Project "Marginal gains..."
Turbo Mini Forums

Lol

On 5th Oct, 2014 Shauna said:
What that's crazy, you go commando hahaha! How heavy is your helmet ?

Well I didn't know where to stop as far as lightening went, one thing lead to another, anyway, the door shells are pretty well finished, I decided against keeping wind up windows and got a set of poly MK1 sliding windows.



Completely bare as shown they are 4.2kg, I'll probably need to add another 100g or so to stiffen / mount the door lock mech



I've got another pair of doors which are waiting in the wings if these are a step too far in terms being too torsionally weak and leaking / wind noise



Having weighed all the bits that need to be added to make them complete doors, lock, hinges, sliding windows, catches, seals etc I reckon they will be about 7.4kg but that's without any interior trim panel as I still haven't decided to do as far as that goes



I plan to use MK1 type check straps so have removed the checks that the later doors have

Anyone have any weights for lightweight Mk3 onwards doors as I don't think there is much more to come out of them as I dont want any holes in the frames

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 11th Jul, 2017.

mine were 7.5kg.

Edited by robert on 18th Oct, 2017.

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

Cheers Robert,

Was that ready to go, including hinges, handle, lock / catch etc...

Did you have riveted in poly or with seals?

In hindsight I think the sliding kit with it's runners / seals / sliding catches etc is about 1kg or so heavier but being able to open the sliding window compared a little sliding hatch was my main reasoning

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 27th Jul, 2014.

Ive done this to the bottom of mine, If it creates wind noise I'll simply tape over the holes and still have the weight saving, with albeit less drainage for any water, now waxoiled all inside the bottom of my doors now theyre mostly built up too!

about 9.5kg a side with the plastic window and std seals.

that was ready to bolt on ,with drilled hinges etc , the windows were just a sheet of 4mm poly self tapered around the edge . non opening.

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

Funny, that's been my job for today, the frames are a nats under 3kg, I haven't weighed the ally skins since I put them in the loft 6 months ago but were about 1.2 Kg iirc so these will end up the same/slightly heavier. Frames drilled to buggery but I have left the channels in.

door by smithsonmorris, on Flickr

On 5th Oct, 2014 Shauna said:
What that's crazy, you go commando hahaha! How heavy is your helmet ?

My doors are similar to carlzillas and have no wind noise from all the holes

Cheers

Looks like I am not trying hard enough with all these swaged holes going on :)

So I am very close to getting it on 4 wheels for the first time in a while...

Up until now I have just nipped the subframe top bolts up but they have never felt great, but as I wanted to make sure everything is ready and properly in place I needed to torque the top bolts up but they just felt like they were going squash the crossmember flat before they reached anything like a sensible torque level.

So I took the subframe off and and looked at the crossmember, the top looked fine when checked with straight edge but the under side was not flat and had clearly been pulled in at the centre of the hole, sort of like a belville washer in shape, this must have either happened when it had a std rubber mounted subframe or the previous XE subframe which wasn't a good fit in the crossmember.

So I put some engineers blue on the mounting face of the subframe to see what the contact area looked like and as expected it was a small point around the periphery of the mounting face.

There didn't seem any easy way to to get it back flat other than bodging a plate on the bottom, so it has all come out...



I am making a T45 tube with flanges at both ends to fit between the upper and lower faces which will replace the sheet metal wind break shaped thingy.

It is the primary mounting point for the subframe so I wasn't happy leaving it the way it was, I will do one side at a time so I can use the subframe to jig the mount position by making sure both the body and the subframe are level

It will also give me the opportunity to try and tie this area to the rest of the car better, but not sure on what yet

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 11th Jul, 2017.

Damper lower yokes have been trimmed down and skinned over

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They have to be bolted to the jig when welded as the rod ends fit directly into the upper wishbone, so any movement and they wont fit, there is a soot mark on the part of the skin that meets the base which looks like a hole in this photo.

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The threaded part is where the damper rod screws in and the abutment around the edge is for the coil spring



The design means changing springs is a bit of a pain as the yoke has to be unscrewed to get them off

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Just need to rebuild the bulkhead cross member and then the front can be built up

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 11th Jul, 2017.

more shoddy fabrication, not bad for arc welding

really nicely made, almost to good to put on the car, if it dosen't fit I'll buy it and stick it on my fireplace

Team www.sheepspeed.com Racing

On 24th Jul, 2014 Aubrey_Boy said:
It took a few more iterations on the top wishbones before everything cleared the subframe and the bulkhead and still gave the correct wheel rate but I hope these are finished for now:





They had to remain adjustable in order to change the camber setting

Fitted to the subframe:





Just temporary bolts

The damper lower yokes still need to be 'skinned' over, adjustable rod ends allow the ride height to be adjusted and keep the coilover in the middle of its available travel.



I'd describe them as function over form as there didn't seem any simple way to make them any easier on the eye.





They are pretty light still as the S514 skins are only 0.9mm and the additional T45 tubes are 1.2mm







All being well we should start fabricating the sump next week and after that I want to get it on it's wheels for the first time in a while

Cheers

Team www.sheepspeed.com Racing

Hi Jim,

The radius is just part of a swaged hole, you make the whole gusset larger than it needs to be then swage both holes and remove the part of the gusset that you don't need.

The image below shows the sort of thing and then cut along the red line to leave the piece you use



Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 11th Jul, 2017.

nice trick .

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

Secshual

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/

This thread is giving me the horn

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!

Ahhh clever, thanks I'll give it a try

Team www.sheepspeed.com Racing

This has got to be one of the tidiest gear linkages I've ever seen on a Vaux conversion, makes me wonder why no ones thought of it before as it looks like the obvious solution.

On 21st Jun, 2014 Aubrey_Boy said:
For a change something actually took less time than I thought.

The Mini rod linkage has been modified and lightened, the rod going into the turret modified to take the Apex UJ and the mock up rods cut to length.

This is the Apex joint next to the standard Vauxhall 'UJ':



They weigh just 60 grammes, for some reason nowhere seems to sell Apex joints anymore (other than the US), the only ones I can find in the UK are 'Racetech' which look like a copy of the Apex.

I have removed the inboard coilover to show the linkage better:



It's so tidy in this area now and clearance isn't a problem any more.



Also there is definately no need for a bulkhead box now either.



This shows the gear lever mount is angled slightly to help with the UJ angles. The rods are from the standard Mini remote and cut to length but I will use T45 tube which is about half the weight of the solid rods.



In all it is just over 1.5 kg lighter than what I had before and feels very direct and positive

I may add a guide for the rod near where the floor meets the toeboard, its difficult to tell as I need to replace the DU bushes in the gear lever mount which may mean the rod feels better supported than it does now



Just need to sort the gear lever mount out properly as I did all the mockup with G clamps and box section to hold it place and make the gear lever itself out of tube instead of solid

Cheers

Cheers guys

I'll hopefully be going to MITP and catch up with a few of you, MikeRace will I recognise you with your clothes on or will you be on BBQ duty

Rob H,

I have seen the gear linkage done before, it was a Retropower built XE Mini, they used a KAD internal kit, as is usually the case pretty well everything has been done before.

I had been looking at various options like the lever from and type 9 gearbox and had forgot that the standard Mini lever operated in the correct way for the Vaux gearbox - it just doesn't have enough longitudinal or rotational travel so needs a bit of modding.

Quaife / Harry Hockley do a mega expensive option but it also heavier than the lightened Mini one

Pointing the lever towards the gearbox turret just allowed one less Apex joint to be used.

Cheers

No MITP action because I was scared of getting wet...

So the 'cotton reels' are done, they basically replace the floppy bits of metal that are in the single bolt subframe bodyshell crossmembers.

I was shocked / suprised how much the front crossmember moves relative to the 'A' pillars, whilst I have been repairing the inner wings and scuttle area it made it clear how much these areas feed the load from the subframe back into the main shell / toeboard.

My top dash rail is now a closed section which forms a sort of triangular section across the front of the car and I want to try to tie this area, the front crossmember and a dash tube (to be added later) together.

Some years ago when I was doing some work for a friend who prepared Mini Miglia's he commented on how properly connecting the toeboard and front crossmember into the main roll cage improved lap time / driver feeling. This also ties in with bodyshell torsion tests I have done in the past with other cars that from the 'A' pillar / front bulkhead forward is the main area of stiffness loss in bodyshells.




They are 50g heavier each than what I cut out (At the risk of being predictable they are T45 / S514) :)



I have set myself a budget of around 2 kg of tubes to try and tie all of the mount areas together and if at some point in the future I fit a roll cage it will be relatively easy to tie it altogether.

My main intention is sprints / hillclimbs / trackdays as well as road use so whilst trying to make it relatively light with its boat anchor engine I am still trying to keep everything as stiff as I can as a priority.

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 11th Jul, 2017.

Always a good idea to keep things stiff, just in case.

Awesome skills as always!

Could you show a diagram of the area that you talking about re stiffness for the migs etc , and perhaps show on there where a judiciously places tube or two may increase the rigidity ?

I am imagining the part of the body work the door hinges bolt to ,to the area behind the pedal box or maybe just above that where the box runs from one side to the other with the big sub bolts in it .?

Edited by robert on 18th Oct, 2017.

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM