After seeing the cart photo, I immediately had the vision of Nate's motor in various exotic locales, like when people were stealing garden gnomes and sending pics of the gnome in far-away locations to the original owner. I wonder where Nate's motor will turn up next?
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
Man Nathan, your MINI was in worse shape than I thought it was. Lucky to have not spun a bearing & thrown a rod. You got to Chad in the nick of time.
Now I really want to see what the machine shop says, I'm thinking your theory of out-of-round cylinders is right. Off the top of my head thats the only thing I would think would cause the ring gaps to progress to lining up over time. As far as the bearings, you know what they say, "Timing is Everything!". LOL, I recognize that parts rack.
Forgive the ignorance but I have an honest question: If the cylinders are out of round can they be honed back to round and sleeved or over-bored like I've seen with older American iron block engines?
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.
Hats off Nathan for taking a negative for you and making it a positive for us with this thread, thanks!
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.
Thorough & Methodical may even be an undersatement when it comes to Chads work, hell that's what he should name his kids. :lol:
Guys, we're going to need to come up with a new signature for Nate Somehow "Slightly modded..." doesn't do it justice any more. Any suggestions? How about, "Complete transplant recipient, 2012..."