Most liked posts in thread: Rally Mini Cooper

sure be my guest! should be fun! haha At least my version of the wing is strong to hold the heavy trash bags. window sticker should read "eats trash for breakfast!"

 

Finally something interesting to write about! I was a little nervous about this build as I was not sure if the Peugeot gear set would work in the Midlands casing and selector forks. Friday night I carefully built up the gear set from a donor Mini gear set. What was interesting was the oil ways were completely blocked with oil sludge. It pays to swap the life time oil!
Saturday I got up at 6am and by 7:15 the box was out, then 45 minutes later the box apart! Seeing as I had to split the LSD to fit the new crown wheel I decided to inspect the internals. All the plates looked good so I rebuilt the LSD with the 4:2 final drive. Then I had the swap all the parts over from bad casing to the good one.
You can see the 2 tubes of gasket goo that didn’t stop the oil leaking out. Dropping in the gear set was routine as before. The only issue was the Peugeot input shaft has a C clip and not a nut. Unfortunately I did not have a washer to fit under the C clip. Lucky for me I found a washer the correct size. Phew!
As always putting the box back in takes longer but I was surprised the box mated to the engine with the first try! I fitted a new ball joint and radiator while I was at it. The radiator swap is easy as now I have the fan attached to the plastic surround. It did not help that most of the day it rained, the joys of working outside. Plus I bitten by the all the bugs flying around.
By around 4pm I was ready for the test drive, I was super excited because I’ve never had a straight cut gear set. I was wise to use a synchro set up instead of a dog engagement as shifting is like a normal box.
Once I got on the street I shift through the gears expecting a loud whine but was surprised to hear only a slight whine, 3rd was pretty loud so I should imagine from outside the whine could be heard. The spread of ratios was really nice making the weedy Cooper engine seem more powerful. This morning I was able to open up on the side road to work confirming the 90mph in 5th at 6000rpm …sweet! So there you have the first Midlands with a straight cut gear set. I hope it will last without regular rebuilds.

 

Well chaps I'm getting used to double checking parts before the weekends work. The Reigers came with a 10mm bottom bolt hole instead of 14mm. So Reiger sent another set overnight. Last night I went to fit the new bushes only to find the bush OD is 16mm and the spherical joint is 15mm.....ooops. Now the bushes are in the machine shop for a bit of turning on the lathe.

Gearbox box is working great! All R50's should have one. hahaha I do think the 90mph top speed might be a limiting factor but the plan is to fit 185/70 15 tyres for more ground clearance when I've worn these tyres out.

 

Last night I fitted the STI inserts. What surprised me was the Gravel spec inserts were a wee bit softer than the street inserts. I fitted them and didn't notice much difference this morning going to work. I might buy some stiffer springs for the fronts with a little more lift.

Loving the gearbox. I'd be interested to know the 0-60 time as 90mph comes up very fast.

Tomorrow the day I've been waiting arrives.....fitting the Reigers.

 

I ended up with the Red top 34R as they didn't have the Yellow top...delivered and fitted for $300! ouch..but saying the engine seems to run better now. Anyway I had to work Saturday and made use of Sunday to fit the King springs to the front struts, bleed the brakes and check everything. All seems well for the weekend. Rally meeting tonight.

 

The weekends fun photos ..The bad fuel is on the left.

 

hahaha actually they ran out of jet fuel once at the airport so all the planes had to fly to Panama to refuel.

I was thinking the other day that I had reached a limit of things to do on the Mini...now I'm fully engaged on finding out why it won't run...LOL

 

Baby is at the doctors! fingers crossed

 

Not much going off with the Mini these days. As you know in the Gen 1 section I've been working through the engine misfire problem which I hope will be solved this weekend. So currently the Mini is sitting rusting outside in the monsoon rain. Unlike the rain the rallies have dried up. At least if there are no more rallies I have a fun road car!

I'm sad to say I've sort lost interest in the Mini due to I'm so busy at work and the problem dragged on. Saying that once I'm behind the wheel...all will be forgotten!

 

I got a few more weeks last month to figure out the rear subframe. Basically, I cut up the Mini subframe and welded it to the front of the Subaru subframe so I have alignment bolting points. I don't really want to chop the Mini chassis around too much so apart from cutting the shock absorber top mount away and removing the rear section of the hatch floor everything seems to fit in place. The only real issue was the Subaru trailing arm mount which I fixed by welding the Mini mount to the Subaru. Now I have everything lined up I just need to weld it all up when I return next month. Hopefully, I can post some photos soon.

 

that's a baby monkey! not horse power but Monkey power! LOL

 

Wow! That was a very hot weekend and working outside does not make things any easier. The other problem is being Costa Rica it's not easy to get parts. Imagine I need some long 10mm bolts to mount the shifter. I couldn't find any so I had to weld 3 bolts together! Also I needed 90 angle hoses for the S oil heater exchanger which I'll have to get from the US. Anyway after many hours slaving over a hot Mini the office is taking shape. I have both hydraulic and cable hand brakes for 2 reasons. 1/ I need cable for the tech test(this is a daily driver) 2/ if I lose the brakes on a rally I still have a mechanical back up! Notice the rust? just a few days in the humid weather. I'm going to paint it soon.



The engine is done. I did the battery cut off and fire system pull recessed as in rallying we tend to go off into bushes etc so the last thing I need is a branch setting off the fire system. Also the scuttle grills now act as heat out vents for the engine.




I used the Helix short shifter , which makes the shift very nice.



This badge should give the other teams something to worry about..hahaha

 

The 2 weeks in the US was spent gathering the know how of how to fix various issues I had created by removing the ABS pump. That little bugger runs a ton of stuff! Anyway I got a Bentley Manual and a ton of help from Beaner and his tuning dude friend. Beaner sent me all the stuff I needed to hook up the ABS. Only problem was he has a DSC with bigger plug and mine is a basic ABS................but for once lady luck was in town. I contaced the dude I sold the ABS pump to, who is 30mins from work. He had a ABS pump with the plug and around 8" of cut off wires. So I swapped the DSC pump for that one which should be correct for my MC. So I return on Sunday to continue the fight to finish.

 

I got into Costa Rica a day early so I could have an extra day to work on the Mini. The good thing having the Suzuki rally car is I can recycle parts from it. I used the tank guard and mud flaps to make the rear under body protection. The rear damper mount is just waiting to be hit by a rock so I made a bracket to mount 1/8” mud flap material. Hopefully that should help save the delicate rear suspension.

 

Thanks Jbat. The main idea here was to show Mini folks that an average joe(chris) with a lot of passion can build a low cost race car. The proof of the build will of course be the results. MINI Motorsport are plugging the car so I can gain some support. Now the car is done I'm devoting my spare time looking for support. Good luck with your build.