When you hear names like Shockwave, Juggernaut, Flamethrower and Neo, you'd probably guess the names belong to comic book, movie or video game characters. But for Fireballed! Racing in Torrance, CA, they describe a different approach toward modifying Euros; in particular, Mini Coopers.
"People treat these cars like pets," explained Tim Lawrence, president of Fireballed! Racing. "Each one has a name chosen by the owner. So it's more important to know who they are than what they want for the car."
This unique concept gave birth to several Minis with the names above, as well as one of Fireballed! Racing's employee's cars, Brian White's '05 Cooper S named "Widow." "It's short for widow maker," Tim explained. "It's the last car you want to deal with on the street. It'll ruin you. It's also a car that you can take on the track and smoke the competition with, or show off at an auto show. It has the perfect balance."
Tim molded the car using the influence of Brian's straightforward personality. "It's a blunt fist, in your face type of car, similar to how Brian is in real life."
After speaking with the crew at Fireballed!, we concurred with Tim's summary of Brian and his passion for cars. For several years, Brian worked for Meguiar's Car Care but recently moved to Fireballed! to pursue a more exciting position, wrenching on cars and advancing Mini tuning. He's currently the head of operations at Fireballed! and manages a significant portion of their project car development.
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the Widow project is the motor. According to Hubie Fuh of Fireballed!, the motor was going to be strong from the start. "We're not here to redesign the car. We make the car work with the factory components and use as many factory parts as possible. Instead, it's about understanding the limits of the car and where we can push it."
With this belief, Fireballed! set out to squeeze more power from the motor by first figuring out the bottlenecks of the supercharged 1.6 liter. "Space is a major limitation, as well as the design of parts," Hubie continued. "We found a turbo is more efficient for more power than the supercharger. So we developed our own system around the factory components. The motor is low compression and uses forged rods and crank. As a safety margin, we used forged JE pistons for more durability since we needed a good base to build upon to handle the abuse we were going to put it through. We also needed to maximize what's there. After all, it's a Mini and things are smaller, so it's important to maximize flow and velocity."
By engineering a higher flowing head, intake manifold and fuel system, Fireballed! created an effective system to utilize a Garrett GT3071R turbocharger. A 75mm throttle body was also added for better airflow, while a water-to-air intercooler helps reduce charge temperatures.
Exhaust flow was helped by a dual A'PEXi 3" system with catalytic converter. The same company also helped tune and monitor the motor with its airflow controller.
Garrett GT3071R turbo replaces...
Garrett GT3071R turbo replaces factory supercharger, boosting power to 478hp
Because the car would see drag strips on the weekends, Fireballed! added a 75-shot nitrous system, with the tank sitting neatly in the trunk.
"With the turbo, intercooler, electronics and fuel management, the car has become fast and flexible," Hubie told us. "It still maintains the factory ECU, and we can still turn up the boost. This car represents a true tuner philosophy, using what's there and working with it." After the turbo conversion, the Widow was taken to the dyno and put down 478hp and 380 lb-ft.
In order to put the power to the pavement, the original six-speed manual transmission received an Exedy clutch and flywheel, along with a Quaife limited-slip differential.