MSP ONLY! Cruise Control Question

[JMS'sMSP]

How many MSP owners and only MSP owners have cruise installed on there car?

How is it working?

How much did it cost?

 

[wickedjra]

cruise control on car when i bought it. used it on 3 day trip across counry. on flat land works great. on roads going up and down with hills, i wasn't too comfortable with it. sometimes just seemed that the boost would get stuck spooling for a long time or something.

 

[Mallard]

Also specify whether you're using electronic or vacuum.

I should have mine within two weeks.

 

[JMS'sMSP]

one guy thats it?!?!?

 

[simoncraythorn]

How many MSP owners and only MSP owners have cruise installed on there car?

How is it working?

How much did it cost?

Had it installed before I bought the car.

On the way home from the dealer it locked my accellerator and I ended up idling at ~3000RPM! Drove back and they solved that problem, but it still didn't work properly. Lots of surging and you would soon get car sick using it.

Returned it to the company that installed it. They spent about 4 hours trying to fix it. When I left it was working great. It continued to work great for about 3 weeks.

It's working now, but only above 75MPH. Anything lower than that and I get the surging problems. I can see why by how it's installed on the throttle cable. It slips off the bracket. I think I will be able to fix this myself by re-routing the cable at some point.

It's an electric control.

Don't know exactly how much it cost. Dealer charged me $200 but his price list showed somewhat more than this.

 

[Charlie97L]

i've got it, put it on myself (i work at a stereo shop) and it cost about 220 in parts, got electronic from rostra with the steering mounted controls.

it was a pain, because the throttle assy is not parallel to the firewall, which makes getting the cable working right very tricky. as a point, cruise control doesn't work very well in hilly terrain, mine surges, but flat it works great.

i've done CC installs on other cars, and this one was by far the hardest to do because of the placement and orientation of the cable/throttle assy.

 

[celdridge]

i've got it, put it on myself (i work at a stereo shop) and it cost about 220 in parts, got electronic from rostra with the steering mounted controls.

it was a pain, because the throttle assy is not parallel to the firewall, which makes getting the cable working right very tricky. as a point, cruise control doesn't work very well in hilly terrain, mine surges, but flat it works great.

i've done CC installs on other cars, and this one was by far the hardest to do because of the placement and orientation of the cable/throttle assy.

Bump for updates.

 

[ForceFed]

Also specify whether you're using electronic or vacuum.

I should have mine within two weeks.

On the MSP it has to be electronic...Vacuum operated wont work because of the boost.
Matt

 

[JMS'sMSP]

I have someone here at my job that knows how to do it. He also worked at a stereo shop and said he has done them... He mentioned something about how the only problem should be the "vss" wire? Where is this wire? Does it come off the ecu? What color is it?


Anything else you can offer on how to install it would be appreciated.

 

[Mallard]

VSS = Vehicle Speed Sensor, can't answer the rest as I haven't installed mine yet.

 

[Slalom59]

MSP cruise control

Hello to all,

This is my first visit to site. Purchased new 2003.5 Titanium MSP at end of winter as my 59th birthday present because car remembered me the 1960's Mini Cooper S.

I had a cruise control installed by the dealer but they subbed to a local auto shop. Cost was 425.00$CDN Had to get system modified from chain attached to the motor to a kit simialr to Mazda system on the throttle pedal to get decent operation.

As the system run with vacuum, it can't reach more than zero on vac/boost gage and it provide slow acceleration but great fuel milleage (7.5 liter/100 km, i.e. about 37 mile/Imp. gallon) and I can always punch it for fast accel.

 

[Charlie97L]

wait, you mean they installed vac cruise on your MSP? that's not good man.

in response to that post up above about the VSS wire, believe me, that's easy, a bunch of posts note the location of it. the hard part is lining up the cable. yow. took me 2 hours to just do the cable.

 

[03MSP]

On the MSP it has to be electronic...Vacuum operated wont work because of the boost.
Matt

it will work, just maybe not as smoothly as an electrical unit. I had a vacuum operated CC on my MX-6, then I boosted it, it worked fine, sometimes it would accelerate too much but it fixed itself.

 

[murph1379]

Hello to all,

This is my first visit to site. Purchased new 2003.5 Titanium MSP at end of winter as my 59th birthday present becasue car remembered me the 1960's Mini Cooper S.

lol, what does it say when the MSP reminds you more of the old cooper than the new cooper does?

I bought the MSP because of how light on its' feet it feels, reminds me of my old civic hatchback, the new mini is just goofy. =]

 

[ping]

I got my MSP b/c it felt like the new Cooper S but with 3 seatbelts in back and a trunk, so I identify with that! I think I'm also *slightly* over the average age here....

It appears that vacuum-operated cruise WILL work on an MSP if there is a vacuum canister (there is, don't know if it's large enough so salvage one off an early VW at a yard) and it has a good check valve on it... just found this out. Don't know how well - turbo cars with their on-boost acceleration sometimes surge because the throttle response isn't linear but the cruise acts as though it is. Throttle linkage seems to be the main concern (as above).

 

[Slalom59]

Original Cooper S and cruise control

The original Mini Cooper S of the 60's was a real go-kart. It was small (10 ft OAL), light (1300 pds), had stiff suspension (rubber bushings with Koni shocks), had a 1.3 liter 4 cyl. overhead valve engine with 2 SU downdraft carbs and provided 78 BHP, a quick steering 2 turn end to end, huge front disk brakes and small 165-70 x 10 Dunlop radial tires. Also, a 69 Cooper S was 2,300.00$ CDN ....It was possible to get 110-120 HP with Weber carbs, racing cam plus other racing mods. Stripped down models were near 1000 pds and would go 0-60 in 6 sec. and hit 125 MPH at 8400 rpm (really like surfing on the road). The great road holding, fast steering response and increbible brakes are what I found back into the MSP. The new BMW Mini has nothing to do with the original. I have much respect for Sir Alex. Icigonis, a greek eng. who came up in 16 month (from start to production) with the grand-father of so many cars today, i.e. FWD with side mounted motor.


As for the vacuum operated cruise control I have on my MSP, it is hooked directly on the manifold w/o reservoir, so it will only open throttle to zero vac. and provide smooth & decent accel. This is what I am looking for on hiway to get good gas mileage and keep out of problem with speeding tickets. As a final note, the vacuum gage scale is in inches of mercury, not in psi. A column of 29.92 " of mercury equals one athmosphere, i.e. 14.7 psi.