Prawns 1380 trackday Toy: on the rollers at Slark today
Turbo Mini Forums

hey i was just interested how your aldon yellow dizzy is with the 296? its just that i need a new dizzy and i want to invest in a half decent one i can use for in my new engine and i was planning on using a 286 or 296.

I honestly couldn't comment about the aldon dizzy mate, it runs OK, but I'm sure the curve isn't perfect for the 296. I'd think you'd need something more like a red aldon, or better still, megajolt.

The dizzy and rad on the car currently are only on there to run it in, it's not been setup yet at all, and won't be on the current setup.

I'm installing megajolt V4 today (hopefully) then fitting a nippon denso alternator and mk4 golf Rad next week before it goes off to slark to be setup.


Yesterday I pulled the engine mount off, and started to pull the crank pulley off looking for an oil leak which I thought would either be the belt drive oil seals, or the half moon.
It turned out to be a tiny breather I didn't realise was a breather on the belt drive casing!

Got my TomFenton crank pulley and VR bracket installed too:



Decided to have a mess about with a few spare hose tails I had too, and made up a pretty ghetto oil breather system, using an old catch tank I found in the garage

Joined the transfer case breather into the rocker cover:



Then an outlet at the other end of the rocker cover, into the catch can on the inner wing:



I know the hose bore isn't as big as it could be, but I think something is most definately better than nothing!

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

I will definitely copy this breather setup !

Rusty by nature

Cheers dude.

I think in an ideal world, it'd have slightly bigger bore pipe work. I'm going to try and find some larger fittings so I can get some bigger pipes in there. this was just a temporary setup I knocked up in the absence of anything better!

Had another day's fiddling today, flushed the rad out with the hose pipe several times, both ways, and installed all the hardware for my megajolt setup. Just need to wire it all in now, which scares me!

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

Well, it's running on the megajolt at last! Got a few issues connecting to the laptop, but I think it's a driver issue with my USB-serial adaptor.

It fired up first time on the jolt, and feels very smooth indeed.

I've also taken the chance to remove my servo while it's in bits again, but annoyingly, when I came to refit the non servo tandem master I found the lines don't reach the bulkhead valve!
I'm planning on junking this over winter, but for now I just need it on the road, so I'll have to order the minispares conversion lines

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

make your own lines, it's a piece of cake

I don't have a pipe flaring tool Andy, or I would have a go! Just want it on the road asap

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

It would probably cost the same to buy a tool and some tube and make your own than it would to get them from M.S.

I just moved the pressure limiting valve over to the original position where it used to be placed without the servo. Needs a captive nut or something. I did lated move it back and then made up new lines as Andy suggests.

Its not wise to completely remove that valve with a tandem master cylinder, as if one circuit does fail, you will eventually pump all the fluid out and loose all breaking rather than just one circuit, that being said, the rear brakes are pretty useless just on thier own anyway

The acceleration method of using harder engine revs to seat rings better seems a good method for run in and a lot of the motorsport lot swear by it. However i guess it depends on tolerances of complete engine.

if your building and have to drag it down road to turn engine over then probably not best method

Well, had an incredibly busy few weeks on the car, working on it almost every day, not that it shows at all!

New tandem master cylinder is in, with new lines run to the pressure valve on the bulkhead.

my car has in the past had a mk4 type servo and wiring loom fitted, so the reservior for the GMC227 master cylinder sat right where my fuse box and wiring wanted to be, so I've turned the master round 180 degrees, and everything now fits really nicely. the lines even run quite neatly to the bulkhead.

Nippon denso rad has been fitted, and sadly proved to be faulty, giving out crazy irregular voltages which have somehow mananged to kill my facet fuel pump (Pump feed was on same circuit as 12v IG switch to Alt), so I've got a new red top on the way, and matty is very kindly sending out a new alternator, so fingers crossed!

onto the rad, and I've come across a bit of an issue.....



it's in, but it's not pretty. At all.

It turns out, 5 years ago when I fitted the front, in my efforts to get a nice join at the scuttle, I've shaved rather too much off the back of the wings, and as such, my whole front is around 15mm shorter than normal. this has made fitting the rad REALLY tight.

To make matters worse, the solenoid on my pre engaged starter stopped the rad from moving back further, kicking it out even more.



the end result isn't pretty, but it should work at least. I'm going to look into getting a new front after my ring trip, possibly even a clubby front with a view to future intercooler locations.

All the silicon to pipe it up should turn up tomorow, then it's off to slark for setting up on Friday!

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

images not working for some odd reason

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

I don't think the rad and front look bad at all - looks nice and purposeful.

Paint the rad white and put a strip of black tape down the middle so its got buck teeth.

In boost we trust

I found I had to use a Brise starter motor to be able to fit a front rad behind the grille, and even then it only just fitted. That was with a steel front but I think it would have looked like yours does if I hadn't. I don't think it looks bad at all anyway, I was just intent on keeping my grille but it was expensive to acheive.

How much did you pay for a Brise starter mate? Minispares seem to want mental money for a light weight pre eng starter, and even demon tweeks want £229 for the brise mini starter.


My front rad setup is finally near complete!





just one more pipe to cut and it'll be done. Then I just need to modify my new replacement alternator from matty, wire it in, seal up my fuel pump unions (bastards leaked without PTFE), fit a new air filter to the webber, and change the oil and filter, then it's off to slark on friday to setup


No idea what to expect power wise really, what would be peoples thoughts from a 1380 / 296 SP / MED roadcomp head with a 45 DCOE?

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

Probably best to connect your top rad hose as well

I got a BRISE style starter motor from a friend of wil_h, he makes them from recon'd honda/rover starters I think. Cost around £100. They are for the inertia ring gear only though.

haha, cheers AP, your expansion tank is doing a sound job.

For the top hose I'm actually using my old minispares silicon bottom hose.

With the 45 degree pipe off the rad the original bottom hose fits in there perfectly, and has the T for the heater return into the top hose as well.

I guess with the starter issue, I could have an intertia ring gear welded onto my flywheel in the future and get one of the starters like yours.

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

I can't quite remember what I paid but it was around £230, a lot of money for a starter I didn't really need but I just wanted my rad to fit and I already had an lightweight flywheel with a pre engaged ring gear. It is a really nice design though. I found it is the same price from everywhere, just some places don't show VAT.

radiator setup is finished :)

Really happy with how it's turned out on the engine bay side of things, not too happy with just how visable it's ended up, but it's the best I can do whilst I've still got a pre engaged starter.

Made a start on modifying the new alternator too, but it got a bit late to be using power tools, so I called it a night.





am I right in thinking that if I plug the mini temp sender wire onto one pin of the rads temp sensor, then earth the other pin, I'll get a temp reading on the original mini dial in my 3 clock dash? I assume the standard head mounted sender just works by earthing the dial with varying resistance?

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

The terminals on the rad tend to be for the fan switch. In any case the temperature in the head is more important so I'd leave it how it is.

I'll have both matey. I've got a capillary gauge in the head already, leaving my
Original dash gauge redundant. I've put a 2 pin temp sender in the rad hole, so I can use the original mini loom wiring to hook up the standard gauge as well!

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

new air filter for the webber arrive this morning. got so much to do before I go to slark tomorow though!

Tonight I need to:

refit the thermostat
Fit the lower exhaust mount on the diff housing modify and refit my top engine steady
remove my kenlow fan
PTFSE the unions on my fuel pump as it's peaking without
Bleed the brakes
Modify, wire up, and fit my ND alternator
fit the clutch clevis pin (evil)
change the oil and filter

Going to be a busy night!

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.