E5TUS - 2023: Some turbo tinkering & Hillclimbing
Turbo Mini Forums

The easiest weight saving.... plus its fun (its like when ya see ice in a puddle or a bucket... ya cant help but smash it all out)

Edited by D4VE on 3rd Mar, 2016.

After a plumbing emergency in the house on Friday I got out into the garage yesterday and got the engine out.



Celebrated with a load of beers, which have seriously affected today's productivity. Hopefully finalised the list of stuff I need to get it all back together with the new box and diff and soon there will be some proper progress.

Looks like the mini had few too many aswell n puked its engine out

Gearbox was finished on Saturday


Slapped the engine on it and gave it a fresh coat of paint (unfortunately out of red, so obviously lost some bhp)

]

The trusty royal mail have a couple of bits I need before I can throw it back in... But won't get back into the garage until Easter Monday so no real rush! Nice to have made some progress.

So Easter came and went without any sight of my LSD output shafts. They finally turned up this weekend, chucked them in and threw the engine back in it's hole.

Got round to doing a few odds 'n' sods whilst waiting for them, wrapped the exhaust manifold and jacketed the turbo, hopefully have a more robust intake than that flexible crap I always rip by using silicone hose and a joiner.

Got my wheels back with new rubber, unfortunately one of the wheels was damaged by a new guy at the tyre place, they've refurbed it, which was decent of them. Same guy also damaged one of my Dad's wheels too, needless to say he didn't last long.



Got hold of the output shafts at 1pm Saturday and was ready to start 3pm yesterday, pleased with the weekends work... then nothing.

Turned the ignition and fuel pump came to life, dash lit up and the AFR gauge did it's thing, got out to check for fuel leaks and when I got back in the car all was dead.

Battery is charged, got power to the starter, power to the ign switch and into the starter relay. That's my first port of call, but need to investigate further tonight. Had no patience for it last night so sulked instead whilst consulting the wiring diagram.

Very frustrating as I didn't cock about with anything electrical!

Stu

After a good 45mins checking the majority of the loom I actually thought about sticking the multimeter on the battery...

Measured fine, bugger all after cranking mind. Chucked the booster on it and no issue.

Bit embarrassing, should have started with the basics yesterday! This battery definitely went within the three year warranty, wondering if my cheap charger and the all or nothing use of the car s killing them.

Looking forward to taking it up the road. Dreaded MOT is next on the list!!

Sailed through the MOT last weekend, driving it was an experience mind.

Had to fight it constantly to keep it in a straight line, like nothing I've had before. It was clearly time to get the geometry setup by someone who knew what they were doing.

Cue a set of adjustable lower arms rather than the old fixed neg ones from many years ago, picking it up this afternoon, hoping that it's a bit better behaved.

Got a late entry for a sprint at Clay Pigeon this Sunday, bonus event for me on my planned entries this year so happy to get to try everything out. We'll see what the refreshed turbo, S/C box, LSD and tyres do to my times. Would like to get it back to Slark's soon for another session of mapping and with the new clutch setup and improved cooling hopefully get the boost up to a bar.

A bitter-sweet weekend, went to collect the mini on Saturday to see it turn up on a tow rope from it's test drive after the geometry was setup. To quote "This handles like a bag of shit, you couldn't pay me to take that up a hill. Don't compete tomorrow." So loaded it on the trailer and had 18 hours before the start of the event to tinker.

The reason for it being recovered was rectified simply enough, add some fuel to the dry tank... Then there was a misfire to attend to, cured after replacing the connector on the crank position sensor.

Moving on to the 'handling like a bag of shit' issue... Back end of last year I had: Std box, std diff, road tyres. Now I have S/C box, LSD, Soft compound tyres. I've not touched anything else, but it is truly awful to keep in the direction you want. Gave everything a damn good going over. Sounds silly, but until the bonnet was off and someone else was giving the steering wheel a wobble, I hadn't realised the huge amount of play between the subframe and the body. Everything was tight, but the old rubber has clearly got too much play in it. Odd that I never upgraded these over the years but until now it hasn't caused any grief. Looks like I've found the next weakest link in the chain of turbocharging a mini...

With the misfire sorted and the engine running well, I couldn't not take it out to see how bad it was. With the new adjustable bottom arms and geometry as setup as it could be given the floaty subframe, it handled better than last week. As I had paid for the event on Sunday I though "fuck it" I'll see what it'll do.

So it was a handful, but an enjoyable handful. The clubman gearset has completely changed what gears I use, will need to get used to the altered ratios. The diff has obviously improved the traction, again, much practice will be needed to get used to the new transmission. I swapped the Avon's over to my trusty old Dunlops that had been kept on a spare pair of my dads wheels, with the lack of steering, I was happy to have less grip and slide about for the day!

Rebuilt turbo spools up quicker, and is giving over 15psi on the previous bleed valve setting. I like it, no going back from here.

Did manage to get 1.43 seconds off my best time from last year, which was a very pleasant surprise given how badly it handled. I have great expectations for when the steering becomes positive!

Anyway, all the work was worthwhile because my mate took this shot: (even the scabby bonnet looks good)


Got a set of solid subframe mounts on order, hopefully get these in over the bank holiday, just in time for Llandow on the 7th May. Further earmarked improvements will be rose mounted track rod ends with spacers to bring the steering arms somewhere towards level.

Mental few weeks with work, but nice to see 60 active topics when I logged in!

Got the subframe solid mounts in, massive difference, just a final tweak on the geometry now the subframe is fixed and I think I’ll be there. Everything is starting to work together and it feels great. It must be good because I can’t stop driving it!

Had an issue with seeing the AFR gauge clearly when harnessed in, finally found an excuse to use the 3D printer at work…



Seems to do the job, if it makes the AFR visible this weekend then I’ll remake it in black.

Sprint at Llandow tomorrow, I'm looking forward to it. Had ignition problems last year and set a slow class record, time to bury that time…

Looking good!

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!

Solid front subframe mounts are about the first mod that should be done to any post 76 Mini. They are awful on rubber!

Have to agree with Tom; get a set of solid mounts on it

Agree with the comments above, such an improvement, and cheap upgrade too! No idea how it got missed all these years…

Whilst the rest of the UK seemingly had a heatwave on Saturday, it pissed down in Wales for the first two sessions. Car felt good and I was pleasantly surprised with the grip that the Avon ACB10’s offered the front, less said about the lack of grip on the rear, the better.

The sun did come out and it dried up for the timed runs in the afternoon. I was confident that I’d beaten last year’s time in the first timed session. Times got posted and I was disappointed to see only a half second improvement to the wet time, I let this get the best of me and went into the second timed session with an angry head on. Needless to say this resulted in an off! Carried too much speed through the chicane and bounced from the first curb to the second, it was already too late… Tried to turn into the spin and hang on but it whipped round the other way. I just braced for impact as I was heading backwards towards a wall, luckily it pulled right round and I stopped before I hit anything solid.

As it turns out, the timing system seemed to have had gremlins in the first timed session, plenty of grumbles around the paddock about the times. Reviewing the footage last night my entire video is 98seconds long and clearly over 5 seconds quicker than the recorded 103.39 time. I have the club looking into it, but expect that nothing will come out of the electronic timing results they are reviewing.

I feel better having seen the video, I knew it felt good and there’s still plenty of areas to improve on. If only I’d have taken the same approach for the last session I could have improved further, still, lesson learnt and I got away with it this time. Had it been a hill climb it would have been worse, I’ve never seen the level of runoff I had on the track at a hill. I’ll chalk this one up to experience and learn from it.

I absolutely need more grip on the rear, which is an expense I don’t currently have budget for. Also need to invest in a HANS device to enter events where we don’t have our own class. Between the tyres and HANS it’s a cost of more than the entries for the events I was hoping to do this year. Ouch!

Be cool to see the vids mate! :)

My build thread..

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

OK, I'll get the "best" lap and the cock-up attempt uploaded tonight for your enjoyment/amusement/advice/abuse.

Loton Park booked for July.

just been reading up on the safety equipment as i'm hoping to hillclimb the metro next year. Looks like the HANS device may be mandatory now? Another expense as you say but I suppose you can't put a real price on safety

What is this HANS all about then?

The Hans device, now pretty well mandatory in most forms of motorsport is the thing you may have seen in F1, attached to the helmet by straps at each side and sitting on the drivers shoulders. It is secured there by the safety harness over the shoulders and is to restrict head movement if an "event" occurs.

Hello all, I’ve been absent for a few years, apologies. I’ve been guilty of searching for stuff, but not logged in officially for ages. This forum is still my go-to resource for info. Felt I should make the effort to revive my thread as I feel guilty just browsing occasionally! Thank you to all those who are not as lazy as me and have kept threads alive and fresh topics too.

So, May 2016.. doesn’t that seem like a lifetime ago?! Start of a very busy year, followed by a bad year then a couple of years of neglect whilst life got in the way.

Will sort photos, find best way to host and try to play catch up. I had uploaded some videos to Facebook, I’ll dig out the links.

So… following from Llandow sprint in May 2016, I did nothing but travel with work until July.

First visit to Loton Park, great venue, cracking hill and a good weekend. Got ACB10’s for the rear too, that was the only change, huge improvement with some more grip at the back. We had a fantastic running group; Morgans, Ferraris and us, the top paddock collection area was a brilliant sight.



My fat ass did result in scoring one of the new rears with the arch (not tubbed – on the to-do list) so had to raise it up a little and stiffen the shock for the Sunday.




The paddock was awesome, lots of interesting stuff and friendly people. Bikes were running too, they are mad, proper respect for that insanity. Improved on Saturday’s time by 1.49 seconds on the Sunday so a decent weekend all round.

Good to see another still alive. The link doesn’t seem to work unfortunately?

Phil.

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

Edited by e5tus on 24th Nov, 2020.

Nice to see it up and running, decent season on the cards next year? I’m hours away from being running.