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well i've been getting abit bored with my 1995 cooper spi recently so decided that it would come off the road for a rebuild and some extra power!

BOUGHT it standard and then got it looking like this:


it was then hit by my mate trying to be clever and stop about 1" infront of me from about a 15mph roll. i think he got it abit wrong because he actually stopped around 6 inches into my engine bay with me about 2 meters backwards! luckily handbrake wasnt on and was out of gear so damage was minimized. but some how still took the garage that did the work to it 8 weeks to give my car back! their main reason was that they couldnt get a new grille end for it???? uhmmm stil when i got the car back it had no pinstripe down the side and neither did it have the stripes on the bonnet. anyway i got it sorted in the end by a different company but was never the same afterwards.

that was around a year ago now and so have decided to restore some love back into my little beauty.

whilst i had some time off over christmas i thought i would strip it out and make a start.

here are some pics of how it stands now.






i had the head off before christmas and have been cleaning up the valves over the last 2 days because of the little dremel type thing ive got is rubbish and the battery dies every time you do one valve!!

today i managed to get all the wiring stipped out and some of the extra little bits from inside the enigne bay. and also started to wire wheel some of the inside as i feel like a colour change.

few more pics of valves and a nicely bent pushrod and some other random ones.









vavles still need abit more work to smooth them out.

oh and almost forgot i got my supasolts off ebay for £40 and painted them up over my break also.



the plans are:
engine;
1330
8.6:1 CR
fettled head (would be benross if the budget wasnt so tight!!)
clubman gear set and sc drops.
looking for a gt17 but have in my possestion from work but i dont know what it is. phone is being annoying so cant get any pics at the moment but will do as soon as i can.
outside:
pretty sleeperish
white with black accents and a black chequer stripe offset to passenger side
de-bumpered
clubby flipfront.
gp2's (maybe wides)

Chassis:
adjustable geometry kit
4pots on 7.5" discs
maybe beam axle and coilovers but that will be later on if i do.

im aiming to get it back on the road with the turbo motor in and the basics of the bodywork sorted and inside done. then i can do the expensive stuff as and when i have the money as this car is my only transport.

sorry that was abit longwinded but just wanted to get it all out there and up to date, not that ive done much. and sorry about the bad pics i only have a phone camera!


Thanks for reading, James.

Edited by James_H on 23rd Feb, 2011.

Nice, all my projects are apprentice wage too, for another 6 months atleast!

thats what my project is on :) at the moment i amjust managing to pay rent own two cars and build them up... but never set your sight to far down, just think if you can work overtime for a few months a benross head wont be to far off thats my plan anyways

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Nice looking project mate! Its painfull doing projects like this on low inome, ive been doing mine since the last year of college, and now im in the last year of my uni course haha!

I see youre from Teignmouth, my housemate at uni lives there! Do you know of a gunmetal Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo going around with black wheels?

Rich

looking good mate,just stick with it!

well i managed to get some pics up of the turbo. i was wondering if anybody could give any inkling as to what it might be? it came of a nissan mistal 2.7tdi lump which blew its bottom end so i took the turbo off and said to the boss "this is mine" to which he nodded no plates on it or anything, they only this it does say is garrett (woohoo its a start! that narrows it down ) it has an AR of .48





any ideas? because i haven't! ive been on google to see if i can find out what turbo the engines run but havent been successful!

Edited by James_H on 29th Dec, 2007.

Balls, double post!

Edited by richminiturbo. on 29th Dec, 2007.

It looks like it could be some kind of t2/t25

Edited by Nic on 30th Dec, 2007.

i thought thats what it looked like. i had a feeling i had seen the long compressor trunking on one before and have a feeling that was a t25.

i am going to rebuild it before it goes on, unless i can get my hands on a nice gt , so could do with knowing what it is so as that i buy the right rebuild kit.
i guess the best thing to do would be to measure the wheels when i strip it??

going to do some more work on the car soon so will get some progress pics up later.

well only really stripped more stuff out today and done abit of cleaning on the head, so nothing really worth posting any pics about as it just looks the same as the others. tomorrow i will get all of the part out of the back of the car (its where im storing them at the moment) and get on with wire wheeling all the paint of so as that i can get on with turning it nice and white

engine is ready and waiting to come out but as i dont have any real room for it it can stay in the car untill i have pistons and money to get it rebored etc.

i used to have an spi, always wanted to turbo it, but never had the balls to take a working car to pieces.

Good thread, make sure you keep us updated on your progress. :)

am i right in thinking that the mistral is an import version of the terrano 2? if it is then the turbo is the same internally as the rover turbo unit fron the 2l pertol turbo engines... but it wouldn't hurt to strip it and check it

Hi,
Indeed, they did
Cheers,
Gavin :)

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My Mini build diary

and a few people on here run them aswell, hit the search button...

well i finally managed to get my ass in gear this weekend and get some progress done on the car!! so i thought i would share.

more stripping is all that happened though im afraid! nothing exiting yet but i have got a few things on order to make myself feel better

took off the front end and pulled the engine out.


with the front subby and engine out i needed to strip it all so it all came apart




and i also stripped all of the rear end down.


luckily when i took the front end off i found some good old tin worm it wouldnt be a proper project without some now would it!!!! the poor begger needs a new hinge panel, two scuttle corners, a new a panel (im going to do both sides as the other one isnt going to be far behind) and it needs a new rear valance.

so all in all not that bad. will be getting the panels ordered soon so as that i can crack on with the body, but while i wait for that i have got alot of cleaning to do!

everything is so damn dirty!! front subby will be seam welded, stripped back and repainted. and the hubs need stripping and cleaning up. hopefully i can get that done this week so as that next weekend i can get on with a few bits of body work and the rear subby stripped and repainted next weekend.

started to rain today so didnt get as much done as i had wanted but going to have to make up for that during the week.

Cheers for reading and hope it wont be as long untill the next update.

well managed to get out there this weekend ang get a semi-decent amount of work done!

got the inside paint stripped as much as i can without taking out the windows and a few other little things but i couldnt do that as i didnt have time before football (hides from the abuse i'm about to get)


notice the daylight from the arch, welding needed me thinks!


got a quick coat of hammerite white down on the front during the week also, only really to protect the metal for the minute. it will be getting a proper coat once all of the paint stripping is done. not sure whether to spray it before or after the cage goes in though?? im thinking before... need to get a protection coat down on the rest of it but it started to rain!

sundays plans were to get the rear subframe out and then get that protection coat down, and then strip the rear subframe and get that back to bare metal ready for seam welding and repainting.




got to there and it started to rain...badly!! so i was left scrambling clearing tools and recovering parts etc etc! so it looks like im going to have to wait for the rain to stop before i get back out there to strip the subby off and maybe bare metal it.

it all needs to be stripped and cleaned up by next weekend including radius arms etc as ive got aload of panels coming next week so my next few weeks is going to be filled up with that!

also i need ideas on what cage i should get..ive been looking at the geronimo cages but thats only really because its quite budget friendly. but i really want one that ties the shell together more than the geronimo ones, more like the one that andywaller has just put in and i believe a few others have got on here.

i've been on thier site but cant seem to see how much the full weld-in one costs. any inputs on this would be great....

also decided that i would put the k100 head on whilst im doing all this! might as well ey! ive had the head for a while now so might as well make use of it!

Cheers, James.

P.S axle stands are on the ordering List

Edited by James_H on 9th Mar, 2008.

looking good, not too much body work there to do.

I also respect you for taking it on without a garage. I probably wouldn't own a mini without a garage. Hence it being 60 miles away at home tucked away while I am at uni.

Edited by minimole23 on 9th Mar, 2008.

yeh its damn annoying when it starts raining when you just getting into the flow of what you doing!

we have a garage that the mini would probably fit in but its just full of sooooo much shit its unbelievable!! and its not mine so there isnt anything i can do about it! thats what you get when you try doing this at 18 at your parents house though i suppose :)

im a happy boy today








now i know the calipers are from the devil but they were the cheapest i could find. what did piss me off was the 4 weeks they took to get here! my own stupid fault for using them though i suppose! oh well thye are here now and im not in any rush for them!

also managed to get to the parts washer the other day and cleaned my TB's.



Cheers again for those wolfie

Looking very nice. What piston size and make? Too much shine i cant see LOL.

TBH your basic structure of the car isnt the worst ive seen (that goes to my very 1st mini).
Just make sure rust hasnt spread to where the rear subby bolts to.

Edited by Jordan on 10th Mar, 2008.

Back once again like a renegade master

yeah the shell is pretty solid as we did alot of repairs to it last year for the MOT. luckily for me it hasnt spread to it so just a few easy patches for me

piston size is 1275 + 060 and they are hypa's from minisport australia who where great when i emailed them to find out where my pistons were after 3 weeks. turned out that they arived at parcel force after 2weeks and they couldnt be assed to let me know!!!!

Are you just using a grinder to remove the paint on the inside? I need to do the same soon, and that job looks good.