Bumper & Fascia swapped to JCW / S

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Designed some steel brackets to mount the fog lights using some existing holes in the bumper supports. Bolt in and slotted for up/down/left/right adjustability. Pretty happy with how they turned out.

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@rob-sf I am looking into swapping my bumpers like you did. Question I have is how did you handle the wiring from the two fog lights on the SE bumper vs the single light on the JCW/S rear bumper? Appreciate any insight you can share.

I like how the fake exhaust tips turned out.
 
SJA said:
@rob-sf how did you handle the wiring from the two fog lights on the SE bumper vs the single light on the JCW/S rear bumper?
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My JCW rear bumper came from OutMotoring without the fog light. So I just taped over the wiring harness connectors, left them unconnected, and zip tied them up behind the bumper out of the way. I did not get any bulb out warning light or errors. If you get a JCW rear bumper with the fog light, I expect you could re-use one of the fog light connections and leave the other disconnected.
 
rob-sf said:
My JCW rear bumper came from OutMotoring without the fog light. So I just taped over the wiring harness connectors, left them unconnected, and zip tied them up behind the bumper out of the way. I did not get any bulb out warning light or errors. If you get a JCW rear bumper with the fog light, I expect you could re-use one of the fog light connections and leave the other disconnected.
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That’s great, thank you for the info.
 
Rexsio said:
Do you have any pictures how you attached trailer hitch and what hitch you bought
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It's this Curt C11417 Hitch from eTrailer.

The hitch fit very cleanly under the stock SE rear bumper. I trimmed a 2" x 3" rectangle of plastic out of the under-tray to fit around the hitch receiver, and no modification needed to the bumper. I don't have a good photo from below, but you can see the hitch receiver with and without a drawbar:

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rob-sf said:
After 2k miles with the new kit, same commute and driving habits, surprisingly my overall efficiency did not change at all from the OEM bumper.
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Following up on this first post with more data. I work in the EV industry and love this stuff.

It's been around 7,000 miles since I installed the S fascia and JCW rear bumper.
I keep a spreadsheet recording state of charge, range, speed, ambient temperature, and efficiency (all from the instrument cluster). I punch in the data and clear the trip computer after every charge cycle.
The raw data is aggregated & mapped across temperature and average speed.
While colder temperature affects the range (usable kWh), the efficiency (mi/kWh) is only correlated to speed.
On my normal mix of highway & city commute I am around 4.1 mi/kWh.
On highway road trips averaging 60 mph I average 3.8 mi/kWh.

Most importantly, efficiency & range seem to be exactly the same as before with the stock SE bumpers.
This is comparing 13k miles with the stock SE bumpers to 7k miles of data with the S & JCW bumpers.


One more curveball without explanation: with a bicycle rack and normal bike on the back, I get a consistent increase in efficiency from 4.1 mi/kWh to 4.2 mi/kWh.... a 2.4% increase in range with the bike on the back. This was observable with the original SE bumpers too. Consistent across many trips, and pretty much the opposite of expected. All the aero design guys came out at lunch to speculate. The leading theory is that the weight on the rear of the car causes it to pitch slightly backwards / nose up, altering the airflow pattern to send more under the car. Who's to say, but I thought it was interesting.
 
Rexsio said:
Do you have any pictures how you attached trailer hitch and what hitch you bought .Appreciate @Rexsio you did great job
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Did you loose any ground clearance .? from pictures I can’t tell and is possible install a hitch without taking bumper off I believe I shouldn’t ask that question.obviously you have to remove a plastic shields from below .Two years ago the only hitch available was like $ 500 hidden hitch and I never look again but once I see your installation I’m going to do it.Is $220 Thank you @ rob-sf
 
rob-sf said:
Following up on this first post with more data. I work in the EV industry and love this stuff.

It's been around 7,000 miles since I installed the S fascia and JCW rear bumper.
I keep a spreadsheet recording state of charge, range, speed, ambient temperature, and efficiency (all from the instrument cluster). I punch in the data and clear the trip computer after every charge cycle.
The raw data is aggregated & mapped across temperature and average speed.
While colder temperature affects the range (usable kWh), the efficiency (mi/kWh) is only correlated to speed.
On my normal mix of highway & city commute I am around 4.1 mi/kWh.
On highway road trips averaging 60 mph I average 3.8 mi/kWh.

Most importantly, efficiency & range seem to be exactly the same as before with the stock SE bumpers.
This is comparing 13k miles with the stock SE bumpers to 7k miles of data with the S & JCW bumpers.


One more curveball without explanation: with a bicycle rack and normal bike on the back, I get a consistent increase in efficiency from 4.1 mi/kWh to 4.2 mi/kWh.... a 2.4% increase in range with the bike on the back. This was observable with the original SE bumpers too. Consistent across many trips, and pretty much the opposite of expected. All the aero design guys came out at lunch to speculate. The leading theory is that the weight on the rear of the car causes it to pitch slightly backwards / nose up, altering the airflow pattern to send more under the car. Who's to say, but I thought it was interesting.
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Maybe you will be interested what I did once you look to improve efficiency /airflow What I did to SE to improve air flow under a car and make stronger in case I hit some road debris I made a tread before is somewhere there .Once I crack some alloy oil pans on ICE cars in past I do this to all cars I drive . Is inexpensive $50-80 LEXAN which is crack /shatter resistant can’t damage with hummer.On SE I put 1/8” but could be 1/4 “is easy to mould with heating gun .On SE was not required to do any bending with 1/8” I use all fastening points the same way like factory .Some screws have to be longer.Masking tape on those pictures is only for pictures purposes you will see nothing through clear Lexan just underbody of a car .IMG_0403.webp
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rob-sf said:
Following up on this first post with more data. I work in the EV industry and love this stuff.

It's been around 7,000 miles since I installed the S fascia and JCW rear bumper.
I keep a spreadsheet recording state of charge, range, speed, ambient temperature, and efficiency (all from the instrument cluster). I punch in the data and clear the trip computer after every charge cycle.
The raw data is aggregated & mapped across temperature and average speed.
While colder temperature affects the range (usable kWh), the efficiency (mi/kWh) is only correlated to speed.
On my normal mix of highway & city commute I am around 4.1 mi/kWh.
On highway road trips averaging 60 mph I average 3.8 mi/kWh.

Most importantly, efficiency & range seem to be exactly the same as before with the stock SE bumpers.
This is comparing 13k miles with the stock SE bumpers to 7k miles of data with the S & JCW bumpers.


One more curveball without explanation: with a bicycle rack and normal bike on the back, I get a consistent increase in efficiency from 4.1 mi/kWh to 4.2 mi/kWh.... a 2.4% increase in range with the bike on the back. This was observable with the original SE bumpers too. Consistent across many trips, and pretty much the opposite of expected. All the aero design guys came out at lunch to speculate. The leading theory is that the weight on the rear of the car causes it to pitch slightly backwards / nose up, altering the airflow pattern to send more under the car. Who's to say, but I thought it was interesting.
Click to expand...
Mini Cooper ICE weight distribution is 68/32 but SE 54/46 I’m assuming putting weight on back of the car make maybe perfect weight distribution to 50/50 but is not going to make front any lighter just my theory.
 
rob-sf said:
One more hitch photo for fun with the electric bike on the back:
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Pretty sweet. What's the weight of that bike, and the max load of that rack? My e-bike is over 70 pounds but it's foldable and surprisingly fits in the back of the SE.
 
Rexsio said:
Did you loose any ground clearance .? from pictures I can’t tell and is possible install a hitch without taking bumper off I believe I shouldn’t ask that question.obviously you have to remove a plastic shields from below .Two years ago the only hitch available was like $ 500 hidden hitch and I never look again but once I see your installation I’m going to do it.Is $220 Thank you @ rob-sf
Click to expand...
Before I order I went with your link to e-trailer and that what they said:not confirmed to fit ! Please tell me is a right one which you install on SE IMG_1188.webp
 
Puppethead said:
What's the weight of that bike, and the max load of that rack?
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The ebike is 117lbs with the battery removed. Hitch is 200lb tongue weight rating. Rack is 150lb max but only rated for 50 lbs per bike… to be seen how it fares loaded up like this. Can’t find any rack rated for 117 lbs that fits a 1-1/4” receiver.

Rexsio said:
Before I order I went with your link to e-trailer and that what they said:not confirmed to fit ! Please tell me is a right one which you install on SE View attachment 21782
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Curt C11417 is the one I bought. To your earlier question, yes the whole rear bumper has to be removed for the installation.
 
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