robs leyland mini S
Turbo Mini Forums

Hello all, my name is rob, I live in Melbourne Australia. I’ve been on turbominis for a while now and I thought I better get my arse into gear and start to turbo my car. I’m doing this on a budget because I’m a tight arse. So I will be begging, borrowing and using friend’s machine shop as much as I can and most of this stuff I have sourced from wreckers yards, off friends and good old dodgy eBay,
It’s a 1974 Leyland clubman S. The green I think is a Leyland P76 colour. I want to keep the car kind of standard looking. I’ve had the car for over 10 years now, it was my first car and I can’t get rid of it. I know that’s sad but hey,
It’s got a 1098 motor in it stock insides just a minispares manifold and a set of extractors, rod change box, it’s a dry setup at the moment but I do have wet sub-frames to go into it, I have to do some panel work on the car rust around the rear windows and front A panel, front floors are good but I might redo the boot. The parts I have collected for my turbo conversion so far are
T2 turbo out of a Nissan EXA, flanges for the manifold and turbo, a Nissan 180sx intercooler, a Nissan N14 pulsar throttle body, Suzuki swift alternator nice and small, 2x bosch fuel injectors out of a Ford BA XR6 turbo falcon they flow about 440cc ea injector, a BA Falcon fuel rail, I might try and use and adapt , an bosch blow off valve from a Saab 93, slow getting there with parts, I might put a carb on it first until I sort out the fuel injection,
I still need to get a fuel pump, I know here in aus I can use a VL commodore pump there cheap new and will work fine; I might be getting some cheap GM LS1 coils too.
I will be making my own exhaust manifold, return lines to the tank, piping for the intercooler.
I still need heaps of stuff so all the help I can get will be great,
I want the car to be a good road cruiser not a mental track car; I’m looking for around 90hp from it..
Here some pics below.

Thanks rob.

what it lokked like 10yrs ago


what it looks like now


with a dummy throttle body and turbo in place


intercooler with the grill in place,

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Lovely colour, good luck!

They don't die, they just get faster!

Throttle valves interesting!

Your exhaust manifold might blow slightly.

a bit of an update doesnt look ive done much but had a heap of other things on


dummying in the intercooler have removed the fresh air heater intake pipe to make the cooler sit closer to the headlight on the drivers side


making my manifold steam pipe and flanges i still in the process of making a dump pipe,
the manifold is all tig together with a purge gas inside,


the T2 yeah for me, ripped it off at the wreckers in 40mins because they were going to crush the car after i was finished, the guy was there with the forklift and all


minispares manifold, nissan n14 pulsar throttle body spacer plate i might use


i will have to port the manifold to suit or make up a spacer with a taper in it to match the throttle body to manifold face.


turbo on manifold and in the car just checking everything fitted after welding its a good feeling know that it fits all the hard work paid off, well so far,


drilling out the injector bosses


injector bosses showing from the rear, will grind the bosses down to match the inside of the throttle body also redrilled the throttle body to suit the SU bolt pattern


what the injection will look like, just have to weld the ends on the rail and make brackets to hold down the injectors, also these are std ford falcon injectors im using to dummy everying with

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started to make the fuel rail up, started to weld the injector bosses in last night, the two green injectors are bosch 440cc ones,
should flow enough for what i want






Quick update, ive bought some 90degree and 45 degree elbows in stainless for the intercooler piping, and getting some stainlesss pipe soon it all going to be in 2" (50mm). ive welded to the injector bosses into the throttle body, it turned out ok but im not happy with the result, so i will be heading back to the wreckers and getting another throttle body and making up a spacer plate with injector holes in it instead. so its so far so good. i know i was bound to have something not work out right, but thats what happens when you do these things.









just an update with my intercooler i unpicked the end tanks and made some new ones up at work, just have to put the pipe into the tank to complete it, and then weld it all together, i'll tig it all up. was also able to get about 2.3m of stainless steel pipe 1.6mm wall thickness and 2" (50mm) diameter thats polished for the intercooler piping, paid beer for that :) getting there, also got a heap of body panels so hopefully over xmas i will be able to get work done.

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Nice looking car, some good progress going on!

thanks its slowly getting there, just trying to fit everything in and mocking up parts beofore i respary so i dont have to cut everything i just painted

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How does the heater take off being attached to the rocker cover work?

its just sitting there at the moment, i have a water heated manifold but i couldnt be bothered taking the hose off all the way, im not leaving it like that, im not that dumb

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Wasn't trying to imply you were dumb!
We don't have that type of rocker cover in the UK and I've never seen one before. What is the lump on top then? Some kind of breather?

its factory breather the pipe goes back into the round air filter on std cars,

sorry i didnt know that you guys didnt have them over there.

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Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

I thought cooper s were bolts
I know you csn buy bolts to use 11 stud heads..

As Rod says, in the UK many people add a cover breather and indeed some early Minis had one as standard but it was a simple pipe take off, not the block you have on top of the cover. Is there a flame arrestor gauze in that bit?

Only the 11th one was a bolt on the (UK) Cooper S, the rest were studs and nuts.

most aussie 998 and 1098's came out with Bolts as opposed to studs, was cheaper, compression wasnt too ridiculous to warrant the need of the fancy studs etc.

the rocker cover is also a common place item, though ive never seen it connected to anything other than a PCV, or some of the smog gear (maybe? never seen a car with original smog gear) or in a funny way back to another breather thus nullifying the need of the breather in the first place...

“A turbo: exhaust gasses go into the turbocharger and spin it, witchcraft happens and you go faster.” - Jeremy Clarkson

yeah matts right, my 1098cc came factory with bolts, like he said there cheap. i didnt know that all the uk engines just had studs, and different breathers, mine will just vent downwards, thats what most people seem to do over here


ive just finished off welding out my intercooler has nice pretty welds :shock: now just need to fit it in place and make the brackets to suit hopefully do this over the holidays

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