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At North East Tuning we've built our business on custom on road tuning, not chasing power figures. And this Mini Countryman SD is a fantastic showcase of how you can transform a car, in the real world.
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let's go today we're going to tune a
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mini Countryman SD all four this is an
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example of a car where you can make
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massive improvements to the overall
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drivability without aiming for massive
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power these cars come with 142
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horsepower 2 L diesel engine they're
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based on a BMW design the engine's
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pretty much the same as you'd get in a
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320d or a 120d but they're massively
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detuned these only leave the factory
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with4 42 horsepower mechanically
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identical engines in the BMW range have
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closer to 180 horsepower when you couple
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that power limitation that these have
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built in from the factory with an all
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wheeel drive system and an automatic
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gearbox as we've got in this car there's
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loads of areas to go at the initial
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throttle response is one of the things
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that I find the hardest to deal with in
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these minis initially when you put your
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foot down they're very very sharp they
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pull away great but anything from about
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20 to 60% throttle you find yourself
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putting your foot down but the car
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doesn't actually want to go anywhere
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this lack of modulation and lack of
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control in the throttle pedal is one of
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the key areas that we aim to improve
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when we tune any mini under Bonnet
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checks on these diesel minis are
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actually fairly straightforward we are
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using our topon Phoenix Elite diagnostic
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tool to do a global scan of the car this
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is going to get every single control
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module on the the vehicle is going to
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tell us if there's any fault and
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anything that we need to look out for
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before we go out and road test the
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car our diagnostic tool allows us to
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print off a professional diagnostic
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report showing every single control
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module which has fault stored in it and
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then a breakdown and list of every issue
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that the vehicle has so we're out and
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about now data logging and driving this
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mini I've tried to do a screen grab of
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our data logging screen so that I can
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lay it with me driving the car and
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hopefully you can get an idea of what
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we're looking for one of the areas on
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these cars that I love to address when
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we chew is the initial throttle response
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these are the opposite of a lot of cars
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that we get in when you first go to pull
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away the throttle response is very sharp
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and they pull away nice and quick but
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then past that there's not much
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modulation and there's not much more
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acceleration you could add on to that
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that's something that we definitely want
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to address and we can do that by just
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simply giving the car a bit more power
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we're in fourth gear and we're going to
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do a full throttle acceleration from low
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engine speed right up to the top of the
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Rev range or as far as the gearbox will
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let
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us we've just got back from Road testing
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and data logging the mini we've
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identified some areas that we'd like to
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make improvements on and definitely
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there's some head room to do it the data
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logs look good and healthy although I
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will say it's got a little bit of an
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under boost but it's very consistent
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through the ref range so I'm just going
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to do some under Bonnet checks I think
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it might have a sticky EGR valve this
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red line is the requested boost pressure
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and the Orange Line shows the actual and
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we can see an issue here there's a
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consistent under boost it's not quite
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its set point for the full rev range
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then for some reason here it jumps up
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and then dies off and I think I know the
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reason why we've done some under body
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checks and we've looked at it
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diagnostically to try and work out what
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could be causing this slight under boost
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I think the EGR valve is stuck open a
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little bit and it's not fully closing
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which is causing that boost to bypass
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back into the EGR system it's very
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common on these diesel BMW engines for
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the inlet side of things and the EGR
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valve to get Caked Up and they become
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sticky to test that theory we're going
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to map the EGR valve shut and unplug it
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we're going to see if that fixes our
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boost leak of course we've got our
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laptop on the passenger seat just doing
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data logging as we're driving as well
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I'm going to be very keen to see if
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mapping the EGR out has got rid of that
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slight under boost this car had
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before we've got a stage one tune in
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this now which should take it up to
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around about the 170 175 horsepower Mark
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it's no more than they made as standard
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from this engine in other models so it's
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well within the confines of what it can
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kind of deal with and what it's designed
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for immediately drivve this I can feel
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that the car's much more eager to rev
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and it's happy to just drive itself you
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don't feel like you're having to
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constantly push it which is great when
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you're up at speed the difference in
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this now that it's tuned is
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massive before this car felt like you
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were constantly pushing it on and having
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to work it whereas now it just cruises
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along at speed with ease coming off this
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roundabout we're in third gear it just W
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that is night and day what a difference
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a car doesn't have to be 5 600
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horsepower to impress me I'm more
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interested in getting things working as
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efficiently as they can that's my goal
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this is a night and day Improvement in
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how this car drives it's time to do the
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fourth gear acceleration and data log
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that that is a massive
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Improvement it's got so much power the
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indicators fallen off this mini
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Countryman SD has come to life with a
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tune we've got a sharper throttle
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response more consistent power delivery
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we've got more power when we need it and
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the gearbox has become much more shooted
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by having that extra talk out on the
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road the transformation on this car has
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been excellent
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