OT: Mini cooper equivalent of 914world?, Too used to rare cars... Options

[emerygt350]

So I picked up an r50 mini for my 13 year old son for nothing and I need 914world quality information to get it all perfect. I am used to very small communities... There are so many mini groups... Anyone know of a group that's as useful as 914world? Tall order, I know.

[L-Jet914]

If memory serves me right the 1st gen new Mini Coopers has strut tower cracking issues and there was a update that installed reinforcement plates either on top of the strut tower to increase the bracing for that area of the car. I remember working on the S and non S R50/52/53s. I hated where they placed the oil filter on the 1st gen new Minis. The coolant bottles against the firewall always cracked after a short amount of time. The supercharged versions had supercharger issues. The 1st gen new Mini Cooper 1.6L Tritec (Chrysler/Rover partnership (which was a subsidiary of BMW at the time)) engines were plucked from the Chrysler PT Cruisers/Neons hence the Dodge/Plymouth Neon ignition coil pack as BMW did not have a small 4 cylinder at the time. The second generation new Mini's (08 up) ran the Prince engine manufactured by PSA Peugeot/Citroen to verify @technicalninja post.