Bike Engined Minis
Turbo Mini Forums

Has anyone experienced one of these my friend is taking about doing one and saying it will blow my 1293 turbo mig to pieces, wondered if anyone has driven one or encountered one and wondered what they are like? Pros and Cons?

They don't like things like corners

Metro turbo weekend driver,Mini turbo in the making again!

it takes a lot of work to make them as good as a miglia.

But i would say it would certainly be close, neither would blow each other away though!

With Dangerous on this one.

I have had the misfortune to drive a "Z car"conversion and it handled very poorly. I had a really had time telling my friend that the car he'd spent £ks and many hours building was a piece of poo, didn't want to upset him.

Later we ended up on the same trackday and I let him out in my sorted (unfortunately) NA 1380 and he was about 1.5 seconds a lap quicker with less power and more weight!!!

He later had a drive in a mates 7 esq car and sold the damn thing ... luckly for a small profit.

Currently building up another Mini, thinking about a K head conversion after I showed him the build guide from SC.

Glad to see his taste has improved!!!

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

im with ian, you can get it to work and work well but at the end of the day its hard to make a mini go faster round a track.

I've seen the future and tbh its Pie

i followed that red one with the white panels round combe last year, i was most definately quicker round the corners, but couldnt get it on the straights

so i wound out the boost a little (i guess around 10/12psi)and pulled out to over take it, slowly i started to pull by, then i hit my limiter (105) and i was behind it again

Had a long chat with Ian Lockheart (? think thats right) about them. he has the gulf coloured one.

His is supposed to handle really well after he spent a lot of money sorting out the fundamentals. with the power to weight ratio (as can be seen on the 1/4mile) these things should be good.

still wouldnt of thought there would be much in it, not sure in which direction either.

a bike engine should be kept in/on a bike imho.
a mini should have a A series realy!imo
but i supose it would be interesting to drive a bike engined mini just to see what it would be like!!
a bit leary i would think lol

josh

My build thread..

http://www.turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.php?p=vt&tid=542985

yeah, i really dont like them myself, i have no interest in them-except for trying to beat them

Team Racing

Are these bike engined things the ones that come with a spare clutch in the kit when you buy them????

In a lightweight car they seem to hold up suprisingly well to be honest. My dad uses twin bike engines in an autograss car and has never had trouble with the clutches, even when doing 8000rpm starts.

would have bike power in my 7 if it wasn't for the fact that they are a pain on the road. Clutches are ok, just binary in operation in a car install

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

Going to say my car is going to do a lot of track work and go to le mans each year round the track one of my other friends said at combe the other year he wasnt impressed wiv the handling and also wouldnt think there road manners are very nice

The theory should work - in reality the rear suspension design is not correct for the application - this goes for all rear engined versions not just bikes. Utilising trailing arm suspension as a suspension set up to transfer power to driven wheels is the problem. In essence there is no "camber gain" when the car starts to turn. As the weight transfer is applied to the more loaded wheel - it tips this tyre onto its edge, reducing the contact patch and hence un-balancing the car, leading to very twitchy oversteerey driving style. Minis get away with trailing arms on the rear because you are not powering them - the front suspension in comparison on the humble mini is very sophisitcated un-equel length arms which keep the tyre contact patch on the road.

on the drag strip they should work but that depends how the cars are geared to maximise the weeny torque they have.

John

If Carling made Mini engines
it would probably be like this one!

has any one had any experiences with front bike engine conversions?

no longer a series, but still 1.3 turbo.

http://www.rabdunn.co.uk/

Quite right - if you build your own frame and use a multi link trailing arm rear suspension with camber gain geometry - then you can start on the long road to a car that actually handles, getting the basic geometry right will be a task in itself tuning the geometry and spring rates/roll bar rates/ damper settings is the long time consuming part.

If Carling made Mini engines
it would probably be like this one!

But lots of fun John .......

My kit will now turn inside anything else and hang on later and can go on the throttle earlier than anything else from the 7 stable (certainly that I have come across)...... All that didn't help though when you come over Avon Rise at Combe to find somebody else having a spectacular accident heading straight for you ........ those walls are tough ... LOL

Edited by RogerM on 14th Dec, 2006.

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

Roger -quite right - in a 7 style car the bike engines can be made to work as the suspension set up/weight distrubution and grip are perfect for the job.

I used to live near Combe a few years back and loved watching the novices fail in great fashion over the rise!

If Carling made Mini engines
it would probably be like this one!

my mates built the (i think?) first r1 engined striker, and quite simply the acceleration is sick, even at 30 in 6th, bury the throttle and your off. Hes in the process of putting an eaton supercharger on, nutter.

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

THe 4AGE has been referred to as a BDA with Metric fittings :)

Bugger off, I'm getting there.

Actually if you strip one and measure it you'll find a lot of the internals are actually imperial sizes.

Romour has it ford sold the BDA design to Toyota. It is such a loverly sounding engine and sounds loverly when bouncing off the hard cut at 8800 rpm in my car ... oh how I miss that car :(

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

http://madmatt.bigblog.com.au/data/1/8412/...60829123221.jpg

ooops,,, now how did this get here?

something i thought i`d just whip up while i had nothin to do one day, now i`m totally engrossed in the project & can`t stop till it`s done.

Excellent Power to weight ratio "WITH" front wheel drive

It is quite a way more forward in the build now than this pic represents & i will get some more pics of it sorted soon. but i`d have to say/ask--> that is there anything else out there with a better power to weight ratio & still front wheel drive? OH!!! but hang on, lets now add the hair dryer to this "thing", & then answer that question

Edited by MadMatt on 16th Dec, 2006.

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