Cooper Tech

Cooper Tech

Member Since 1999

Inhalation Therapy

My visit to Spectre Performance

Story and photos by Andy Cohen

A funny thing happened during my visit to Spectre, I left with horses, sixteen of em to be exact, rather sixteen more. Our Mini Cooper S or MCS as they are affectionately known to their owners is a great little car with F1 handling and brisk acceleration. Let’s see a show of hands, how many of you reading this right now are actually satisfied with how much horsepower your car came with from the factory?

Just as I expected, none of you. Truth be told neither was I and that’s the reason I put in a call to Spectre Performance. Spectre has recently released a new cold air intake system that is rather unique in that you build it to fit your application and we saw it at SEMA. Yes, you read that correctly, you build it yourself. Spectre offers a multitude of various parts needed to fit your application, tubing, bends, connectors, adapters, clamps and filters.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking “nobody makes anything for my car”. I’ve driven those cars too and it’s hard to personalize your ride when there is no aftermarket support for it. Enter Spectre Performance, with the release of the industries first modular air intake system the owner of any carbureted or fuel injected vehicle can now tailor the system to whatever under hood obstacles must be overcome.

It has been said the dyno doesn’t lie and with our MCS tied down it was time to spin the wheels on the Mustang dynamometer to get some base numbers. It took a few pulls to get used to the shift points on the auto trans but once Shaun got the hang of it we were off to the races and put down three runs and took the average number being 103.8HP and 103.4 pound feet of torque, not bad but there is room for improvement.

To say the under hood of the MCS is cramped would be an understatement but Spectre’s lead tech Shaun was up to the task of designing a system that would not only remove the stock restrictive air box but replace it with a high flowing CAI (cold air intake). Shaun spent about twenty minutes removing as much of the factory system as he could; it turns out the vehicles computer is molded to the bottom of the air box so it must stay in place. Shaun was undaunted and he figured out that it was better this way as the base of the air box would be a great place to lay the Spectre conical filter.

The factory intake uses a plastic hose to route air from in front of the radiator to the box and Shaun wanted to be able to re use as much of that as possible. You will be able to see in the accompanying photos that the filter wound up sitting about 4 inches above the base of the factory air box and now as the vehicle goes down the road fresh air is brought into the bottom of the box and blows directly up into the filter. Cold air indeed.

Once the install was finished and Shaun was satisfied the clamps were tight and there was no interference under the hood it was time to spin the dyno and see what if anything the Spectre CAI would do for our Teutonic ride.

The first dyno run was done at 1:05pm and the second was done almost two hours later at 3:04pm so now you know how long it took to layout the system and install it. The numbers were awesome, three runs with an average of 119.4HP and 109.3 pound feet of torque. A boost of 15.6HP and 6 foot lbs of TQ.

I know the question you are asking right now is how much? There are other companies offering CAI kits for the MCS and they run anywhere from $225 to $265.00. so let me break it down for you because I have the parts list right here.

8756 x 1 (3"-2.5" reducer coupler) $7.99ea

8776 x 1 (3"-3" coupler) $7.99ea

3996 x 2 (mini breathers) $11.99ea

8136 x 1 (re-usable cotton fiber filter with a 10 year 100,000 mile warranty) $24.99ea

9429 x 2 (22 degree aluminum elbow (6061 aluminum) $13.99ea

8711 x 2 (vacuum sensor adapter kit) optional customer can use something else without having to buy the whole kit $7.99

Grand total is $103.92

So let’s do a little math shall we? 16hp into a hundred bucks equals roughly six bucks per HP. I suck at math but even that sounds like a great deal to me.

Let the games begin!

This strapping young lad is Shaun, fortunately for us Shaun has a great sense of humor.

Things are getting serious now, the hat has come off.

This is the part where tab A goes into slot B.

Shaun is holding the adapter for the throttle body, the smaller end will clamp to the TB and the larger end to the aluminum tubing.

Now all we need is some tubing to connect it all together. This is where it gets interesting.

Various test fits are made before the exact configuration is found.

There are two breather lines that go to the factory intake hose and at this point you must figure out what you are going to do with them. Shaun decided to attach a small breather on each one.

Almost home. You can see one of the breathers and the finished product.

All finished, the Spectre filter sits just above the base of the airbox and you can see the factory intake line just underneath the polished Spectre tubing. The factory inlet brings cool air into the box and it shoots straight up into the new filter.

Saweet!

Send mail to finishlinewestinc@hotmail.com with questions or comments about this web site.

Chevrolet, Chevy, Bowtie, the Bowtie emblem, Avalanche, Trailblazer, Cavalier and Sunfire are all registered trademarks of the General Motors Corporation and are used for promotional purposes only.

Toyota, its logo and the name Tacoma, Highlander,RAV4 and FJ Cruiser are trademarks of the Toyota Motor Sales company and are used for promotional purposes only.

Nissan, its logo and the name Frontier are trademarks of the Nissan Motor company and are used for promotional purposes only.

Excursion, Windstar, Ranger, Bronco, Mustang and Expedition are all registered trademarks of the Ford Motor Company and are used for promotional purposes only. Navigator and Mountaineer are registered trademarks of the Lincoln/Mercury Company and are used for promotional purposes only.

VW, its round VW logo, the name Beetle and its heirs are trademarks of the Volkswagen company and are used for promotional purposes only.

Kawasaki KLR 650 is a registered trademark of Kawasaki Motorcycles and is used for promotional purposes only.

Callaway Golf is a registered trademark of Callaway Golf Inc. and is used for promotional purposes with permission.

Jeep is a registered trademark of the Chrysler Corp. and is used for promotional purposes only.

Finishlinewest Inc. does not re-manufacture trademarked properties and will only re-sell authorized products by the various manufacturers.

Stonehenge Series is a registered trademark of Finishlinewest Inc.

Copyright ©®™ 1998-2008 Finishlinewest Inc./Finish Line Motorsports Marketing - Mustang RR and its logo, Operation MOUT, Executive Suite, Project Lone Ranger, Quake, AfterShock, 38 Special, KLR 650 Police Special, Operation Dual Sport, the acronym and meaning of Mist, Mom's Urban Taxi, Deranged Dakota, Bam!balanche, Piranha Motorsports, Stonehenge Series, Stonehenge Series Hard Parts for Jeeps are all trademarks of Finishlinewest LLC., its subsidiaries and their heirs.

Use without permission really pisses us off and causes us to call our lawyers. If you want to use pictures or likeness' of our vehicles all ya gotta do is ask and let us know where to find it. We're really a pretty easy going bunch of people but we spend a lot of money on our vehicles and ideas and our attorneys tell us stuff like that is against the law allowing us to sue you for lots of money...yadda, yadda, yadda. Is this a great country or what?