Totally with you there. I'm on a tight schedule though, and 'tis the season to be flat @ss broke as well. Since I tend to take the subframe out about every six months anyway, I'll probably do that on the next go-around. No reason I can't take lots of pictures and some measurements, though. In the past, I've put pans together with just a few baffles. I've also built pans with swinging doors to trap the oil. Old Alfas had a bad problem with oil starvation, and in the end we gave up and went to a dry-sump system. Since the MINI has fewer problems, I'm betting a simple baffle setup would work fine. You know, it's the welding that's holding me back. I really do need a TIG welder.
I'm looking forward to hearing this part of the story... I'm thinking about something more agressive than stock in the next year or so. I'll add my two bits to the "While you are in there..." portion of this thread. Have you replaced the downpipes for the power steering fluid? Mine died after 4 years and a handful of track days (where I'm nowhere near the hot-shoe that you are). It might be worth the $60-80 to replace those since you have the subframe out where you can easily get ahold of them... It seems to be a very common place for leaks to appear.
Now this is the kind of weekend project I am most familiar with.........you know the ones that take more than the single weekend you planned on!
Ah, good idea. At the least I can inspect them and put the hoses on the "to do" list. I will definitely look them over carefully. Seriously, I have the subframe out a LOT.
Very nice project here. About your ported head, like someone once told me and everyone on the "sewing site", hand porting was the ONLY way to do it back then, and some very good mechanics did it very well :yesnod: Unfortunately, nobody believed him and he was trashed Keep us posted.
Opinion or fact? Mynes much prefer the NGK's over any plug. I think I'll take Jasons word for it, which I did :ihih: BTW I have a set of Brisk for sale, less than 2k on them.
It's my opinion that it's a fact. :lol: With the NGK's I had some trouble with part throttle modulation that for one reason or another disappeared and became smooth and resolute throttle modulation when I dropped in the Brisk plugs. Add in the Brisk appear to be more durable and their price premium appears to be money well spent, which is a rarity in automotive aftermarket! That said, the NGK's are much better than the Denso Iridiums, which have the same part throttle modulation problems as the NGK's but have terrible longevity. I prefer the stock plugs to the Denso's, FWIW.
Jiminni, wasn't your car misbehaving on the dyno with the Brisk? And after we changed it out, the power delivery was smoother and the power went up? Your MINI wasn't the only one that didn't 'like' the Brisk, i can name a couple of other occassions. It doesn't matter whether it's Brisk or NGK, we just put in stuff that performs... and based on our experience, we prefer the NGK Same thing hold true for gas: here in Kali, we prefer 76Stations first, then Shell V-power... in AZ where 76 is hard to find, we generally go with Shell. Chevron and Mobile we do not like. Hey when your car pings with stock timing map running Chevron, that's a fact we can't dispute... and a couple of days later the same car with Shell/76 stops pinging with the same mappings, there's nothing else to say... the Dyno tells the truth (well, some of them)!!! ***Disclaimer: None of the Mynes, its team members or affilliates have any monetary interest or stakes in Shell, 76 or NGK and their subsidiaries***
The stock cylinder head will go on the shelf, and a ported cylinder head will replace it. I ported the cylinder head myself. Now before you say, "dude, leave that to the pros," hear me out. My dad opened a car shop when I was about six years old, and I grew up there. I ported my first cylinder head about 20 year ago when I was 17. I'm certainly not a pro, but I am an accomplished engine builder and a mechanical engineer. I'll post a few pictures of the ported head later. Take it back off the shelf and send it to me. Wait, port it first and then send it to me. I'll send you mine in trade.. .. please?
And there is no way I would run 76 in my car as it is horrible compared to either Chevron or Shell. Location determines a lot now a days I guess. And I have been running the OEM JCW plugs for the last couple of years cause they have performed best with my tune and gas.
Dr.Mike said, "A few odds and ends, such as the upper radiator hose (for some reason it was rubbing on something and is nearly punctured)." The fan shroud on the radiator support has a right angle ridge that rubs the bottom of the hose. The hose expands and the engine pitches forward causing the hose to make contact on the tip of the ridge. I cut the point off the ridge and shape a concave section to provide clearance. After hands-on observation of how the oil behaves in the MINI crankcase and discussions with a former Chrysler failure analysis engineer, I believe there is an alternate solution to oil starvation under extreme load; and it’s not baffles.
Thanks for the info re: hose abrasion. I think this was the case on my car too. oil starvation countermeasures other than baffles with which I am familiar: dry sump, Accusump, oil pan spacer or deeper pan with longer oil pick-up tube (bad for ground clearance but a common mod for V8 small block engines).
Wow, I haven't heard Accusump mentioned in years! Had one in my 84 GTI in the passenger side footwell. That didn't bode to well with some people. The thought of a container of hot oil under pressure at their feet made them squeamish...wimps.
One of my Dad's racecars had an Accusump behind the driver. One cold morning at Road America the pressure relief valve popped open and sprayed fresh Redline all over the inside of the car. I spent hours cleaning up that mess in between Dad's practice and qualifying runs.
There are three main “non operator error†conditions that can lead to oiling problems in the Tritec motor, aeration, roping, and poor oil return. Depending on tolerance stacking, wear (cavitation or gerotor damage), and oil type, one or more of these conditions can contribute to failure. Deeper sumps, pan baffles, and overfilling won’t address those problems, and overfilling can exacerbate two of the conditions. Failures from those conditions don’t just occur in racing use; the effects can be cumulative and cause problems even on the street.
So, does the Tritec suffer from poor oil return? Also, it sounds like you could be advocating a device variously known as a "windage tray", a "stripper plate", and a "screen."
Christmas Eve update So, here's an update on the project, mostly with pictures (this time I'm sticking with centered pictures because they are easier to format, and I have a lot of pictures to share). Yesterday, I picked up the Lambda sensor gauge, and I suddenly knew how I would mount it to the steering column. You can see the two aluminum pieces I made early that morning. I painted the two pieces, then put everything together. I think it looks great. Here's a rear view of the gauge cluster. Here's the gauge cluster installed in the car. Here's my view through the steering wheel. I like to keep the steering column pushed down all the way. This shades the tach a bit, but I'm very used to that. As preventative maintenance, I replaced the rear main seal. A sliding hammer makes removing the seal a very easy task. This sliding hammer is massive overkill. I couldn't find the screw attachment for the small hammer. Here's the new seal in place. This is the Valeo single mass flywheel and clutch kit. Everything in the kit is high-quality. This is the kit installed on the engine. Turning to the gearbox, you can see that the clutch release lever pivot bushings are toast. These are easy to replace - once the old ones are broken out. Here are the new bushings installed in the transmission (the nice white pieces of nylon). One of the engine mount bolt hole threads went bad for some reason. One way to repair the thread is to run a tap through the hole, but this cuts all of the metal out of the way that is in the wrong place. A stronger repair is to use a "re-threader," which straightens out the threads and removes only the bare minimum of material. This is a Matco "re-threader" kit, with both Metric and SAE Inch tools. There are lots of other kits out there. After mounting the transmission (a miserable job to do alone), I noticed that something in the past had damaged the drivers side output shaft seal. Fortunately I had a new one in stock, so I replaced the seal. Here is the car with the transmission installed. On to the oil pan gasket... Here's a view up into the engine with the pan removed. Nothing strange to see here. No head, no pan, no exhaust. This is where I stopped for the day. The original head is on the left, and the newer ported head is on the right. Actually, I ported the head a few years ago, and it was installed on Scott Bibbee's MINI Cooper for several years. Man that car runs well with this head. Unfortunately, a spark plug thread was stripped out, so Scott sent the head to me and bought a Thumper head to replace it. I repaired the threads with a Timesert thread repair insert. The kit (with several preparation and installation tools) is expensive, but the results are fantastic. I blended the tip of the steel insert into the head so that there would not be a sharp steel place that could initiate preignition. Here's a shot of me porting the cylinder head. This is another shot of the porting work. I do all of the porting with carbide cutters, flapper wheels, sanding cones, and so on. Using a CMM, a CNC machine, and a CAM workstation (like Mastercam, for instance) to design and produce CNC-machined ports is something that I am capable of doing, but the cost in terms of both time and money, even if I had free access to some of the equipment, would be too high. Besides, I think hand-ported cylinder heads work extremely well. Here's a shot of the finished product looking down from the combustion chamber. I'm not a fan of mirror finished for three reasons. One, they take a LONG time to produce compared to the first 95% of the port work. Second, fine port finishes sometimes produce more flow, and sometimes they do not flow as well as a matte finish - and only the flow bench and the engine itself will show which one is better. I do not have a flow bench, so I opt for the easier finish. Besides the difference is always small. Finally, I. Just. Don't. Wanna. This is a close-up shot of the ports under the valve heads. Actually, this is a head that I ported earlier than the one I have now, but the ports are about the same. Here's a shot down an intake port. This is a stock intake port for comparison. Not too bad, but a bit rough-looking and somewhat restrictive. The left port is a stock intake port near the valve. Bleah! The right port is rough-ported a little. On the left is a rough-ported, unfinished exhaust port. On the right is the stock port. The first time I saw this, I wondered how in the heck the MINI makes the power it does with this lumpy casting in the way. OK, that's enough for one day, I guess!
Yes, almost a quart can be delayed on the head before spilling over the cam sprocket side. The block and a few other areas need to be addressed. A windage tray is one component of the systems approach needed.