Engine Drivetrain 1st Gen Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: GNAT - The Resurrection

Look ma...No Engine!





Sure does sit funny now....

 

Engine on a cart...

 

It's this banter that keeps me smiling as we dig deeper and deeper into my little hell.

 

Latest news...

The engine has been torn down. There are some funky things going on in there. Cylinder 4 has the ring gaps lined up. Cylinders 3, 2 and 1 ring gaps are almost lined up too. There is no consistency as to the direction of the gap either. The block is headed to a machine shop to be totally checked over. All bores will be measured and checked for roundness.

The rode bearing on #4 is about dead, damn close to being a spun bearing



Lots of bits and pieces all nicely laid out



From the top...



Not looking real pretty for the head here...Cyl 2 valves are ugly looking, lots of soot on there

 

Depends on how out of round they are. There is not a lot of extra meat between the cylinders on the 1st gen MINI blocks.

MINI does offer a +0.25mm piston and there are aftermarket ones available in larger sizes.

Once the machine shop has a chance to measure everything I'll share the results along with the plans for moving forward depending on their findings.

 

In the vein of whats done is done and not to dwell on the negatives there have been other issues that Chad has noticed while pulling and breaking down the engine.

These are just the facts, please do not judge what may or may not have happened in the past.

The TSW engine mount has a few issues. The rubber in the dogbone has shifted. Now, you have to keep in mind that the unit I have is a pre-production prototype that saw a few revisions while in my car. What was learned from my use was put into production models. We will most likely replace it with a new TSW branded engine mount. I cannot stress enough that mine is a one of and is not indicative of the production model.

There were some lose header bolts, a few had even gone on walkabout, probably can be found relaxing on the side of a nice road someplace.

Some of the hardware was mixed sizes. Like where a 10mm bolt was expected there was one with a 12mm head on it. Am I thrilled about this...no. Do I know how this came about...sort off. Lets just say some of the others that have worked on the engine did not lay out things as nicely on a shelf as Chad does.

These little issues are not the root cause of the main issue. Do they contribute? Possibly in some small way. Can I point to one event, one tune, or even one shop that is responsible? Not at all, this car has been in shops from California to Maryland, from Texas to now Michigan. Lots of opportunity for small errors that could be contributors to these issues.

I'm confident it is now in the hands of someone that will be through and methodical in both the tear down and rebuild. The fun part will be knowing I can trust the car to take me where I want to go again...

I've missed that trust for awhile now.