NM Engineering Visit & NM R56 Test Drive

I visited NM Engineering yesterday in Camarillo.  They are the new MINI tuning arm of Neuspeed - a 33 yr old VW/Audi tuner.  I've known of Neuspeed for many yrs, in fact I purchased a front strut bar for my '91 GTI 18 yrs ago!  They had a great reputation then and have continued to develop well sorted solutions for various makes.  

I met with Joseph and Jerry and toured their facility.  It was quite impressive.  Neuspeed bring so many years of experience in tuning sport compacts to the MINI market.  This level of expertise and engineering is something that will be a great boon for folks wanting to tweak their MINIs. Obviously I am a bit biased as we are a NM Dealer, but I was impressed with their approach to engineering proper solutions.   Their parts fit the car very well, unlike several competitive products that I've seen that fit poorly.

As they say, the 'proof is in the pudding' - so I had a go behind the wheel of their R56.  I drove our bone stock R56 to NM and had it for comparison.  The NM car was equipped with the stock 17" wheels/tires along with the NM Alpha spings and rear sawy bar. It had their intake and engine torque arm insert and exhaust system.  The car was a blast.  It handled better, had excellent acceleration and sounded great.  Their MINI remained very comfortable and easy to drive.  The ride was still great with even quicker responsiveness.  The exhaust had NO drone.  I tested it in 6th gear cruising along the 101 and it was nice and quiet.  It had a sporty sound that I would refer to as a mature sound - I'm so sick of the boomy exhausts that are out there and get more excited by the systems that still allow you to have a conversation with passengers.

Needless to say, I can't wait to install all of these parts on our MINI.  First I want to get past the break-in period and dyno our car.  Then the mods can begin.....

We plan to have a tech session at our shop with NM Engineering this Spring.  Stay tuned.