Project "Marginal gains..."
Turbo Mini Forums

Nice project by the way!

1/4 Mile 14.3secs 96Mph Terminal 10psi of boost.


Fibreglass Parts? - http://www.tdkracing.co.uk/
Split Rims? - http://www.force-racing.co.uk/

very cool build. love all those electrical fittings!

very very tidy mate, i love the wiring and the master cylinders

Yes i moved to the darkside

Instagram @jdm_brett

This sort of build thread really makes me want to ditch the turbo ideas and go for another engine.. awesome

Thank you for your generous comments, some of this is a little bit previous to the posts made so far but helps explain why I did what I did

Seem to have gone from one problem to another at the time but not entirely unexpected.

Problems have been;

Suddenly wouldn't start, completely dead - battery still fully charged when checked directly but no voltage at starter

Running as though it had a misfire

Cooling fan stopped working

Started the investigation:



Got a bit claustrophobic and had to strip a lot out to get to the bottom of the problems;



The dash side all stripped out now :(



Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 18th Oct, 2017.

And now doing what I promised myself I wouldn't - complete rewire, I gave up chasing splice after splice - tbh honest I think the previous owner kept the car in a garage and I keep it outside and it has done nothing but rain so it's just seemed to find every electrical problem...

New bits



My attempt at a works style dash which will house as much of the loom hardware as possible such as relays, circuit breakers etc...







Trial fit



I hope to try and create a bit more space in the engine bay to make things easier to work on, it's also looking a bit tired

Stripped out



Some pretty labels for the loom



Mocking up the layout of the engine loom, using the heater holes / LH drive brake holes for the electrical bulkhead connectors







Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 18th Oct, 2017.

The new loom are a very nice touch :)

www.shag.no

Look very good :)

Best 1/4 mile 13.2 seconds @116 mph
First 5 port miniturbo to make over 200 bhp on a carb?
First 5 port miniturbo to make over 200 bhp on Injection?

http://www.mattwoodsphotography.com

And i thought i was '' tidying '' my wiring up! Looks great though!

My build thread: http://www.turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.php?p=vt&tid=454802

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/85313398@N02/

Iv said it before. Neat wiring looms are fantastic.
and you arent 1/2 right about the deutch connectors. we use them at work and think our crimp tool was over 300. They are mega stuff though, surviving 400degs peak.
Budget dependent ill hopefully do mine in its rebuild!

David.

Thanks again for the comments

David whereabouts do you work, I'm not far from you if your in Warwick...

I'm spending more time on the mechanical stuff at the moment but likely to get back on with the wiring once the final engine position is sorted

Cheers

Yep i am indeed in Warwick.
I work at Lineline fire and safety, its the MOD stuff we produce that uses the deutsch connectors.
Im more of a mechanical person myself too so i can blame you for giving the torturious wiring a rest for the time

David.

No worries

Yep, I know Lifeline, one of the guys I used to work with from Cov used to pop in to you to get our Motorsport extinguishers recharged and the date stamp renewed, I think he knew one of the bosses there but I don't know any names

You should have a good source of steering column QR's though

Cheers

Progress has been limited by the day job and parts I am having made not appearing or any response to emails...

However, the lectrickery is still progressing,

This is a fugly driver side switch box, but it does what's necessary, it's light / cheap and functional...

This is a transition off the the leg of the loom which goes to the rear:



And the 'controls' from inside:



The 'silver' switch is temporary as I couldn't find my Apem switch, and the coil of wire is just two spare wires.

I've spent most of my time trying to get unnecessary weight out of the car, I weighed it on proper cornerweight scales and so far it's down to 670 kg (Without a 'driver') which is hardly lightweight for a Mini (The XE is not exactly a lightweight tho) but it has involved just cutting / hacking and drilling and not much in the way of money spent - but it will get more expensive from here on in.

Suspension is currently under review, the rear especially, rear coil overs seem to be the root of all evil as few seem to make them work over a standard rear subframe with rubber cones.

But from the parts I have been measuring so far the rear damper rates and spring rates seem to be miles away from what I would spec based on my calculations, so I am having some dampers and springs made and will take it from there, I can however understand why the roll rate of a Mini can be low due to the narrow width of the car which could compromise the spring rate you would choose just based on vertical rate and not roll rate.



Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 6th Jul, 2017.

holy crap that last piccy on the side of the box open is like a bit of science lol awesome stuff; also loving your pedal box idea.

with your master cylinder idea what size did you use?

Hi Taz, from memory the master cylinders are 0.75 & 0.70 - although that could change depending on the piston sizes I ultimately end up with in whatever calipers I decide on

There's a few things I want to change, but also recently I measured the bump steer and also noticed some very strange bump castor change so a bit of a kinematic geometry change as well.

I want to reduce the driveshaft angle from the diff to the outer CV which means having to tickle the gearbox / engine position, moving back and down a tad.

The gear linkage / mech is very close to the bulkhead already without moving the diff position and also the steering rack also gets in the way for diff clearance but needs to move anyway to address the bumpsteer.

The subframe has already been part modified and the last bits should be done over the next few weeks.

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 18th Oct, 2017.

Shock horror - jobs I wasn't planning to do...

LF inner arch...

Not quite as sound as first hoped



Not clear in these photos but the door pillar was also munted



And cut out;



I was planning on replacing the whole inner arch as I hate joining stuff together but heritage were quoting 8 weeks for delivery on the whole panel... hence the 'repair' panel, and I need to get on, so


And the replacement nailed in place;



Not pretty but as part of the front bulkhead strength it is better than the fresh air that previously lived here

As you can see in the last photo the scuttle has also been visited by the tin worm, the shells from this era just seem to evaporate :(

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 18th Oct, 2017.

Looking very good Spencer:)
You are building up a nice fleet of desirable motors!

I´m also replacing all the wiring in mine, using a kit car harness i found cheap in usa,

//marcus

internationally known as "big" swede

Hi Marcus,

Cheers, the Midget has gone into storage while I do this winter rebuild

How about yours? Any updates on the Midget build thread

I have to say even though this isn't a standard car it is much easier to do this conversion than the Midget - the body restoration is simpler and there is phyiscally less of it to replace and the panels are cheaper

It is a bit tighter for room though - the Midget engine bay is huge in comparison

Cheers

well i have darted along with the mini and are painting it this week with de ijssel double coat system, you roll it on with special rollers and then the colour stretch and come out with perfect spray finnish (if you do it right that is)
, can´t wait to fit all the stuff and see the final result:)

then it´s midget time, thank god that the hard parts is allready done, chassis, 4 link, front suspension with mgb disks etc
As you mentioned it´s freakin huge in the engine compartment!
Aiming for the engine as far back as possible, well behind the front wheel centers and work the rest out from there!

will keep in touch and will surely have some questions from you later on:)

take care
//marcus

internationally known as "big" swede

Pretty well a mirror image of the LH side:

Initially looked pretty good, but the usual obsession with prodding little areas of rust



Sadly the A panel looked as though it had been recently replaced as it had been part welded part bonded but there is no way to repair the scuttle or the air vent area properly with it in place so a perfectly good A panel had to come off as well.


Most of the door hinge panel was heavily pock marked and no amount of grinding would get back to fresh metal.





The lower part which joins the front of the sill and the floor was pretty rotten.



The whole area where the toe board joins the front bulkhead and the inner arches had what looked like a thick layer of epoxy / mastik which hid the fact that most of the seams were rotting from the inside out.

The scuttle which had already been removed at this stage also had a fair 'skim' of filler



The corners of the scuttle have a closing section which was rusted through inside.



Looked like a MIG spider had been let loose inside it



The damper mounts had also been treated to a few layers of concealer.



But all pretty 'normal' fare for a Mini

Most of the rot cut out now



And the door hinge panel has been made good before the repair section is cut to suit.





Seam and 'plug' spot welded

The welder seems to be going through one of it's better stages as mysteriously it's much easier to weld again and doesn't keep intermittently looking like i've run out of gas (Bad workman an all that )



It's been welded both inside and out, and the outside has had the welds partially ground down.



Inside you can see the floor is pretty manky as well




Cheers

(Good job it's a running restoration else I might have completely stripped it down :( )

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 6th Jul, 2017.

dont leave it in bare metal too long mate as itl start rusting again soon i used a zinc spray primer on mine only a suggestion mate

give em hell

Yes mate cheers, I know what you mean, this garage tends to be a bit bizzare for stuff rusting, last year I worked on my MG Midget and did the same as far as linishing back to bare metal and it was getting on for 6 months before even the slightest surface rust started. However some of the new repair panels did show surface almost straight away? ...

Had to cut a bit more out around the damper mount before I got to decent metal:



Etch and conventional primered followed by a bit of random colour to to help protect the inner bulkhead:



And finished off.



Scuttle and air vent area next weekend, hopefully will have some news on the subframe later in the week, which is why I am trying to get all the front done for when it gets back to get the driveshaft alignment done
Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 18th Oct, 2017.

I plan to look into the gear linkage as it felt pretty sloppy and vague, first off converting to rod ends and replace the plastic UJ (which goes into the selector head) with a proper 'helicopter' joint. Ideally I think the Quaife lever would be worth a try but seems off the clock expensive and I am not sure about the lever ratio for a synchro road box.



I have been mocking up the engine position with the revised rear inner suspension pick up points:









This is all with a standard length steel front

I am sure I will raise the height of the engine by another 10 - 15mm to help with the driveshaft angle.

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 18th Oct, 2017.

So, making some progress with the subframe jig

The plan is that it must fit in to a completely standard engine bay and bulkhead, use all the original mounts

The tower bolt bushes are in place along with the lower longitudinal tubes, the bit which looks like a railway train buffer is just used to set the forward limits of the frame work.



This shows roughly where the tubes will be going



The RH tower bolt to lower longitudinal tube (The box / rectagonal section is the jig )



And the lower part of the tower bolt bush (M12) as I don't intend to use the standard mahoosive tower bolts



As previously stated it is possible to go back to the standard subframe top bolt as all the hole and bulkhead detail are unchanged.

I have had to buy some more T45 tube as I hadn't realised what I had was a mixture of T45 and 15CDV6 which are not really compatible as they are CroMo and Carbon Cro Manganese steel

Plus I have 3mm S514 plate for making all the brackets and clevis's which is sort of T45 but in plate form

Target weight for the subframe is 10 kg as I think the std is 16 kg

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 18th Oct, 2017.