I'm working on planning my Mini swap (it lives a thousand miles away right now, so that's all I can do), and I'm looking for a forum or something where I can look for answers to what I suspect are pretty standard bike-in-car swap questions.
You can say Grassroots if that's appropriate.
That's actually a fairly "common" swap for Minis. Check out "Zcars" - there are pictures there of their subframe, which is the prime component that you have to engineer.
[Edit] Is that a sand floor in your garage? It's either that or short shag carpet!
locostusa.com also has good bike engined car info
Paging kevlarcorolla !!!
Dude put a R1 motor in a Geo Iceracer.
In reply to kb58:
It's lime. I hated that shop. Hard to move from a nice in-house garage with heat and light and a nice smooth floor to a barn with no heat, no lights, and lime footing.
kb58 wrote: [Edit] Is that a *sand* floor in your garage? It's either that or short shage carpet!
Pretty sure it's sand, look at the tracks in it and the tires of the vehicles parked on it.
http://www.theminiforum.co.uk/forums/forum/61-engine-conversions/
GameboyRMH wrote:kb58 wrote: [Edit] Is that a *sand* floor in your garage? It's either that or short shage carpet!Pretty sure it's sand, look at the tracks in it and the tires of the vehicles parked on it.
Its lime, put enough of it on dirt and it makes it about as hard as concrete. 
In reply to kb58:
Most of the ZCars I've seen, at least at track days in the UK, were mid engined. Not sure if that features in the OP's plan.
On another note, how are they doing the swap and keeping FWD, since CV axles and a diff don't exactly bolt up to a motorcycle transmission
Mini is a sub-brand of BMW, who also make the K1300. So that is the obvious motor choice!
Pinchvalve - with the shaft drive on the left, that motor turns the wrong way. You can use shaft drive, it just has to be on the right. Chain drive has to be on the left. Also, if John still has the same motor he got from me, it is a Honda 929 motor that cost about a 1/4 of that BMW unit and has been proven as a decent BEC choice.
Yamaha - usually people take a diff from a FWD car (Civic maybe) cut the casing to allow a sprocket instead of a ring gear, add a lubrication holding system of some sort (I have seen plunger heads used), and use stock axles. Not sure what John is planning.
Good to see this is still kicking around John.
I'm planning on keeping FWD, this'll be primarily my wife's toy and she likes the idea of wrong-wheel-drive for snowy driving. I may be able to talk her into RWD instead, and that would simplify things slightly. I had been planning on a purpose-built chain-driven LSD like this one: 
with custom CVs, but nothing is set in stone at this point.
Slammer, this IS your old engine. Of course I'm still kicking it around, its too dumb an idea for me to give up on. 
I built a little stand for the engine, and hooked up the harness and such. Got it to turn over, and got one promising "cough" out of it with a big huff of ether, but don't have a fuel pump, so no go. That's what I'm looking for more info on right now, specifically. I don't want to use the in-tank pump that the bike used, so I'm trying to get pump specs. Shop manual has specs for fuel pressure at idle and flow at 12V, but that's it.
I would think that any of the smaller inline pumps for a car would work. Back in the day (10 years ago) the Ford Focus SVT pump was a popular inline option. What does the manual say the PSI should be?
50psi at idle. Flow spec is 18 gal/hr at 12v.
The fact that the pressure is "at idle" makes me think that the pressure is different "at WOT". Same deal with 12v, don't know why they'd specify that if there wasn't a different flow value given a different voltage input from the ECU.
I'm probably reading into it too much.
In reply to JohnInKansas:
It should be regulated at or around that 50psi point
My turbo bike under 14lbs of boost builds around 90psi at the rail, but that's due to the rising rate fuel pressure regulator. 
Probably. They aren't returnless systems, right? If not, then the pump would see 12v all the time. Cars often have a vacuum operated fuel pressure regulator on the rail, which would cause a change in fuel pressure based on manifold pressure, but it could just be given that way because the injectors flow more at higher rpm and load, which could cause a pressure drop. Target something with a similar flow rate and you should be fine.
Does the computer change the voltage to the pump for different throttle positions/flowrate demands?
There is a fuel return line, yes. And a vacuum-operated pressure regulator.
I "think" that since it has a return line that the pump runs X pressure and flow all the time and the motor just takes what it needs and uses the regulator to dump the rest back to the tank. Once again, that is based on my craptastic memory. The point is that a inline fuel injection pump that is setup to take 50psi and 18+ gal/hr should run the system without issue.
In reply to singleslammer:
I believe you are correct, but I haven't plunged into learning all the details yet.
look up EGOMAN on locostusa.com
he made an ice racer out of a geo metro (I think) and a bike motor. AWD too...
does anyone megasquirt these bike engines? I've been having trouble finding much in preliminary searches for megasquirt and GSXR motors.
If you go megasquirt, it seems then you would be able to get just about any pump to work as long as it can keep up volume wise.
In reply to rcutclif:
Most probably just run stock ecu with a power commander. Tuning those things is perhaps the easiest thing I've ever seen.
Not bike powered but may give you some ideas about subframes. However, the Honda powered Mini's sure are cool! http://www.superfastminis.com/index.htm
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