Project "Marginal gains..."
Turbo Mini Forums

Lovely!

In the 13's at last!.. Just

Thank you for the comments

I have completed a few projects over the years which used rattle can and professionally sprayed suspension and chassis parts and it is just depressing how quickly they get chipped / scratched and start to rust, the plating and e-coatings are just so much more durable, sure not perfect but a good improvement.

As the subject of coilovers has been discussed recently, I have considered the weight difference between the conventional setup I started with and the inboard setup I have now.

The standard front coilover lower mount:



And the inboard yoke that replaces it:



So about a 300g penalty per side, however I do not have to run an upper coilover mounting bracket so I reckon it's about break even.

The front top wishbone is a different story, my original target was sub 1kg and I was comfortably inside that but now that it has turned into a climbing frame:

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300g again in terms of weight gained but still lighter than the standard Mini top wishbone and 1kg lighter than the R100 Metro offering.

The good thing about having the plating done is that it has ended the constant lightening and tinkering, at least for the spec the car will first get built in.



The handbrake is thus finished, suprisingly as it ended up about 50g lighter than my first lightweight version which I first thought was as far as I could go.



I still need to peen the main pivot pin over

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 9th Jul, 2017.

Thats one sexy handbrake lever!! Is it easy to split the two bits apart?

The 20/50 was castrol multigrade oil, and 10/60 opie fully synthetic.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fusion-Fabri..._homepage_panel

www.fusionfabs.co.uk



1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

On 21st Nov, 2014 matty said:
We use those rubber flaps on our sump baffles at work out of the M3/M5 I think? I've found that the rubber tends to go hard after a while and the oil wouldn't return back to where it should. That was using 20/50 grade oil and with 10/60. Just thought I'd let you know. sump looks great though!

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 18th Oct, 2017.

No worries, I just thought I'd mention it, as we had and engine pick up on a couple of shells, because the oil wasn't returning well enough to the pickup point, so 7L of oil became 3L recirculating around and got hot. .

Love the handbrake, how much weight was saved over the standard one?

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www.fusionfabs.co.uk



1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

The standard handbrake figure I have in my spreadsheet is 510g, I am not sure if this includes the two std steel floor mount fixing bolts.

The Ti bolts and K nuts I have to mount the handbrake add 18g to the figure shown.

I think I have spent more time on the handbrake than any other part but because it is so visible like the gear lever mount, but I worked on the basis that they are so cheap to replace that if I go too far then I start again.

Cheers

Looks amazing!

as always.

Cheers Jonny, if it looks half as good as yours as a finished item I'll be happy

I love the machine gun handbrake..

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

Cheers Graham,

As far as the hub / knuckle assembly goes I think these drive flanges will be one of the last parts I can successfully get down to a weight below the standard A Series parts that were fitted, I had Metro Turbo drive flanges / wheel studs an fixings which weighed in at 1.655 kg

The pocketed / milled R100 Metro flanges including the same parts are 1.172 kg:



So nearly 0.5 kg lighter



Most of the weight was from the pocketing but all the things like wheel locater spigots being reduced and a few bits here and there helped.

I can save about 200g per brake disc compared to the vented Turbo discs but after that pretty well everything else is heavier.

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 9th Jul, 2017.

Do you need the locators?

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

or the thread and a half of wheel stud ?

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

that finnish on the suspension looks rather nice

Edited by Brett on 26th Nov, 2014.

Yes i moved to the darkside

Instagram @jdm_brett

Cheers Brett,

I prefer to keep the remaining parts of the wheel locators, it would have been much easier to turn it all off rather than the milling. Mainly for some confidence about centring the wheel.

Robert I assume you meant the length of the wheel stud? The wheel studs are suprisingly short, with my ET44 wheels they only protrude about 3mm, if they had been ET40 then they wouldn't have protuded at all. The wheel nuts I am using were the smallest / shortest of all the ones I could find, they only weigh 30g each but I haven't been able to locate enough for a complete car set, the other nuts I have have no stud protrusion so I am not shortening the studs unless I settle on a different wheel with a thinner centre boss.

And the final weight for the brake drum and hub assembly



The original standard rear drum assembly was 6.8 kg so a 3kg saving per corner.

3.814 kg, This includes;

Hub and studs, backplate, shoes, cylinder (circlip / bleed nipple), x2 springs, adjuster, x3 Ti fixings to radius arm, handbrake mech lever arm, hand brake cable brkt, but grease dust cap needs to be added at 42g.

So with the weights quoted for lightweight radius arms I should be able to get to about 7kg for the whole assembly with arm compared to just over 12kg for the standard parts. So a 10kg saving.

This is how I think I will build the first phase with these and a replacement rear 'subframe' so I can spend the rest of the time focussed on the front.

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 9th Jul, 2017.

Question is, how does that compare to KAD discs?

Thats sexier!? ^^^^

^^ that will work

Yes i moved to the darkside

Instagram @jdm_brett

No i was talking about the little bit of stud that protrudes through the back plate ,could that not be flush ,with a dimple ground in it for max weightlessness?

Edited by robert on 18th Oct, 2017.

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

Looks great spence well done.

KAD's would be a kilo lighter, and they do work. But they're expensive... worth picking negatives about products that are actually true.

I hope the adjusters are Ti

In the 13's at last!.. Just

Damn a kilo is quite a lot. I can see another few 100g coming out of the drum setup but much more than that and it would get expensive.

Cheers Alex,

The KAD quoted figure for the disc setup is 2.7kg but I am sure Alaskanow has weighed them at 3.2kg? So I am not sure if the KAD weight doesn't have wheel bearings included or something like that? But even 600g is significant. Didn't you have a set? Did you weigh them?

Sorry. I didn't understand your comment about picking negatives which are true?

Hi Robert,

I plan to drill the centre out of the fat end of the adjuster to about 6mm or so, I couldn't get on a lathe before they were plated, not sure about removing any of the O.D. / thread.

Hi Mr Lizard

No not Ti, The main reason being cost but I am happy to use Ti fixings on parts which are not taken on and off frequently but not with something which is adjusted especially such a fine Ti thread against steel as far as the threads 'picking up' even with suitable lubricants. It's not so bad with standard-ish thread size / pitch (as you can run a tap down) but I am really not sure I could find a suitable tap to clean up the back plate if it did start to feel a bit iffy resulting in scrapping the back plate. It was hard enough reassembling after plating and that was only supposed to be 10 microns.

Slater,

Where else would you save 100g, I want to keep the remainder of the hoop / lip on the outer of the drum to retain a little hoop stiffness but happy to save more without compromising function.



Funny I have been discussing Sprung mass / Unsprung mass ratios on another forum as far as the rear of a lighterweight Mini goes.

As you start to lighten the rear sprung mass on a Mini unless your careful you end up with with a really high unspung mass ratio which is bad for grip / ride. So the KAD discs in particular help reduce this by a few percent but expensive still.

Cheers

Edited by Aubrey_Boy on 28th Nov, 2014.

oh god im not doing very well here !

what meant to say ,before my fingers took over , was the part of the wheel studs ,that protrude out of the back of the drive flange..dont know where i got back plate from !

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

Ah I see...

Yes Robert I 100% agree I should have dimpled the back of the studs, never thought of it

Cheers