Who would like...
Turbo Mini Forums

Who would like to fit a turbo engine for me? How much would you charge?

I have found a low mileage MG metro turbo lump. I am wondering whether to fit it in my 1992 SPi Cooper or whether to source an older mini and fit it in that.

My reason's for wanting to put it in the cooper are that it already has high pressure fuel hoses and a fuel return pipe. Also the brakes should be up to the job.

Any thoughts or offers?

Could be talking absolute shite here, but I don't think you can fit a metro turbo lump in a 1992 car, because there isn't a CAT so you won't pass the MOT.

You would need a custom injection system to run with a turbo.
Probably has been done, but not common enough for me to point you to someone who has already done it.

Better off with a pre 92 car or log book

It doesn't need a cat as it is done on the year of the block not the year of the car. I was concerned about this initially as well.

Also, there has been a few injection turbos. It's fairly easy to build a single point injection one as it performs the same basic task as a carb would. MPi is considerabley harder though because of the siamesed ports. There was a mini in miniworld about 1 1/2 ago that was running an Emerald fuel injection system with a T3 turbo.

The mini with emeralds M3d mapped ignition did not have very much power from what I understand, I belive only just above the 100bhp mark.

Team Racing

I could well be wrong, but I remember it having over 120bhp.

If it does only have 100 that's a lot of time and expense for very little gain. It would make far more sense to have a properly sorted stg3 1380 in there.

If you area talking about the green mini, it has a load of problems. And less power than a lot of carbed versions.

I spoke to Dave walker about it a couple of months ago and he's still not happy with the way it runs.

If I remember right, it is ok at full chat but starts to have lots of problems nearer idle.

Speak to the people who make the management systems.

None of them recommend going to injection at the moment.

Check out Turbo Dave's article on the subject. I think it's on www.manchesterminis.co.uk it should tell you enough to want to steer clear.

Although both Omex and MBE said they have new ECU's in the pipeline to hopefully be able to sort the problems. But they were still a long way off.

Too many projects!