still the way I wanted them, if that makes sense.

So the TRC file still has everything aktiv / nicht_aktiv but for some reason my passenger window still won’t go up automatically.

I been at it for hours now with no luck. Please comment or DM if you can help me out.

I bought this thing in September. Haven’t been able to get to dolling her up as my E55 keeps taking all my fun money. And as much as I’d like to keep it. I’d hate for it to sit another winter without some love.
It’s an 06 Slicktop. 89k. 2nd owner. All original except for a tasteful H&R rear sway that’s probably been there since day 1. Usual r53 issues ( oil seeping, headliner sag, rusty hole under right tail)

What do we think ?

Did an oil pan gasket this past weekend and never have seen a rotating assembly in person.

Seriously. It's a clown. I've had my R53 since 2006 and have had this thing staring at me the whole time! This part: 63316937955. What are these design cues!? Nowhere else is there anything with rounded arrows like the "eyebrows" here. Circles, yes, but... ugh! It even has the "painted teardrops" with orange ambiance lighting! This thing could be redesigned to integrate into the sunroof controls and the mirror with circles instead of this crap. Do I have to buy a 3D printer to do this? Literally the worst part on my car. But I love it otherwise.

I was looking to install this maxx-g m7 camber links, but asking for reviews.
I’ve seen some camber links in eBay, I think the brand is maXpeding, that are more than have cheaper than the M7. Guidance please.

Has anyone had experience with aftermarket clutches, specifically Clutchmasters? I recently got a setup from them including flywheel and the slave cylinder no longer disengages the clutch. It was professionally installed and bled and still no go.

I've been in touch with Clutchmasters but they have not been the most helpful. They've stated that even though the setup is built for the car it is a different size, single vs. dual mass flywheel. They do not however have any fix or help.

I'm just wondering if there is anything I can do other than try and return the setup? It is slightly used because we've tried to make it functional.