Hit a milestone and still making changes.

First step on the road to recovery, save money, well sometimes you have to spend it to save it.
With the Mini down for awhile the only thing I had to drive was my beater conversion van, just won't cut it, 1990, 177,000 miles & 10mpg, with a 75 mile per day commute it worked out to be about $500 a month in gas alone, and thats if it held up. (great for when you needed to use it, not so great to have to actually depend on it)

So, new DD:



Gas and payment work out to $100 less a month than gas alone in the van, plus nothing to worry about or have money to fix.
So far, it's OK, but it's wierd, I'm so used to getting a "charge" out of driving and with this it's just back to "transportation", don't get me wrong, it's fun & quirky enough, but it's nowhere near the same.

Teardown on the Mini should start in June.

 

Well, after having to live down the shame of last year's premature announcement, I've been really apprehensive about posting my progress, but some pre-MOTD news has all but solidified the final piece of the puzzle for mid to late June (my clutch). Most everything else is done, bought and ready, the only thing I lack is my clutch and W/M kit.
Here's where I stand now:
Motor is done, transmission is cleaned up and ready for mating, all associated parts, gaskets and misc. items are bought and ready for install....(including, new idler pulley, clutch slave cylinder, updated Sprintex tensioner and vented filler bolt, New timing chain, Thumper extended chain tensioner bolt, Amsoil JCW Air Filter, seals and gaskets and other cosmetic goodies) Here's some of the details for those interested.

Motor came out a couple of months ago, besides all the piston squirters being snapped off, the bottom end was in phenomena condition, I'll be honest, had I not wanted to rebuild the motor anyway and looked closer at the head (I didn't even bother because I wanted to rebuild and just assumed the age of the motor was to blame for the loss in compression), I probably could have repaired the head, replaced the squirters and put it back together as is. I honestly feel like I probably could have gotten to at least 300k+ on that bottom end, it was that good.... And maybe even on the same clutch since this is what it liked like when it came out.

Original, OEM w/ 212k miles.




But no sense in crying about it now...lol, I'm really happy with what I've got.

Motor Specs:
Block Bored for a 77.5mm Piston
CP Pistons (77.5mm - 8.3:1)
Crower I-Beam Rods w/ ARP Bolts
King Rod & Main bearings
Balanced
Crank Polished
Mellings H/P Oil Pump
Block Decked .004
TPR Adjusted Cam Gear
TPR2rT Cylinder Head
Sprintex S/C w/ 60mm pulley

Here's the motor as it is now sitting in a cradle I made, I've since put it inside to fight the humidity while I wait for my clutch.





A little Head Pron for you:
Thanks Thumper!



Exhaust ports are matched to my header.



Intake ports are opened up and intake is matched.



Transmission was cleaned up and painted, with new seals all the way around.





Clutch will be the OS Giken Blue and W/M will be the Aquamist HFS-3.

Once I get the clutch, everything will go back together and we'll do the appropriate tuning, then I'll add the W/M and start playing with the bottle

But in the meantime there will be some other things I want to try and get done like a rear seat delete and moving my bottle into the cabin of the car, so should be some more new postings soon.

Thanks Again for looking....

 

Yup, be my guest.
Last time the car ran for 35,000 miles after the Sprintex install that wasn't done until 176,000 miles, and as I said the only thing that was really wrong with it ended up being the head (which btw had 125k at failure) with no W/M , and the issue with the oil squirters was nothing but too much RPM on a stock bottom end, as I said everything else ended up being very good, so I'm not worried in the least esp. with the current extras that were put into the motor.

This was my end game anyway, short of a full on turbo conversion (which the motor is certainly capable of), and nothing has changed, I'm doing the same as before, trying out unconventional options and running with them.
To me, it's just not that interesting to do the same old things as everyone else.

 

But also don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the failure on the head at all, it had 110,000 miles on it prior to changing to the 60mm pulley on the Sprintex, things only last so long, esp. when your trying to push some limits, just so happens that the head was the first thing to suffer, but that head gave me plenty of good performance, and my intention all along was to swap it out when rebuild time came around.

 

I can't imagine it would be that much different than before, supercharger setup will be exactly the same, the only real difference from my earlier setup would be the slightly larger bore with the forged Pistons, but with additional oil flow to aid with anything there, and the better flowing head, I'll just have to wait and see if it will require anything special as far as oil cooling or thermostat changes, but the stock cooler and OEM temp thermostat worked just fine before, esp with the electric W/P.

 

I don't see where you think it's backwards, same size valves, just now the Inconel's, same spring and retainer specs, but larger intake and exhaust ports, with the matching intake. Just doesn't seem backwards to me.
We'll just have to see.

 

But it's also fair to say that there's no reason it can't be improved on.
There's nothing wrong with Hubie's design/specs, it works well, it always has, hell it's been the standard for years, but even he experimented and changed things later on, I just wanted to see what something slightly different will do, and I guess I will, as anyone who was around earlier can attest, I've never been afraid to try different solutions.
I guess I'll know in a month or so.

 

Clutch is due next weekend, so reassembly can finally start.
But in the meantime got one more project done:
Rear Seat Delete and new rear Floor Pans.
Started with a 24"x48" piece of cold rolled 18ga steel, normally I'd use aluminum or something thinner to cut weight, but I had decided to move the Bottle and W/M tank inside the cabin so the pans had to have some strength to them. Made some cardboard templates and got out the air shears, a few cuts, some grinding, a bunch of measuring and a little paint later and this is what I ended up with:
Drivers Side.



Pass Side, w/ rivet nuts for Bottle brackets.



Then just a little unbacked automotive carpet and some edge trim.



Added a little plastic fiber foam for support.



And installed.





Harnesses fit around the bottle perfectly.

 

Those are for the RWD IRS conversion....


I'll turn it in to a AWD Twini...