Hi gang, it's Brendan from Mini Mania, and today we're going to go over the brand new Version 3 of the Sprint Booster. (EDITOR'S NOTE:  For those of you who want one for your MINI Cooper, we sell them on our site plus offer free shipping.  But if you're interested on a Sprint Booster for another car, check out www.sprintboostersales.com.  Also, if would like to download  the official Sprint Booster installation instruction PDF, CLICK HERE. )

For those of you who are not aware, the Sprint Booster is a Power Boost Module that you can install in any car that has an Electronic Throttle. Basically what this unit will do is to remap the signal from the Throttle to the ECU , to give you better acceleration. The Sprint Booster will help mitigate that lag time and give you a really responsive Throttle. Now, the Version 3 is a huge update on the Version 2 that we've sold thousands and thousands of over the years.

ALL IN ONE

All versions of the Sprint Booster, now, can cover all Automatic Transmissions and all Manual Transmissions in one unit. You just set it to the Transmission that you have and basically it's plug and play- you install it, set your mode and you go! The new Sprint Booster has a number of different modes- It gives you about nine different settings in the green setting and it gives you another nine settings in the red setting. Plus it also adds in a Throttle Lockout Mode and it also adds in a number of different settings for a Valet Mode, so it's definitely a huge improvement on the earlier models.

INSTALLING A SPRINT BOOSTER

We're going to show you how to install it on a Gen2 MINI-R59, a 2012 J C W Coupe. This installation is pretty much the same for all MINI Coopers, so if you follow along we'll show you how to physically install it and then we'll show you how to set the modes.

STEP ONE - Removing the Throttle Pedal: we're going to remove the Throttle Pedal and we've taken out our Floor Mat. I'm just going to use a small flat bladed Screwdriver-there's a little cap actually that sits over a Torques T-30 Screw here, so we're just going to remove that.

On some other models of the MINI, this is actually an Allen Head and on this particular model it happens to be a Torques. So then, in order to move remove the Pedal we're going to sort of lift it up a little bit and then we're going to push it upward. There's a clip up at the top. And then we're going to go to the side and we're going to release the Throttle Wiring Harness. There's two clips on either side and you basically just need to get your fingers on it and pinch it, to remove it.

So, this is the Throttle Pedal and it has been removed from the Car.

STEP TWO - Disconnect the Wiring Harness: Basically in order to do that all we did was we just disconnected the Wiring Harness that comes down-there's just two clips, one on either side. You just disconnect it and then, this right here, this is the actual Sprint Booster itself-as you can see it's basically just a little Dongle that goes right between your Throttle Pedal and then the other side is going to plug right back into your Wiring Harness. So this just goes in series between the Pedal in the Wiring Harness-just like that.

OK, here is the new Mode Switch, which as you can see is a lot different from the old one which was basically just a single LED which was also a Button. This one actually has a small display in the center and it's got the buttons left and right for selecting the levels of acceleration. It's also got a button down here. There is a light that comes on up here and there is the ever important switch on the side here-this little tiny switch and that basically is the first thing you're going to set, because that's either going to be switched up like this for a Manual Transmission or down for an Automatic Transmission. If you look on the back you can see it either says A or T right here. So we have it switched to Manual Transmission, since this is a Manual Car. And what you want to do with this is, your Mode Switch is going to get plugged into the side of the Sprint Booster-where it connects with the Wiring Harness, the Factory Wiring Harness just like that.

See that you got a nice positive 'click'.

STEP THREE - Plug In Mode Switch into Accelerator Pedal: Then ,what we're going to do is, we're going to plug this into our Accelerator Pedal. Sometimes you can't remove the Pedal. Sometimes you have to do this in the Car, so it's a bit tricky.

STEP FOUR - Match Up Curved End to Curved End: Now especially with some of the BMW's and with the MINI Cooper's, you're going to notice that you have a plug that has a flat end on one side and a curved end on the other side. Just make sure to match up the curved end with the curved end here and the flat end with the flat end here and basically that goes just like this and you'll hear a 'click' and there you go.

STEP FIVE - Reinstall the Pedal: So now we're just going to, basically, reinstall our Pedal and then we're going to show you how to set the settings on your Mode Switch. OK -So we have the Pedal reinstalled and we've connected the other end of the Sprint Booster to our Factory Wiring Harness and now we're basically going to do something with this Cable.

STEP SIX - Tuck Away the Wire: We're going to going to tuck it away. We're going to get it out of the way of our Pedal, so we're not going to be stomping on it. If you want to, the Sprint Booster does come with a Zip Tie and it also comes with some double stick tape. You can put the double stick tape on the back of your Mode Switch and you can mount it somewhere on your dash if you have a convenient spot. If you don't want to do that, you can keep this loose but I would still be very careful in routing the Mode Switch Cable itself, just so you're not going to be stepping on it. If you eventually find a mode that you like and you tend not to ever leave that mode once that mode is set, you can disconnect this Mode Switch from the Sprint Booster and it will stay in that mode until you plug the Mode Switch back in and change the setting.

Setting Up Your Sprint Booster
Now, that we have the Sprint Booster installed, I'm going to start the Car and what you should see is that the Mode Switch is going to be in the very middle of both the green and the red modes-in other words it'll be set at a 5 on the green and a 5 on the red. Let's start it up.

OK, So this is the mode for the Sprint Booster when it's off, this is basically your Factory Throttle, and again you can select any one of these modes that you want for the different levels of aggressiveness, nine being the highest. You never want to actually activate the Throttle when you're changing your modes. You set the mode and then you can touch the Pedal-you never want to go from one to the other while accelerating.

Now I'm going to go to the Sport Mode-maybe put it to about a 6 and then that's the Mode that I'm going to leave it in. If this is a mode that I decided that I liked and I wanted to leave it in that mode, I could disconnect this whole Mode Switch from our Sprint Booster and it would stay in that mode until I decided to plug the Mode Switch back in, and then turn it off or change it to a different setting, or whatever else I wanted to change it to.

Read Your Sprint Booster User's Guide
Now for the next steps: You're definitely going to want to read your User's guide- in fact you're going to want to read this back to forward before you do anything for this newest Sprint Booster, because there's a lot of information in here and really you should get familiar with this before you attempt an install.

But you're definitely going to need this when you're going to go to set any of your Pedal Lock features or if you're going to set the feature for the Valet Mode.

Sprint Booster's Pedal Lock Feature
Right now I'm going to show you how to set the Pedal Lock feature. Effectively the Pedal Lock is, basically, going to lock out the Pedal all together so nobody is able to start the car. They're not going to be able to get any acceleration because you've locked out the Throttle. OK so now we're going to set this into the Pedal Lock Mode. This is a security mode that locks out your Accelerator, your Throttle Pedal.

So what we're going to do is we're basically going to press both of these arrow buttons at the same time for three seconds simultaneously, until we get that little center dash there- then we're going to press one to go to the L, for Pedal Lock and we're going to hit that button.

Now that's blinking and it's going to be asking us for the first number of a pin, so I'm going to set the first one to the number 0 and then I'm going to hit that button one more time-the bottom button, and then set our second number of our pin to also a zero. Then that's asking for the third one, and I'm going to do the same thing just to make it easy, I will make it triple 0 and I'll set that. This is going to blink now. If I wanted to cancel it, I could hit any button but I don't want to cancel it- I want to set it so that it's going to be in lock mode and now it's a solid L, we're not going to have any Throttle Pedal.

Just to test that out, I'll start the Car and see if I have any Throttle. And I do not have any throttle. I'm pressing down on the Throttle Pedal right now-I'm locked out and as you can seeI, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere with this car unless I can enter in the three Digit PIN to deactivate it.

Deactivate The Pedal Lock
So, to deactivate the Pedal Lock we're going to basically do the same thing that we did to put it into Pedal Lock. I'll hold onto both of these buttons for three seconds simultaneously. I'm going to wait for the dash. Once I get the dash, I'm going to enter in my first number of my PIN and then I'm going to enter in the second number press the bottom button. I'm entering in my third 0 and so now I'm unlocked.

So we'll just start the car and we'll set it to, say, one of these settings and we'll give it a shot. We've got really good acceleration- number 6 here on our read mode, and as you can see we have full Throttle control again.

Valet Mode
Now there's another mode that you can actually set. That's really handy- it's actually a Valet Mode and you can set the Valet Mode on your Sprint Booster that will reduce the power output of your Car, by either 55 or 65 five percent. So if you're the kind of person who leaves their car with other people and they take care of it and you don't want to give them access to all the power on your car you can set that to basically in almost exactly the same way as you set the Pedal Lock.

We won't go through it here because there's a little bit more programming, but it's basically the same way to set the Valet Mode as it is to set your Pedal Lock Mode. Just make sure that you read your owner's manual front to back and that way you'll be able to set it properly. If you have any questions you can give us a call or visit us at minimania.com or sprintboostersales.com to order your Sprint Booster Version 3 today.