16v Project Progress - Now Back in Business
Turbo Mini Forums

Looks good and coming on well! Always liked the idea of a k head. My have to borrow the SC manual my mate has

Looks great. Glad to see it coming together

In the 13's at last!.. Just

Looks great. Glad to see it coming together

In the 13's at last!.. Just

Its been quite a while since last updating this. Apart from a bit of fiddling when time allows a complete house restoration seems to have somewhat got in the way of progress. With that nearly over and now working from home there has been more time available get things moving.

I've been busy bolting the bottom end to the gearbox, getting clutch flywheel and other bits on and the engine so it is now ready to recieve the head. Also doing all the other bits off faffing around such as shortening some of the head studs which comes with a new K engine build.

It been 10 years since the cars last major engine transplant and is amazing how long it takes for a new build and complete engine reconfiguration of ancillaries, sensors, cable and hose runs. Also making work for myself such as filing the excess length off the screws in the throttle bodies to aid airflow and making a new oil filler by welding an old rocker cover neck to the flywheel breather which is conveniently the same diameter.

Hit a bit of a snag recently preventing the head being mated to the bottom end, having redrilled a minispares copper headgasket I am not confident the butchered (carefully) headgasket is really going to be up to the job, it seems much easier to snag when drilling compared to the BK450 so going to bite the bullet and go for the bespoke SC item when back in stock.

Hoping to be running in the next month or so if possible, but anyway some photos.

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Edited by minimole23 on 14th May, 2020.

Despite now being back at work I did manage to sneak a long weekend on the car.

The engine is now fully assembled and in the car, which is a major hurdle cleared as it now means that not only is the garage more ordely, but final list of parts required to get the thing running can be assembled.

Took a lot of time making sure everything was as correst as possible, so hopefully just a few tweaks on the rolling road to get optimised.

Still quite a bit of work to do to get it on the road and ages once again spent making brackets for sensors and generally tidying up a lot of bits of the car.

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I like this a lot!!

Shane

In the space of 4 days it has gone from pile of parts to being close to a running car. Looking forward to the first drive.

Quite a learning process with the added complexities of the 16v and being a new build, but progress all the same.

Going parts collecting again now for final assult and first fire up. Wiring, fuel system and quite a bit of tidying up to be done.

Looks great, very neat and tidy.

Phil.

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

Its been a while since this was updated, mainly due to chipping away progressively at the to do list.

I have no idea how the turbo crew manage to package everything as I'm totally out of space at the front, to the point that various components, brackets etc. have been made, remade then altered several times after.

Lot of time spent trying to get the wiring right and a neat and tidy install, so most of the loom has been opened up, and all redundant wiring was either stripped out or repurposed.

Went with a large (by lithium standards) powerlite battery weighing in a whole 2kg but at least has plenty of capacity and is MSA approved.

Finally today I gave the cam timing a final check, looked for anything that could go wrong, calibrated a few sensors on the SC ecu and hit the start button, amazingly it fired up immediately.

I now need to go through the whole car and complete a lot of finishing off, but pleased that the attention to detail in terms of getting everything right payed off.

Mandatory start video (2nd start in fairness and the first start video was naff!) Ignition timing is a touch retarded so needs a tweek on the software as can't get near the trigger wheel.

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Edited by minimole23 on 28th Nov, 2020.

Looks great!

Very nice, great to hear it running. Look forward to see it running up the hillclimbs in 2021

Video didn't really work.... Try this

https://www.facebook.com/695205432/videos/a...164275633405433

It been a little while since I last updated this.

Since getting it running there has been an awful lot of ironing out teething issues and getting everything optimised.

As its going to get a fair bit of stick it was essential that anything that had a niggling doubt was investigated. Never got to the bottom of the cam pulley running slightly out, but after lots of stripping checking and double checking couldnt find anything wrong.

Finally got an mot and enough running in miles to take it to the rolling road to be set up. Went to West Tuning at thruxton as he has quite a bit of experience with the SC ecu. However that where things started to wrong. Rollers were quite polished so ended up strapping the car down to pull it into the rollers, however wheelspin was then repalced with clutch slip.

Having validated the fuelling and ignition were safe I packed up and with Goodwood 3 days later there was not much that could be done.

Stu has done a good write up on Goodwood but safe to say it was an experiance.

I have not been up there since 2013 and totally forgotton the circuit, and the weather meant that having not driven the car in anger for 4 years now I was no where near as committed as I could have been.

I also seem to have miscalculated the gear ratios and ended up with a top speed of around 110 ish at 8200rpm I think having yoko A032'S on a 10" rim from where they are stretched reduces the diameter a bit throwing things out. Whilst the clutch is off will change the primary gear, as running mini spares ones to allow that flexibility.

Couldn't give it more than 3/4 throttle anyway due to the clutch slip, however think I have got to the bottom of that. Pulled the clutch tonight to find it quite oily, so will rethink the oil filler point above the transfer housing. Was dubious about it finding its way out the primary gear.

Will also skim the backplate lugs and stick a uprated clutch plate in to hold back the torque. Hoping for around 110 lb/ft with the longer inlet runnners, which I'll be experimenting when back on teh rolling road. That with the orange diaphram should be fine.

All in all good to finally be in a position to use the car properly. Just need to get it all back together and fully on song before Wiscombe hillclimb at the beginning of Septemeber.

For now a bit of in-car footage:

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Edited by minimole23 on 12th Aug, 2021.

How did you find your breather set up in the end? manage to keep crancase pressures down?

Shane

Breather set up is working well. There is a 22mm out the transfer breather, 10mm from the oil drain and a 13mm out the old dipstick hole which will now be the filling point. That said when I did the first fire up the 22mm wasn’t connected so may have pushed some oil out then past the primary gear oil seal then.

It’s not even pushed a drop out into the catch can.

Edited by minimole23 on 12th Aug, 2021.

All vented from the canister on the bulkhead?
Is there any reason you didn’t opt for any on the rocker cover that most do?
Only asking as I’ve pushed a litte oil on occasions.
Shane

If you look closely there is one into the transfer case breather.

I did add a 2.5mm oil restrictor to the head as it was getting too much oil.

All good now.

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I didn't spot that as it was obscured by the leads.
How did you come to the conclusion that you where getting too m much oil? Also what did you use in terms of a restrictor?

Thanks

Shane

The head seemed to be filling up as I was getting too much out the top breather. Added some larger 10mm Id drains to the back, 10mm on the conversion plate and then added a bit of a restrictor. Restrictor is achieved by drilling out a 1/8 npt oil pressure gauge t piece to 2.5mm at the base of the feed. Seems happy now, as I pulled one of the cam retaining caps. Some people have gone to 1.5mm but would rather have a little to much oil than too little.

Edited by minimole23 on 12th Aug, 2021.

Excellent. It’s looking great.

Can’t wait to see/hear it once the clutch issue is sorted.

In the 13's at last!.. Just

Many thanks, this has given me a few ideas of things to revise when I'm next working in the engine bay.

Annual update time.

After replacing the clutch after goodwood, with a paddle plate and skimming 1mm off the backplate to improve clamping I was expecting the meeting at wiscome park at the beginning of september to be a success.

Unfortunately the weekend turned out differently, first a missfire presented itself at about 5500rpm, which got worse as the weekend wore on and ultimately resulted in me parking it on sunday after a respectable 3rd place on the saturday. Clutch slip then also presented itself again.

The clutch slip was a knackered oil seal, I had assumed that having moved the filler neck to the breather above the transfer case was the issue, not the fact a brand new oil seal was shite.

Before pulling the clutch again I wanted to get to the bottom of the missfire. After lots of digging there were a few things that needed addressing. First was the feed to the fuel pump dropping the ecu voltage to 11.5 volts and the TPS scaling fine when off, but not when running. Ultimately all these issues were resolved but not without a lot of faffing around.

Annoyingly the missfire was still there, and after lots of investigating and data logs showing the crank sensor dropping out I emailed SC, who threw the curveball that it might be the crank sensor bracket resonating, sure enough after revving the engine up pointing a torch at it at 5500rpm the engine hit a resonant frequency and sure enough off it went.

Because I'm using the force racing conversion kit the Specialist components bracket only had one mounting point i could use, and after much buggeration, failed reinforcment, rubber mounts, and larking round I managed to make bracket support bracket picking up one of the 5/16 gearbox bolts.

Having finally resolved this I visited Ray at West Tuning at Thruxton, who has experiance of the SC ecu and a few 16v minis. The results were 151hp and 110 lb/ft torque. Its great to finally be able to use the power and the car feels so alive now.

The plan is to put them to good use at llandow this weekend in the sprint there and see how we get on.

Fantastic. It looks amazing and I’m glad you’re got to the bottom of the gremlins.

Nice one

In the 13's at last!.. Just

Great to see this screaming down the straights at Llandow on Saturday. Sounds incredible