Most liked posts in thread: Rally Mini Cooper

So the block/crank are different?

 

I tried to upload to the gallery but my photos were to big.

 

Yes! fame!

 

Next year is the plan. First I need to find out the spec of a JCW Cooper so I can build the Mini to that spec.

 

The Swift I rented out for a rally and gained some much needed cash to buy the correct roll cage tubing. The Mini is now in the shop totally stripped out of the black stuff and wires not needed. That came to a fairly heavy bag of junk which is all good. The engine and transmission are now out resting in the shed at my house ready to be stripped down. As mentioned before I'm going to have to scale back on the planned modifications as I heard everyone will be checking the car over to spot everything not original which sucks as I was looking forward to a extra few tweaks. One thing I hope to go un-noticed is the Suzuki Swift blower and F-150 heater matrix in place of the original heater unit. The Suzuki weighs about a 1/3 of the Mini uint. This week I'm going to drill out some brackets and remove the steering lock. Another interesting thing is the Midland box is doing really well. I changed the oil for Royal purple, removed the iron filings and yesterday after 3000miles of heavy duty driving the drain plug was clean. I pretty sure the Midland box will be fine once I've rebuilt it. Photos I'm going to post soon.

 

They sure do! just to note I used a 1/4" socket to remove the bolts of the clutch pressure plate as they were the torx type. Plate and disc are going to be rebuilt by the company I've used for 10 years.

 

Been shopping! New clutch disc and pressure plate and flywheel. Complete set of wear out items for the engine/gearbox such as seals,gaskets,oil pump etc from E-Mini parts. Gripper LSD from England plus 5:1 final drive and R56 trailing arms from CA. Going to be busy next visit to CR . next month I hope for stuff from Jan

 

Finally got off my lazy arse to post some photo's in my gallery

 

Finally the roll cage tube has arrived. Meanwhile I've been removing some more weight from the interior. This weekend is Mini on Saturday and break up the Suzuki on Sunday.

 

There has been a few disasters as the tube bender does bend the roll cage tube, plus they set the right wheel arch on fire due to they did not know there was a plastic liner, so that was toast as was the wheel arch. Meanwhile I stripped down the Midlands gearbox to a mint example with no wear! Amazing! I was chatting with Way at Way Motors who seems very willing to help my project. Most likely I'll go with the NS1 cam and their ECU tune.

 

I found a tube bender who managed to bend the tubing to my cardboard MC interior template. The tubing was dropped off at the shop with the hope they will be able to make me a nice FIA spec cage while I'm back in the US. Now I have the R56 trailing arms, clutch ready to take on my next visit. My returning visits now contain Suzuki Swift parts! I'm waiting for the Grpper LSD/5:1 final drive then when I return I can start to put all the stuff back in the car. I'm about 6 weeks behind but I hope I can catch up over the next few months. I'll post some photos of the cage when I return on Dec 9th.

Meanwhile a rich kid down in Costa Rica bought a new Countryman ($55,000) with the view to rally it. I figure the car will cost around $95,000 to finish. mmmmmmm rich bastard as I'm selling everything just build my car.

 

Super happy the cage is going in!

 

Look what came today! with the Helix lateral arms on their way.