Most liked posts in thread: Updating the Vtec Pup

This summer we drove to Aspen for the Mini Meet East Meets West event and Don had overheating problems all the way there and wound up having the car towed home - I think it has a blown headgasket tho it's not showing any of the usual symptoms on the plugs or in the oil. By the time we got to Aspen it was using a quart of water every 30 miles or so.

Faced with the possibility of having to pull the engine and not wanting to tie up my lift he made the executive decision to buy one for his garage. He bought a MaxJax - there are two versions, one that you set the height by inserting a pin in a hole - that one only has two height positions. The other one has automatic safeties and 7 positions - that's the one he bought.

It was delivered about a month ago and he assembled and bolted it down, put the Pup on the lift and raised it up - and there it sat - stuck. He had forgotten to grease the slides, so today we managed to lift it to the highest position and grease the slides on the lower section, then with some judicious use of a crowbar managed to get it down again, so he could grease the upper parts. That done we ran it up and down till it finally would run the full way without sticking - job done and nothing broken and no one hurt!

Next up, pull the head. But his wife just had knee surgery and with the holidays coming it may not happen till next year.....

 

Thanks guys!

Today was a pretty good day in the shop....last night after getting the gearsets all installed I was unhappy cause the reverse idler gear seemed to rub on the first gear.

So first thing this morning I took the gears back out of the trans case, and inserted just the main gear and the reverse idler - it did not drag. Hmmm...….so next I tried putting all the gears and shifter forks in - still no drag? So I went ahead and assembled the rest of the gearbox. Everything went together fine this time and once it was all in we bolted the two halves together. All that was left was to install the release bearing, detents and a few other bitsa and it was ready to be put on the engine.



We pulled the engine out of the engine stand and set it on a footstool so we could install the flywheel and clutch assembly. Once the flywheel was bolted up and torques then we installed the clutch. The clutch kit Don got not only came with a clutch alignment tool but a new pilot bearing, release bearing and disc and pressure plate. The new disc was slightly larger than the old one too.



Once that was done we manhandled the transmission back onto the engine and bolted her up. Next we fit the subframe onto the motor mounts so I could start figuring out how to build the new engine steady. That's where we left it tonight......




Later tonight I'll cut the old brackets off the subframe so I can start engineering the new ones.

 

Another big day on the Pup.

We started with the subframe, we had painted it yesterday and left it outside in the 100* temps to bake, which it did! Today we installed it back on the engine and I took one final pic to show the modifications I've done to it.



Next we installed the suspension - which is fairly fiddly in that like a race car it uses heim joints on four points on each side, those are held in with shoulder bolts and spacers and some of the suspension angles make them tough to fit, but in the end we got them all done.





Then we installed as many ancillaries as we could, then took it off the stands and hung it in the engine hoist to move over to the car up on the lift. Then things got a little slow - our plan was to set it on a couple of furniture movers and roll it under the car, then lift it up into place with the hoist, but the legs of the engine hoist wouldn't clear the dollys, so we spent an hour cribbing it up til we could roll the hoist under it, then slowly work it up into place, moving the wire harness, hoses and other bits out of the way as we went. But, tonight - it's in the car!


We had one small setback, Don accidentally broke one of the custom MiniTec spec SS brake hoses that go to the calipers, but I may have figured out a work around..... otherwise we may be down for a while waiting for them to get around to sending us one - especially on a holiday week. Still lots to do but our goal is to drive it tomorrow.

 

Update - don't know what happened to my vids? They were linked from YouTube.

Anyway, the engine was moving around a lot more than it should and once I sat and studied on it I figured out why. The main motor mounts are up high on the engine, and so are the engine steadies I put in - so while the top was nicely controlled the bottom was free to swing away, and take the shift lever with it. So, I engineered yet another steady to go from the bottom of the car to just the other side of the shifter - that stopped it from moving and did not add any NVH. now the car drives beautifully, but quietly - at least as quiet an a Mini can - they were always a cheapy made little throw away car and have little to no noise insulation. And even tho this one was dynamatted top to bottom, there's still plenty of engine noise, wind noise, tire roar etc. But compared to what it was, it's as quiet as a Honda now!

 

Today was transmission day...…

Taking it apart was the work of a couple of hours, finding all the bits that had to come apart in order to separate the case halves, then once I got the cases apart, then it was time to figure out how to get the gearsets out of the case.



At one point it all just came apart and I had both gearsets lying on the bench.



Next the final drive came out.....one interesting bit of knowledge - the bolts that hold the gear to the hub are left hand thread! I only figured it out after breaking two 3/8" drive sockets.



Getting the final drive on was pretty straightforward, then we had to disassemble the mainshaft and reassemble all the gears onto the new mainshaft. That was the easy part!

Don spent a couple of hours thoroughly cleaning the cases and we started putting it back together.


The mainshart, all three shifter and the layshaft all come out of the case at one time - which means they all go back in at one time too! Trying to get everything juggled into it's respective place all together was NOT fun, but I did finally get it all slid into place.



However, I'm not happy with the reverse gear, it seems to ride on the 1st gear, so we stopped for the day so I can give it some more thought.

 

Today I worked on getting a second engine steady engineered, I think the one would suffice but if one is good, two is better.



The big problem was where to locate it on the engine, since I had one at the transmission end I thought one at the opposite end of the engine and up near the head would be a good choice. I found a 10mm bolt that was only used to support the end of the intake manifold but it was tight, very little room to locate a bracket, so this is what I made....and where it goes.





Once that was done it was just a matter of shortening the double ended steady and rewelding it in the right orientation, then making and welding a bracket on the frame to receive the other end and we're done.

Don is cleaning and repainting the subframe this afternoon, so tomorrow if the paint is dry we'll put it all back together and back in the car. Finger's crossed it will all fit OK.

 

Looks like my workaround on the brakes will work! Don has some banjo bolt adaptors to allow a slight angle for the hose as it comes off the caliper, this gives clearance for the suspension members - they only seem to come with a male end, the special hoses he has are regular looking Mini Stainless front brake hoses, but have a female end grafted on as they normally come with a male end - that won't fit the male end coming out of the banjo fitting.





My workaround was to simply put a female/female union between the two male ends - worked perfectly and allows him to use a stock Mini SS brake hose - something he can even get in the US. and not have to wait for MiniTech to make him up some replacements. Then it was just a matter of adjusting the angle of the hose to make sure there was no interference at full lock either direction and at both ends of the suspension travel.
Result! as Edd Chinar would say...…..

 

Glad you enjoyed it. so far he's very happy with it, but we are going to change out the steady bushings from rubber to poly and see what that does for the engine motion, then we'll see if it increases the NVH beyond what we're after. If it does we'll go back to rubber and I'll engineer up another steady to help control the engine movement.

 

We don't know for sure, could be a cracked head or block or something.....won't know for sure till we tear it down. this reliable Honda motor has 170K on it so far.

 

First start!




First start!

Still have a fluid leak on the front brakes - not at the new line, although I did have to swap that too as the other one leaked at the subframe fitting - don't know WHAT was up with that but changing the line fixed that leak. Got the clutch bled out no problem, rear brakes bled out no problem. Just got to get this pesky leak in the fronts fixed, it's leaking at the T fitting that goes to the left and right front calipers. Unfortunately it's buried under the intake manifold......gonna be a bitch kitty to get at now....

I'm chuffed that it started on the first turn of the key, clutch works, gears shift smoothly, all the instruments work (except the speedo - he didn't look at it) and there was no noticeable vibration. That's not to say it's cured, but I'm convinced it's going to be leaps and bounds better than it was. Only took 10 years for him to let me fix it for him.....

 

Thanks Dave, back atcha!

You too, MCS02!

 

Don is not a mechanic, so I've been doing most of the wrenching on the Pup since it was new and we have changed a few things - it got a new radiator as the one MiniTec supplied wasn't quite up to the job, it also got some new and updated control arms when both of them bent - MiniTec supplied those at no charge. The stock Honda cast iron exhaust manifold cracked so we bought a set of stainless headers on Ebay for a ridiculously cheap $50 and I modified them to fit the Mini - this was no small task as I had to cut 5/8" out of the pipes right at the flange plate and then weld them back on - but the results were worth it as the car no longer has exhaust stink in the cab when you drove. I also reset the alignment as it wore out the first set of tires in less than 5K miles. Now they go about 12-15K before they're done.

So, out with all the fluids then to figure out how to get the engine/subframe out. It all looked pretty straightforward, but man there was a lot of wiring and funny little hoses buried behind and below the intake. But like any car, once you take enough stuff off it WILL come out.

 

Once we split the engine/trans out of the subframe, I knew exactly how to fix the vibration problems, first I needed to remove the broken sheet metal webbing/stiffener off the back of the subframe and replace it with a solid bar - this will accomplish two things - get rid of having to feed all the wires, cables and hoses thru the webbing - a complete PITA - and also it will provide a base to build a better engine steady.

 

So while Don cleaned parts I took a cutting wheel to the subframe and removed the webbing across the back....the subframe sprung apart about 1/4" when I did this, but it was easy to pull it back with my come along. Then I cut and shaped a 1" thick walled square tube to fit between the spring perches, pulled it back into shape and welded her up. Just to make sure we mounted it back in the car and it fit perfectly.

Since we have the engine out and the trans split off, engineering the engine steady will have to wait till it's all back in the subframe.

In the meantime we mounted the engine in the engine stand so we could change out the front and rear crank seals. while we're in there, it got a new cam belt, water pump and belt tensioner. We had to pull the valve cover and oil pan to change the seals so this gave us a chance to see how it looked - it's surprisingly clean - I guess regular oil changes do help! Of course modern fuel injected engines just don't produce the sludge and carbon like our old carburetted classics do.

 

So, next up - the engine work. On top of the new cam belt water pump and seals, we also decided to adjust the valves and replace the plugs...I was pleasantly surprised to see how clean it is inside as the engine now has about 170K on it.

 

Next, the oil pan went back on with it's new neoprene o-ring gasket, then we flipped the motor back over to install the cam belt and tensioner. Once done we put the lower front cover on then the front crank pulley. Once that was done we checked the valve clearances and buttoned up the valve cover. Next the new thermostat and then it was pretty much done. Don is mostly reinstalling ancillary bits now. Tomorrow we'll tackle the transmission...….which was the whole reason for the teardown!

 

Today is finish day, Don got called away early yesterday and as I'm letting him do all the electrical ( he took it apart and took notes and pics of what went where) we're almost ready to button it up. Still to do, tidy up some loose wires with zip ties, install the downpipe and new flex joint in the exhaust, while he's doing that I'll install the intake (as I took it off and took no notes or pics of where anything went ) then all we'll have left is to fill the coolant, oil and fill and bleed the brakes - oh and re-install the coilovers. Then, turn the key and see if he lets the smoke out or if it will run!

More this afternoon.

 

Soooo close.

Don got called away to a family emergency so I carried on best I could. I got everything done except installing the A/C compressor, shocks and bleeding the brakes and clutch.



I took a pic of the mess of pipes, hoses, wires and what have you under the intake manifold, once you get the manifold in place and tightened down there's no room to get your hands in there to hook stuff up again. You think an A series in a Mini is tight! I only drew blood a couple of times....





Tomorrow I have to work so it will be Wed before I get back to it.

 

The only R53's I've seen that were that light were race cars, most are 2500-2600lbs, and unless modified it was 169 at the crank, so more like 135-140 at the wheels.....unless modified.

This car is about 1450 wet (gas and other liquids) and it's supposed to be 135hp at the crank. Compared to the original 33 hp 850 that came in it, it's a rocket ship!

Oh, and it has A/C!