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The Cooper S is pretty potent in standard form but ifyou sprinkle it with a little bit of Evolve Automotive’s

magic it becomes a real road rocketWords & Photography: Bob Harper

MIGHTYMINI

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JUNE 2010 123

Over the years spent working on BMWCar I must have come across literallythousands of tuning packages for BMWsand MINIs, and it’s fair to say that therehave been plenty of examples of the

good, the bad and the ugly along the way. Somereally deliver the goods, others disappoint – not just interms of performance, but sometimes in lack ofproper development or perhaps the cost of upgrades.I’ve driven many cars whose tweaks must have costgetting on for £1000 per horsepower once wheels,styling and engine mods have been taken intoaccount, but I’ve also sampled cars that have had amajor power boost for the rather more manageablesum of £100 per horsepower.

The subject of today’s MINI test though must surelyrate as one of the most, if not the most, cost effectiveupgrade I’ve ever come across. Maximum power is upby 58hp and maximum torque has been boosted byan astonishing 85lb ft, and all for the princely sum of£1499, or approximately £25 per horsepower. Overthe last few years we’ve driven several BMWs thathave had their hidden inner potential fully realised byLuton-based BMW fettler Evolve Automotive – indeedit breathed much needed new life into my previouslylethargic 520d Touring – so when we heard that thecompany had also turned its hand to MINI tuning wehad to go along to find out what it could do for therapid hatch.

Currently, Evolve has five different options availableto Cooper S owners offering gains of 30, 34, 50, 58and 68hp with prices ranging from £499 to £2250.stage one involves an ECU remap, stage two adds acat-back exhaust, stage three retains the standardexhaust but adds a new down pipe, stage four (whichwe’ve tested here) includes the remap and a turboback exhaust, while stage five adds an intercooler, too.Strictly speaking it’s stage one that offers the most

bang for your buck – a measly £16.66 for eachadditional horsepower – but we wanted to see howthe hatch would cope with the more extreme powerupgrades, so we sampled stage four with 240hp and290lb ft of torque.

One of the most restrictive parts of the standardCooper S set up is the exhaust down pipe, soreplacing the complete exhaust from the turbo backwith a Milltek item allows the Evolve ECU remap tothoroughly strut its stuff. Maximum boost is up from11psi to 18.5psi and the gains at certain points in therev range are quite astonishing. A quick gander at thedyno graph reveals that between 4000 and 4500rpmthere’s a whopping 75hp of additional poweravailable, and from 2750 to 4250rpm there’s a stumppulling extra 100lb ft of torque on tap. Evolve’s carriedout a lot of research into the upgrade and while it’sinevitable that a little more strain will be put on somecomponents, it believes that there will be no long-term reliability problems from such big gains, indeed,the turbo is still within its manufacturer’s ratedparameters despite the major hike in boost.

On the road, as you can imagine, this additionalpower and torque really does transform the Cooper Sfrom quick into insanely fast. Thanks to all the mid-range shove, you don’t have to wring its neck toextract the performance either, which means thatindecently rapid progress can be made withoutbreaking into a sweat. We don’t have anyperformance figures for the car, but up to (andperhaps slightly beyond!) the legal limit it certainlyfeels as strong, if not stronger, than an M3, and givenit weighs less and has more torque in the mid-rangethat’s hardly surprising. You can feel the additionalpoke coming in strongly from 2250rpm and from thatpoint on you need to make sure you’re giving theroad your full attention, and that you’ve got bothhands on the wheel as it takes off like a scalded

EVOLVE MINI COOPER S

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marmot. On smooth dry roads, the front wheels don’tactually struggle as much as I was expecting them todo, and they put down the power without too muchdrama and very little torque steer. However, throw afew more bumps or expansion joints into theequation and it’s less inclined to follow commandsfrom the helm with quite so much aplomb, but as theMINI has such an adjustable chassis it’s generallypretty forgiving and will follow the correct line oncethe front tyres have regained their purchase on thetarmac. Ditching the standard fit run-flats would nodoubt make it a much better steer.

The test car has also been fitted with a free-flow airfilter which Evolve says doesn’t actually make any

difference to the performance as the standard air filterhousing isn’t very restrictive in the first place. What thefilter does do is allow you to hear the full auralrepetoire of the turbo and wastegate, whistling andhissing to their heart’s content as you come on andoff the throttle or when changing gear. For the first fewmiles it does sound great, but after a while (to myears at least) the novelty does wear off a little so I’dstick with the standard air filter housing. If I was goingto be using the car for regular back road blasts I alsothink I’d be tempted to upgraded the brakes, too.

While we didn’t encounter any problems whiletesting the car, given the horsepower and torquegains, chances are you’ll be arriving at every corner

travelling rather faster than you would be in astandard Cooper S. And with some big stoppers sittingbehind the John Cooper Works alloys, this MINI reallywould be just about unbeatable across country, wellable to mix it with much more expensive machinery.

So to sum up, we’ve got a huge amount of extrapower and torque for really not a lot of cash. On abang for your buck or a smiles per mile basis, Evolve’sCooper S really has no peers ●

CONTACT:Evolve AutomotiveTel: 0871 231 1020website: www.evo-s.co.uk

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Extensive rolling road testing has resulted in excellent gainsfrom Evolve’s remaps; dyno chart shows big improvements;

bar the air filter the engine looks absolutely standard

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