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

With the season looming, and entries for the first couple of hillclimbs in, I thought I should dig the trailer out. I’d parked it in the back garden three years ago, and nature had apparently grown fond of it. Took some effort, but I got it out.

Jetwashed the green off it, quick coat of hammerite and it’s passable. I plan to upgrade at some point, but not a priority at the moment. New wheel bearings and lightboard this year to show willing.

Plan is to get the mini on the trailer and having had a clear out and re-arrange I can get in the garage. It will make for more effort if I want to use the mini, but it does package everything quite nicely.

Metro was at home, so got that mobile and switched the two over, lovely day for it.





Very nice to drive the turbo on the road again.

At the end of last year, you may recall a discussion about lightened minifins:
www.turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.php?p=vt&tid=620697

Well, as Shane had very kindly offered, how could I turn down such an opportunity? Got a couple of sets from Mini Spares, they only sell the “budget” imported ones, allegedly without any issues since 1998, so hopefully the old lining issues are a thing of the past.

Got them up to Shane (eventually, withstanding all the efforts of DPD’s finest “Reece” who took several attempts to get through the snow). Shane did a cracking job, kept me in the loop and we discussed various options once the fins were knocked off. There were some variances in castings, I’ll let Shane go into detail if anyone’s interested, but one of mine was NFG.

Having consulted the MOT manual and finding no reason why they wouldn’t affect road legality, we opted to emulate the previous versions we’d seen available, 12-off holes around the “face”. The end result is a rather lovely couple of pairs of drums weighing ~1.2kg each, saving 2.5kg per side against the current spacer drums (according to www.miniweights.co.uk, but I will weigh what comes off when I do the swap).

Saw these on Instagram, nice work and a decent weight saving.

Phil.

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

Look decent! Are you looking to compete this year?

With my first event only a few weeks away, I believe it’s the law to tinker with a working car?!

I’ve been trying to get some road miles in and the next niggling job reared its head. Fuel Gauge.

It’s never been reliable since I changed to the MPi tank but stopped working altogether last year. If I shorted out the sender wires with ignition on, it read full, so ordered a new sender. The old one was a little crusty and had seized..



Dad’s car had sprung a leak on the nearside front brake hose, seemed to be coming from the "bell" bit at the caliper end, appears to be an old design compared to the newer ones we had for another car. No idea what or how it failed, but the replacement sorted that issue.



The original idea of storing my car on trailer was good in theory but a ball ache in reality. I managed to re-arrange and squeeze it all in.





At the weekend I decided to see how much random bits and pieces weighed that I didn’t need in the car…



Along with 9.8kg of passenger seat, 22kg came out, and 3kg went back on (plus passenger seat for road use). Not a bad mornings work. There are several areas where I know there is unnecessary weight, but the car is not as presentable as I’d like to run no carpet, rear cards or no rear seat cover. When the time comes to paint something on the inside, I’ll do all the bits I’m not happy with and can drop the rest of the interior weight. As this puts me in another class, I might as well do the switch to polycarbonate windows, I have some on order with ACW, but there’s a bit of a backlog currently.

I know I’d said I wasn't planning to change classes till after this season, but I’d be on my own in 2a, whereas there is another turbo running in 8a. Not that it matters as I can compare my previous times and whatever class records I like. There’s no established times in 8a for any event, so all efforts this year will establish class records for next year.

Looks like I’m planning more events than the clubman championship will allow, but not enough variation for a full championship. So it’s just a year of getting used to the car again.

Looking very good!

I was very lucky enough to have shane work his magic on my drums also!
Great work and weight saving and in my opinion they look so much better with the fins knocked off!

On 11th Mar, 2021 e5tus said:
At the end of last year, you may recall a discussion about lightened minifins:
www.turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.php?p=vt&tid=620697

Well, as Shane had very kindly offered, how could I turn down such an opportunity? Got a couple of sets from Mini Spares, they only sell the “budget” imported ones, allegedly without any issues since 1998, so hopefully the old lining issues are a thing of the past.

Got them up to Shane (eventually, withstanding all the efforts of DPD’s finest “Reece” who took several attempts to get through the snow). Shane did a cracking job, kept me in the loop and we discussed various options once the fins were knocked off. There were some variances in castings, I’ll let Shane go into detail if anyone’s interested, but one of mine was NFG.

Having consulted the MOT manual and finding no reason why they wouldn’t affect road legality, we opted to emulate the previous versions we’d seen available, 12-off holes around the “face”. The end result is a rather lovely couple of pairs of drums weighing ~1.2kg each, saving 2.5kg per side against the current spacer drums (according to www.miniweights.co.uk, but I will weigh what comes off when I do the swap).

Since I dug my ignition map out the other day and realised it wasn’t finished, I’m hesitant to put too many miles on the car at higher boost before the map is fettled on the dyno.

Booked in to see Neil Slark again in a few weeks (a couple days before first event!), another turbo and an ex-mig are also hitting the rollers, I shall report back.

Hopefully better than the last trip in 2015 when slipping clutch stopped play.

Since back end of last year I’ve been collecting parts for the next stage on my car. Gathering the parts over a several months feels like less of a hit on the wallet. But mainly, we have got big works coming up on the house later in the year, so wanted to get a few bits squirreled away before the expenditure becomes second fiddle to some lavish tile choice for the kitchen!

The one advantage in having COVID over Christmas was lots of time on my hands so I clocked on and worked remotely. I booked some serious hours, which afforded me some treats..



As I’m making the switch to 10s, so need a new front brake setup. Reason for 13s at the time was the available set of MG Turbo brakes that came off the donor car, which seemed silly to send to the scrapyard.

Trawling a lot of the older threads and generally snooping at what others have done, I opted for the 4 pot alloy calipers from Mini Spares, they seem well put together and 1.7kg saving each over current setup, so I’m happy.



Gone for solid discs with the pair of grooves.



Also going to give the rear end an update with some added lightness too. Plan is to replace the entire assemblies and keep the existing setup for another car. This is where it got expensive quickly!



I plonked the alloy drums onto the backplates, but couldn’t leave it with the extra lip.





Came out nice I think.



Here it is being weighed for an early comparison



Which is a fair chunk against one of the old lumps we had kicking around in the shed. I am going to get final weight once brake lines and quadrants are fitted this week.

A fair chuck indeed!

Dazed and Confused....

Checking and rechecking everything with only 9 days before first event. Realised my fire extinguisher needed servicing, surely the label must be wrong… Apparently I bought it in 2016 and service was due 2018, it wasn’t even fitted until 2020!!

Been throwing together a box of spares for the season. Due to the Frankenstein nature, I like to have stock of all the non-standard mini items that are on the car. I figure EDIS, coilpack, leads and plugs along with spare junior timer connections, crank position sensor and various wires should get me out of most electrical issues.



Incidentally, I found two previous attempts at getting a coilpack resulted in “long neck” variants which don’t work with my leads, if anyone is using this style of lead and wants spare(s) coilpacks, let me know.

Got a set of spare drive shafts, starter, alternator and belt between the two cars too. Obviously, a selection of jubilee clamps, zip ties and tape are standard for some paddock bodgery! It’s been a few years since I had a successful season, so any reminders of must have parts please let me know.

The biggest threat to reliability will no doubt be the driver!

Great! Thanks for keeping this thread going. I’m enjoying seeing the progress.

Phil.

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

There's something about that trailing arm that is very aesthetically pleasing, keep up the good work.

Shane

pop a picture of the coil pack up. I bought a non gen one and my leads didnt fit either. Need to get some leads just so i know mine are new

On my dad’s car, we didn’t have enough room to use the Cinq fans as planned with the front mount radiator, although the rad has kept the temps down on the shakedown events we’ve done, when running stationary, it (obviously) creeps up. It wasn’t a problem last year, but with current COVID restrictions, you can’t leave vehicles at certain events in the paddock once called up or collected at the top paddock waiting to return down the hill, so the plan to push it till needed won’t fly. We found a spal unit that would nicely fit in the remaining space, hopefully that will keep the temps in check when stationary. So far so good, but one of those plastic fan mounts failed during fitting, so changed out for the long screw type.



Gave everything another spanner check and ran over the usual bits and pieces for the hundredth time. You can guarantee something stupid will raise its head in the paddock. Support vehicles are in separate area under the event COVID restrictions, so you only have what you can carry in the car to hand in the paddock.

Looking good and plenty roomy in the clubman, I would kill for space like that!



Cars are now fully ready for Wiscombe this weekend. The entry list looks healthy, with plenty of variety and several reserves which is nice to see for the organising clubs.





I’m off to Slarks tomorrow to finish the ignition map we abandoned in 2015. I’ll report back my underwhelming figures

Keep us posted. I’m enjoying this thread.

Phil.

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

Had an interesting day at Slarks today. The ex-mig that was apparently converted to a hillclimber has a lot of niggling issues, main one being that the terrible internal gear linkage doesn’t work and it would jump out of gear, if you could find one. Abandoned the attempts to get a run on the dyno for now.



Next up was my latest competition in the new class. A lovely 1293 turbo, running 14psi.



Scores on the doors: 125.8hp @ 5385 & 135lbs/ft @ 4174

Next up, me. Stole the map from the previous turbo as it works and was the result of a whole dyno session by Neil previously. Ran it up and fuel was a little on the lean side. Neil did a bit of magic with the drill and emery on the BCA and fuelling was good…



My figures?



128.4hp @5735 & 132lbs/ft @4492. Running at 12psi. Very happy with that. Perhaps enough fuel for a little more boost, something to consider when I run out of talent to improve times!

Had a bit of wheel spin on the rollers until the tyres warmed up, actually scrubbed some life back into them, lovely and sticky by the end of the session. A long old day and still plenty of prep work to kit the van out for the weekend. Time for a beer and engage smug mode for a little while!

Sounds good! Andy and John used a BCA needle with 20+psi of boost. I know each needle is unique and isn't one size fits all. From what I remember it gave them a safety margin

I'll throw the map here too, mainly so I can find it again if I need it. Laptop died during tuning on tuesday and had to rely on the numbers from a picture on my phone. I'd forgotten to flash the Megajolt like a complete tool.