CARS > Mini > Cooper S vs Cooper S JCW ( R52 / R53 )

(Original source: thejcwregister)

 

John Cooper Works (JCW) is a British car marque now owned by BMW and used on its Mini vehicles. Founded in 2002 by Michael Cooper, son of John Cooper, the racing car maker and tuner responsible for the original Mini Cooper.

For the R53 generation of the Mini Cooper, John Cooper Garages developed a BMW Supported Performance upgrade kit for the cars.

This guide is to determine on an R52 (cabriolet) or R53 (Hardtop) whether a car is a John Cooper works equipped car.

First it is important to note that a JCW kit was an UPGRADE KIT available at your local BMW dealership, it started out with what they call the 200 Horsepower kit or JCW 200 kit, which was developed for release in 2002 and was mainly installed on Prefacelift cars (2002-2004).

Cooper S (left) vs Cooper S JCW (right)

The JCW 200 Tuning kit was released on 2002:

• Uprated cylinder head, gas-flowed and ported (bigger exhaust ports)
• 1-step colder spark plugs
• Replacement supercharger – Teflon coated core
• 11% Reduction of the supercharger pulley diameter, making more boost / pressure
  (from the same supercharger spinning faster for a particular engine speed)
• Uprated exhaust system with decorative JCW tips
  (maintaining the same header and catalytic converter)
• Remapped ECU
• Decorative Badges
• Individually serial Numbered rocker cover plate

Later they developed the John Cooper works 210 Horsepower Kit or JCW 210 kit, which while able to be fitted to Prefacelift cars was mainly fitted to Facelift cars (late 2004-2006+). In later years in some countries a car was also able to be purchased from the factory as a JCW 210, these werent available in some countries such as Australia and the upgrade kit was the only method of getting a JCW equipped R53.

The JCW 210 Tuning Kit released in 2005: 

• Upgraded Cylinder head- The difference from a cooper S cylinder head being slightly enlargened on the exhaust ports.
• 11% Reduction supercharger pulley – Spins the supercharger faster for more boost
• 1-step colder spark plugs
• Uprated injectors (380cc/min instead of 330 cc/min)
• A JCW cat-back exhaust system with decorative JCW tips
• Replacement supercharger – Teflon coated core
• Remapped ECU (Different tune to JCW 200 to support the larger injectors)
• Uprated air intake system and Pod style air filter
• Decorative Badges Individually serial Numbered rocker cover plate

During the same time period BMW also made optional extras for the cars that were individually able to be optioned or bought from the BMW dealership under the John cooper works banner, any JCW tuning kit equipped car could have the following options added, or a cooper S could also have these options added but it is widely accepted that these options dont make a cooper S a JCW, only the addition of the 200 or 210 tuning kit make a JCW.

Some of these options included: 

• Carbon Fibre Dash Inserts (3 piece facelift and 5 piece pre-facelift)
• Carbon Fibre Downtubes
• Carbon Fibre Cup-holder shift gator rings
• Carbon Fibre Steering wheel trims
• Carbon Fibre Shift Knob
• Carbon Fibre Park-Brake Handle
• Carbon Fibre Bonnet Scoop
• Carbon Fibre Wing-Mirror Covers
• Carbon Fibre Rear Hatch Handle
• Carbon Fibre Rear Wing
• Upgraded front brakes (Calliper size increase and rotor diameter increased to 294mm from standard 276)
• Upgraded suspension kit (Including thicker sway bars and upgraded shock-absorbers and lowered springs)
• Sports Steering wheel with Alcantara and Leather.
• Sports Steering Wheel with Leather
• Sparco Seat Upgrade Front and rear (Imprint of JCW logo in seat top)
• Carbon Fibre seat inserts (Sparco only)
• Leather Downtubes 
• Leather Dash Inserts -Stamped with JCW logo (3 piece Facelift)
• Leather cup holder trims and shift gator trim.
• Alcantara Hand-brake Boot and Shift gator
• JCW Door sill Strips
• JCW Wheel Centers
• Front Strut Brace (JCW engraved)

A couple of options that are quite sought after that weren’t classed as a JCW Part that many accidentally believe are:

• Aerodynamic Upgrade kit – Included
  

  Upgraded front bumper
  Upgraded Side-skirts
  Upgraded Rear Bumper
  Slightly larger rear wing

• Additional Guage setups
  

  Available for installation in the center console under the switch panel
  or 

  Available as guage pods next to the steering wheel mounted tachometer. 

• Retrofit Shift indicator
  

  Gear shift indicator lights Mounting above center Tachometer on the dashboard

• Recaro Front and rear seats
  

  Available in several colour options including all Black, but most commonly seen as Black and Grey.

NOW HOW DO I TELL WHETHER THE CAR I’M LOOKING AT HAS A JOHN COOPER WORKS TUNING KIT?

The key thing to remember is that any cooper S can have any of the options that were offered from BMWs line of John Cooper works optional extras, even the exhaust and intake could be purchased as a package from BMW under the classification of a Sound Kit.

There are however a few key spots to look to determine if the car you are looking at is a real John Cooper works or whether its “Dressed Up” to look like one.

The first thing to ask the owner is Does it have the John Cooper works certificate- This is an A5 piece of card that was given to the owner with the VIN of the car put on it with the kit serial and generally popped away safely in the cars service book. While the owner looks for this, have a walk-around of the car, look for the JCW badges on the front grill and rear hatch lid (Some may have had them removed) and have a look at the exhaust tips, do they have JCW engraved in them? (Also may have been swapped for an aftermarket system)

If the car has these it is a great start- Many believe this is a way to determine it, but what if the any of these gets lost or damaged over years of ownership with many owners?

The next thing to check is the engine bay first key things you are looking for is a logo on the rocker cover with the individual JCW kit serial number.

Once in the engine bay without having to measure pulley sizes or pull the ecu out, the best thing to do is to have a look to the left of the left hand side intercooler horn at the cylinder head – cars equipped with the JCW tuning kit will ordinarily have a red Stamp just there as shown in the image (Several cars have been found not to have the stamp but the majority of cars will have this as its extremely rare not to, it has been said that late model Factory JCWs dont have this marking usually late 2006 models)

Other things to check is if the car is equipped with a JCW 210 kit you will easily be able to see a John Cooper works labelled airbox, and with a torch if you peak underneath the intercooler from the left hand side, you should be able to just see the injectors, a JCW 210 should have Blue Injectors whereas a JCW 200 or a standard Cooper S will have white or beige injectors.

JCW injectors without the intercooler covering them.


Looking for the red dot on a car (In this case was a cooper S head, not a JCW)

And the difference between the exhaust ports on a head off a cooper S compared to a JCW head.

Some cars have had it come off over its life so if you are still doubting whether it is equipped with a JCW tuning kit, both the JCW 200 and JCW 210 kit had a sticker on the ECU after tuning. Remove power from the battery and let it sit for a few minutes and pop the ecu out of the housing on the side of the air intake extremely carefully, you should see a sticker like this:

(Note not all cars had this, but still a good indicator)

LINUX > NET > Set an static IP

Set an static IP to the interface you want (eth0 for wired and wlan0 for wireless usually)

1 - Edit the configuration file for the desired network:

$ sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth0

$ iface eth0 inet static
        address 10.1.1.125
        netmask 255.0.0.0
        gateway 10.1.1.1

2 - After commiting changes to a network interface such as set static ip's, there would be need of reset the network interfaces.
For this, two methods can be used to bring interfaces up or down:

• Restarting services
  service networking restart

• Set interfaces Up/Down
  # ip link set dev eth0 up
  # ip link set dev eth0 down

How to use VLOOKUP to check for values onto other Google spreadsheets

VLOOKUP is your friend

This is a helpful command to use when you have values in different tabs, or even different spreadsheets, on the basic form can be used as follows:

=vlookup(index,range,range-return-column,ordered)

This is a helpful way to append info from another spreadsheet whenever you have at least two columns, the same, in both so you can map one to each other.

Lets say that you have two different spreadsheets that two different teams have been working out, one came from HR and contains contact details for people, on the other hand you have IT, facilities or even Ops filling details for equipment to be delivered.

Two sources of data and one common point, the company's email address, so the following can help you to add for example, the addresses to the list of people and assets.

=vlookup("index",IMPORTRANGE("link_to_the_spreadsheet","mytab!myrange"),"range-return-column","ordered?")

CODING > Java 02 Password generator

Definition

As there is nothing more frustrating than create a new random password for everyone in a company, the automated process to do so could be required somewhere.

Summary

In the following script we create a java class "PassGen01" which has three main variables, containing two arrays of words and a random two digit number.

Later we have another two number generator (0 to 3 as the possible positions of the two arrays we have)

Finally, everything is concatenated into the variable "pass" and shown into console through a System.out

Code

public class PassGen01 {
public static void main(String[] args) {

String[] pass_list01 = {"Spring", "Summer", "Autumn", "Winter"};
String[] pass_list02 = {"Day", "Month", "Year", "Decade"};
int pass_num_random = ((int)(Math.random() * (99 - 10) + 10));

int pass_list_index_random01 = ((int)(Math.random() * (3 - 0)));
int pass_list_index_random02 = ((int)(Math.random() * (3 - 0)));

String pass = (pass_list01[pass_list_index_random01])
+ (pass_list02[pass_list_index_random02]) 
+ (pass_num_random) 
+ "!";
System.out.println(pass);
}

}

Results

AutumnMonth25!
SummerMonth95!
AutumnDay77!
AutumnYear65!
SpringYear94!

CODING > Java 01 Start

Starting on Java

Java is a general-purpose programming language that is class-based, object-oriented, and designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible.

Java is for many, the starting point on coding as it represents the easy and flexible start as it is used as the base of so many server and desktop based applications

Downloading Java

There are many versions of different code languages and environments, depending if you are gonna use a interpreter for some application already written for any specific language or developing those apps themselves, you would need one or the other.

• JRE: If you want to run Java programs, but not develop them, download the Java Runtime Environment
• JDK: To start coding and executing java we would need  the Java Development Kit.
  Link here

At this point there should be some advice:

The Oracle JDK License has changed for releases starting April 16, 2019.

The new Oracle Technology Network License Agreement for Oracle Java SE is substantially different from prior Oracle JDK licenses. The new license permits certain uses, such as personal use and development use, at no cost -- but other uses authorized under prior Oracle JDK licenses may no longer be available

Apart from the Development kit, you would need as well some environment to start typing your code and run it, test it or break it. For that you need an IDE or Integrated Development Environment, we picked Eclipse

Start coding

After following the main tutorial, we arrive to our first java class / app which returns a classic "Hello World!"

public class HelloWorld {

public static void main(String[] args) {

// TODO Auto-generated method stub

System.out.println("Hello world!");

}

}

Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)

CGGA 01 > Introduction

With this post series I want to take coverage over the engine which gave me some delights and nightmares as a daily car for some years; We are talking about a conservative, bottom range, underpowered, brave in the middle range, liter and almost a half vw petrol engine.

My experience

The way I experienced this engine was in an mk6 Volkswagen Golf, a rather unpleasant way cause of the weight to power ratio, clearly being the most dissapointing feature of the car itself.

Just 59 kW / 80 ps for almost 1.300 kg which makes a 0,045 kW/kg power to weight ratio, in comparison, a first generation 1.3 liter Golf weighted as much as 930 kg with 44 kW / 59 hp. That still makes 0.047 kW/kg. Slightly more than the 30 years later model.

Even in this configuration the car manages to be fun to drive on twisty roads due to the light of the front end. It kinda likes to move sideways completely without under or oversteer but tending to understeer given extreme situations. The softnes of the suspension seems to help balancing the weight although. Still need to try with different dynamic setups.

In regarding to maintenance and knowing that this car enjoyed a sporty driving always, the following seems enough to say that we have a robust engine:

1. Castrol Edge 5w-30 every ~10.000km
2. new plugs installed and intake plastic union repaired after 80.000 km(union between both pieces that form the intake broke the glue seal/union and created a leak of air in the intake between the throttle body and cilinder head, happened always idling due to the increased vibration, I suppose, and the ECU jumped into emergency mode not allowing to throttle and keeping the engine around 2.000 rpm If my memories are correct).

Wikipedia specs for the weirdos:

The CGGA engine is usually found in the following vehicles:

Audi A2, SEAT Ibiza, SEAT Córdoba, SEAT León Mk1, SEAT Altea, SEAT Toledo, Škoda Fabia, Škoda Octavia II, Škoda Octavia II Tour, Škoda Octavia II FL, Škoda Roomster, Volkswagen Lupo, Volkswagen Polo, Volkswagen Golf, Volkswagen Bora, Volkswagen Jetta, Volkswagen New Beetle

It is a 1.4 liter, inline four cilinder, four valves per cilinder, internal combustion engine. In detail as follows:

• Engine displacement & engine configuration:
  1,390 cubic centimetres (84.8 cu in) inline-four engine (R4/I4); bore x stroke: 76.5 by 75.6 millimetres (3.01 in × 2.98 in), stroke ratio: 1.01:1 – 'square engine', 347.5 cc per cylinder, compression ratio: 10.5:1
• Cylinder block & crankcase:
  cast aluminium alloy; five main bearings, die-forged steel crankshaft
• Cylinder head & valvetrain:
  cast aluminium alloy; four valves per cylinder, 16 valves total, double overhead camshafts (DOHC)
• Fuel system:
  multi-point electronic indirect fuel injection with four intake manifold-sited fuel injectors
• ID engine codes, DIN-rated motive power & torque outputsAHW, AXP, AKQ, APE, AUA, BCA, BBY, BKY:
  55 kilowatts (75 PS; 74 bhp) at 5,000 rpm; 128 newton metres (94 lbf⋅ft) at 3,300 rpmBUD, CGGA:
  59 kilowatts (80 PS; 79 bhp) at 5,000 rpm; 132 newton metres (97 lbf⋅ft) at 3,800 rpm
  BXW, CGGB:63 kilowatts (86 PS; 84 bhp) at 5,000 rpm; 132 newton metres (97 lbf⋅ft) at 3,800 rpmAFH, AFK, AUB, BBZ (discontinued):74 kilowatts (101 PS; 99 bhp) at 6,000 rpm; 126 newton metres (93 lbf⋅ft) at 4,400 rpm

Some other specs:

Engine codes			BCA	BUD	CGGA
Manufactured
		Golf from model year 2004	08.03►	06.06►	---
		Golf Plus from model year 2005	11.04►	06.06►	---
		Golf from model year 2009	---	---	07.08►
		Golf Plus from model year 2009	---	---	02.09►
Emission standards			EU4	EU4	EU5
Capacity		cm3	1390	1390	1390
Output		kW at rpm	55/5000	59/5000	59/5000
Torque		Nm at rpm	126/3300	130/4200	130/4200
Bore		Ø mm	76.5	76.5	76.5
Stroke		mm	75.6	75.6	75.6
Compression ratio			10.5	10.5	10.5
Valves per cylinder			4	4	4
RON		min.	95 unleaded (in exceptional circumstances min. 91 RON, however with reduced performance)	95 unleaded (in exceptional circumstances min. 91 RON, however with reduced performance)	95 unleaded (in exceptional circumstances min. 91 RON, however with reduced performance)
Injection and ignition system			Motronic ME 7.5.10	4HV	4HV
Firing order			1-3-4-2	1-3-4-2	1-3-4-2
Exhaust gas recirculation			yes	no	no

CODING > Python I start

Starting on Python

I started messing with Python after seeing a colleague automatize half of his work in networking with Python coding, still learning though but seems promising.

Download Python

Go to Python.org and from there, downloads, select your operative system (windows, mac or Other) and download the installer that most suits your needs. I am going for the windows x86-64 executable installer.

Once that file is downloaded, open it and the installer will ask usual options, I strongly recommend to add python to the windows PATH enviroment variables. (If you are asking what the duck is that, take a look here)

Start coding

Head yourself to open your Python console, in windows, start menu and search for Python. The following was my first approach following the Python documentation.

>>> the_world_is_flat = True

>>> if the_world_is_flat:

...     print("Be careful")

...

Be careful

As a quick explanation, we set a variable the_world_is_flat and tell the program later to type Be careful with a condition, if that variable exists. The result is the last, fifth line.

Links

https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(variable)

https://docs.python.org/3.8/tutorial/interpreter.html

Ireland erasmus guide

Please, follow this simple rules:

#1 Rule: Pay an intermediary business to get you a real company.
(Even if it seems not legal, there are loads of this type on companys that, actually, can get you into a huge, better company and avoid getting yourself with hands on dough making cakes after your MBA in business)

#2 Rule: Do not pay the intermediary for transport.
(Unless you are gonna use the bus more than twice a day, you are paying more than you should for the same)

#Last Rule: Search yourself for the accommodation.
(Avoid paying 700 hard earned bucks for a two squared meter room in an acommodation without even a desk. Apartment prices are on the rise but you can probably get something better)

Teclado DIN a usb [Discontinued]

Este es uno de mis primeros bricos, una conversión de conector DIN a conector usb en un teclado mecánico Chicony KB-5192.

El primer paso fué el retirar un par de tornillos que tiene en la parte de abajo

Al separar las dos partes que componen la carcasa del teclado dejamos al descubierto la placa con los switch de cada tecla, los LEDs de estado y el cable que conecta la placa del teclado al pc por medio de un conector DIN. En las fotos podéis ver el DIN en comparación a un también antiguo ps/2.

Hecho esto, las siguientes partes constan de la búsqueda de información sobre ésta conversión de interfaces. Casi no hay información y la que hay, sobre modelos IBM o Cherry, así pues por 3€ desde ebay:

Conversor activo de ps/2 a usb

Pineado

Hacemos la pertinente conversión de pines de DIN a ps/2 y soldamos al chip siguiendo los siguientes esquemas de pines:

[Discontinuación del proyecto,,,]

El motivo es que el adaptador usado parece no convertir perfectamente los tiempos de las pulsaciones, no aceptando las pulsaciones largas, por lo que tenemos un teclado maravilloso para escribir, pero no para jugar.

Probablemente un buen proyecto para arduino, ya se verá.

0000 0001

Scheduled start two years later...