Howdy all. My name is Rob and I'm originally from the Dallas/Fort Worth area. After YEARS of drooling every time I saw a mini on the road, I was finally able to straighten out my credit and finances enough to get one. I've had my Electric Blue 04 Cooper S for almost 6 months now. Looking to do a few performance upgrades and figured I would find a forum with some people that know what works best and what doesn't and maybe a few people to guide me through installation as I've never worked on an engine this small before (How do they cram everything in there?? lol). I'd also like to get in on any meetups going on in my area (I'm active duty military stationed at Ft. Campbell near Clarksville TN).

I've been browsing around Madness Motorworks mostly, specifically their cold air intake and 15% reduced pully as my first performance parts, but I'm really open to suggestions if anyone knows what will give me the most bang for the money I've got budgeted. I'm looking to stick to a budget of about $1000-1200ish. I will be doing all the work myself, so nothing that is going to have me without a vehicle for more than a weekend as this is my primary mode of transportation. I have access to a full automotive shop on post (lifts, air-tools, you name it and they probably have it) that only charges about $3 an hour to use their facility for active duty service members.

Anyways, I don't expect alot of answers, I signed up mostly to browse and see what other people have done to their Minis to maybe get some ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated and I will have some pictures of my Mini up soon. I haven't named her yet, it's a slow contemplative process for me. Looking forward to getting to know some of you fellow Mini owners. I'm a bit of a computer nerd, so you can expect to see me pretty active in the forums. I've added you guys to my bookmarked list of forums that I check regularly. Hope to hear from someone soon!