Everyone loves a mini!

Love seeing this pop back up!

Just read thru your thread, guess what my specialty is? Yep - classic Minis!

Interesting thread parallels, I'm getting ready to start my Mini hot rod project (I have an 89 Racing green and a 73 Innocenti too) using a 94 SPi body. My plan is to build an A series, turbo and EFI and mount it in the back for rear wheel drive!

I'm currently running a set of WRX seats in my 89, but it also required removing a part of the companion bin on the driver's side so I could get it back far enough to be comfortable. I have to say, the Miata seats are a better option, they will go all the way back to the rear seat without having to modify the body, and they're comfortable.

Can't wait for the next installment!

I'm planning to run the 2.76 final drive in my turbo motor car, I run the 3.1 in my na engined cars and really like it as a good compromise on acceleration and quieter highway running, but the turbo will have more than enough torque to pull the taller gear.

Oh - and I have a 2009 Clubman S! 

I mean, while the subframe is out it clearly needed sprucing up

So it was sent off to the powdercoaters

And since I had to remove everything I can't just put everything back without rebuilding it.

So everything was stripped and zinc plated.

And there is no access to the steering rack while the subframe is in the car so.... new rack installed.

And I turned up some solid bushings for the subframe.

Lots more has happened. So much that I can't remember it all

I'll be curious to see how you like those solid bushings. I put a set on from Mini spares and they def increased NVH in the car, at idle and low speeds particularly. But they did sharpen up the steering....

In reply to MiniDave :

I'm not terribly worried.  I like the mk1/2/3 cars I have driven with hard mounted subframes. Anything will be better than listening to the floor creak when I accelerate. 

I had a big brain fart yesterday.  It was 104° in the shop at the end of a long week and I couldn't figure out why I had no key on power. I tore the column apart and couldn't figure out why there was no 12v anywhere.  This morning it hit me. 

In German cars brown wires are grounds. I played with VWs for decades so it just made sense that I tied all those suckers to the motor. Over my coffee this morning it hit me that for Lucas electrics brown is the power feeds. Sure enough,  they all had the perfect wire length to mount to the starter lug. Boom! Key on power everywhere. I deal with Lucas stuff every day. No clue how I missed that.

Anyway.....

Bigger update coming in a few days, but for now, excuse the mess and enjoy the first start

Efi mini start up

All  the lifts in the shop were occupied so I was unable to get the exhaust installed this morning. Which means I can't wire in the wideband since I don't have anything to wire to.

The task list has gotten awful short.

7 months huh?

This is a highlight reel, I have forgotten all the trials and tribulations of this project

Lets see, what happened? Oh yeah.

It kept running terrible and fouling spark plugs. I was convinced that I had forgotten everything I knew about Megasquirt.  Nothing helped. 

So I assumed it was an issue with the PCV I installed in the rocker cover

I had originally put it on top but it fouled the bonnet so I relocated it to the side. Perhaps it was sucking oil?

So I redesigned it

That fixed any signs of oil in the intake but it was still fouling plugs and reading lean no matter what I did.  I kept beating my head against the car and failing

Then the weather went to crap and it just wasn't mini season any more so I lost most of my motivation

At some point I had an epiphany. 

It was also much louder than it should be. I installed a catalytic converter and a flex joint when I reassembled the car. I wonder....

Oh you dirty expletive expletive expletive 

The flex joint is upstream of the wideband. Months of frustration because of a cheap Amazon sourced flex joint. 

So a new flex joint was acquired from a slightly more reputable source (the Napa down the street)

With the exhaust leak fixed I started trying to "improve" my timing table which made everything much worse and I suffered a total loss of Mojo so I covered the car up in December and started working on the Fiat. Just wiped my hands of it and made plans to throw a carb back on so I could sell the damned thing and rid myself of the ballache it had become.

Fast forward to today and I need the space the mini is sitting in to start the big fabrication stuff on the Fiat so I better knuckle down and see what I can do with this turd.

OK, where was I

A quick restore from a backup and then some fuel table scaling since the exhaust leak had everything way rich and it seemed like it was running well enough to attempt to hit the streets while running VE Analyze live.

Holy crap it worked!

 I bombed around for a half hour or so and pretty much everything down low was good but it was breaking up near 6k rpm.  A bit more poking and I see there is a spark retard rev limiter set to kick in at 5800. Set that to 7500RPM, tightened up anything of concern and headed for the twisty backroads of the central Willamette valley. 

I tore around in it for over two hours while VE Analyze worked its magic. 

It was awesome. The car is running AMAZING. It flat out rips. Visceral and explosive are the words I was screaming in between maniacal laughter bombing in and out of the turns and hammering on it.

I know there is some smoothing that can be done with the timing table. I gotta sweet talk my buddy to get it on the dyno.

So yeah, 1380 A series, strapped center main, forged pistons, oversized valves, race springs, titanium valve spring retainers, ported head, minispares EVO001 camshaft and a few other things I can't remember. Wasted spark ignition, throttle body from an Arctic cat snowmobile fitted with a 2JZ TPS and injector, GSXR 1100 fuel pump, MS2 on a V3 board.  Mechanical radiator fan delete and an Electric fan on a thermo switch.  I also installed a new set of 4 GAZ adjustable shocks while I rebuilt the front suspension and gave it new brakes.

In the future I feel like I might want to alter the cam timing. It has monster, tire shredding torque down low but I might want to move the power band up. It does have an adjustable timing gear but that is a huge pain to change (engine out job)

I can't believe until this very morning I was going to sell it as a non runner. 

Congrats on getting it sorted! What final drive ratio are you running?

Lets keep them on the roads!

In reply to MiniDave :

I went from 3.44 to 3.10 and knowing what I know now I would have gone all the way to 2.98:1. This thing has so much torque. 

In reply to Trent :

I'm glad you stuck with it and figured it out. 

Congratulations & enjoy your new rocket ship 

This is awesome! Happy for you that you figured it out and now it's time for fun. Enjoy!

In reply to Trent :

I'm running a 2.76 in my green car and a 3.0 in the red Innocenti. The Inno has a 1410cc motor that's all torque, I probably could have done them the other way around, but the green one doesn't lose speed up hills on the highway and it's my long distance car so I'm ok with it.

Alignment is done.  My guy spent a lot of time trying to dial out torque steer with cross caster, what he called "lead". This is new to me. He has it about 3/4 degree less on one side and it does help.

I am driving it any chance I get but, the northwest rain is killing me this year. Still needs to go on the dyno for some fine tuning.

The brakes... well they suck and always have.  Before they took all the effort and required a quick stab and then firm pressure. The front calipers were rebuilt and loaded with fresh Mintex pads and new rotors with no improvement.  A few weekends ago I decided to give the rears a good going over. I found one stripped adjuster and a seized piston on the drivers side rear wheel cylinder. 

I did an evenings worth of searching to find any information about wheel cylinder sizing and was astonished to find almost no actual information. I ended up going with 5/8" bore, new Ferrodo shoes, new adjusters and new parking brake linkage. After a bleed the pedal was higher and firmer than ever but the brakes still suck.  Friday night there was a traffic incident and during the panic stop the rear of the mini made a strong attempt to overtake the front so the bias is way off. A bit more thinking about it and a hypothesis was formed.  The yellow tag master has a stepped bore. I wonder if those are plumbed backwards? Turns out yes, yes they are.

It is amazing what you don't think about when you are working on a car. It would have never occurred to me that the previous owner might have gotten that bit wrong and I just made new lines to replace what was already there. 

The rain is back for another week. I will bend up some new stainless lines and cross my fingers that was the issue.  I might just order some more aggresive pads as a backup.

I also came across a set of Vintage Mamba wheels that I might clean up and rum for the time being. I adore the look of the wide steelies and hubcaps but they are HEAVY and these would drop several pounds per corner.

Those mags are HOTT

Awesome perseverance. I, too love the steelies, but on a lightweight car, unsprung weight, blah, blah, blah...

She's a beaut, Clark.

New front line made and installed. The rear line was cut 6 inches shorter and reflared.

Weather is crap. The PNW is experiencing unseasonably wet weather. Much more rain than the normal rainy season.  

So while it's in here......

Some plasma cutting

Some bending

Perhaps mount them thereabouts

A bit of wiring

A harness.

And now it is coil on plug. Still wasted spark though. I see no need to change that,

And yes

Those are genuine Aston wires..... because I think it is funny. They are NOT high quality wires.

It fired right up like nothing was changed so that is good.  I was worried that the coil pack mount was chafing a line feeding the oil filter and all this stuff was in a junk drawer so I deemed this more fun than relocating the existing stuff.

The bad news is the oil leak is from somewhere else.

Drive report.

Massive improvement in brake effectiveness and feel. They are now what I would call good for their era. So now that they function correctly I can work on improvements.

Oh look! Four coils to get wet in that puddle! Really a 300% improvement in chance to get home in the rain. They used used to sell little "waterproof"booties for the distributor and coil on these cars. Didn't work very well.

Well the individual coil setup totally worked, except it didn't. 

I have no idea why but it would randomly backfire when driving and about 6 times out of ten it would act like the timing was 180 degrees out when starting then fire up like nothing was wrong. I slapped the coil pack back in place and it has been fine for the last 7 days and 150 miles. Some sort of RF interference or something? Maybe because I replaced the spring wire and ferrite bead with a spark plug wire?  

The oil filter relocation kit that came with the car was bulky and had a leak in a line so it went away.

Bought an OE filter head

so all this mess could be downsized to this

Which feels good, drops a few pounds of unnecessary stuff and declutters the engine bay.  

Most importantly it rids me of the final pieces of 80's ProStreet Cosplay, the red and blue AN fittings.  I really dislike those things.

I could never comprehend remote oil filters on a car with the world's most accessable block mounted filter. If it was around back under the exhaust system sure, but on a Mini?

In reply to TurnerX19 :

PO was planning on an intercooler mounted up front. I can understand where he was going with it. 

Paid someone to do the blasting. Who has that kind of patience?

The lips aren't polishing up too well but good enough for their intended use.

And of course it wouldn't be a "simple" Trent project without a hiccup I have to machine my way out of.

16 stainless mag lugs. Still need to make the washers..... and paint the other three wheel.... then mount and balance.....

It'll be fast and easy he said....

Trent said:

The lips aren't polishing up too well but good enough for their intended use.

Are you going for a mirror polish? A softer satin or machine-cut finish looks appropriate on old-school alloys, too.

That gold is perfect. What is it?

In reply to DarkMonohue :

Just the aerosol VHT wheel gold. I am shocked at how much I like the color. 

I usually have the painter mix up the correct BBS gold but this was supposed to be low cost, low effort. I am well pleased with the outcome.

16 stainless mag lugs, 16 stainless washers and 4 painted wheels. I will mount the A008s to them Monday. 

The repro Mamba center cap decals should be in my mailbox any day now

I always love seeing your write-ups, Trent. Glad you still own this beauty! You must have one of the coolest jobs around, getting paid to tinker with all sorts of fun cars. I remember a few years ago you started a restoration thread on a client's high end older Ferrari, did that thread get finished?