This past Sunday I drove to Wichita, about 2 1/2 hours away, to have Randy Webb of Webb Motorsports install a 15% reduction pulley on my MINI. You see, if one reduces the size of the pulley that turns the supercharger on the Cooper S, one can increase the speed at which the supercharger spins yada-yada-yada, my MINI now goes really fast as you can see from the shot above.

I also had NGX Iridium IX spark plugs and Kingsbourne plug wires installed. Throttle response is wickedly improved.

It was great to get to meet Randy Webb and learn from his tech talk. He explained in pretty good detail how the MINI functions from the intake to the point where horsepower is applied at the wheels. Pretty much straight gear-head technical stuff but Randy has a way of explaining things that makes them fun and interesting. He’s kind of like the Mr. Science of MINIs.

On my way home about an hour outside of Wichita I called back to Randy, still finishing his last pulley install. Brian, who answered the phone, asked me what was wrong and I said, “Just let me talk to Randy.”

Randy grabbed the phone and asked what was up. I said, “Randy, what the hell did you do to my car!?! - long pause and then Randy, now a little confused, stutters to reply when I chime in, “It’s freaking AWESOME!” Randy, now audibly relieved, laughed and I thanked him for all the work and the incredibly informative tech talk he gave us.

There’s a gallery of my adventures here.