Minus 7 port turbo
Turbo Mini Forums

Comitted

Yeah i bet, do u know what a minus shell weighs? They are heavier than a lightened steel isnt it?

There isn’t much in it, I could just about lift/move my old minus on my own but couldn’t do it with the heritage shell.
Shane

oops

Edited by shane on 9th Dec, 2018.

Edited by shane on 9th Dec, 2018.

New face from Custom Minis.

I’m guessing your going to keep it removable ! You have inner wings etc now don’t you !! So lighter and loads more space

With the minus being in the region of 3” less in the lower body. How does the arch profile of a standard front end compare?
Shane

Edited by jonny f on 9th Dec, 2018.

No going back now.

I'm not sure who should be crowned the king of weight loss, either you or Simon ?

Phil.

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

are you aiming to be able to pick the front up like you can the back !?

Outside the box

Cracked on today, got everything stripped down, engine out etc.

Then I removed the last bits of the inner wings.

Tried a few times to get the frame to go in nicely, gave up and chopped a few sections out the bulkhead and now it’s sitting back where it needs to. I’m guessing it didn’t fit to great because it’s in a minus and it was also originally built for a single bolt bulkhead. I’m going to repaint the bulkhead anyway so it’s not much of a problem to rebuild a few bits.

On 10th Jan, 2019 jonny f said:

On 8th Jan, 2019 monsterob said:
are you aiming to be able to pick the front up like you can the back !?

I think if it had a bike motor it would potentially be possible. Not for me though haha.

Edited by monsterob on 10th Jan, 2019.

Outside the box

Almost makes it worth the trauma of having that guy drive your car.

In the 13's at last!.. Just

Jonny do you know the weight of your motor complete? Did you compare the weight saving of your head?

And what was your subframe compared to the ti one weight wise?

Bit more details on the subframe.

You can see here it was touching the bulkhead along the back to early. Rather than perhaps space it out on the lower mounts i felt it was best to get cutting. Will give more room for the downpipe and hopefully get it to the right place.





Hence getting busy with the grinder and powerfile...



Discovered then that the bracing mounts also touched a little to early so they got cut out to!
Hey presto, fitting back properly.




I've also managed to get some of the bulkhead prepped so i can paint it again.

Chased out any cracks or areas to repair. The body had a few panel seam lines that were quite deep so i've removed all of these to fill with GRP.





All these holes are going.







Managed to get the holes I cut in the bulkhead closed up. A quick run through of the process I use, not sure whats the best way but it seems to do well enough for me.

I make sure all edges keyed properly with 80 grit and there is no thick sections at the edges where the hole has been cut.

I use any old tape, parcel tape, gaffa tape, clear tape to create a base to lay the grp onto. This time it was gaffa tape and some card to give it some shape/support.

From the outside.
I've stuck the tape right up against the mounting tabs for the subframe.


On the inside I then put some tape down. The GRP won't stick to the tape so it makes removal painless. You can see the keyed edges here.


I always cut and measure the GRP matting before mixing up any resin so i get the maximum working time. With everything prepared and the resin mixed, using a brush i put some resin on the repair section and then start to layer up the matting. Putting resin on each layer and allowing a little time for it to absorb.


When the resin is absorbed it becomes quite workable and you can feather it out and into corners easily. I try to use as little resin as possible. Its stronger and obviously less weight.

This section has 5 layers, quite thick as its a repair and the subframe will be bolted to it.


All sections repaired from the inside.


From the outside, with some GRP filler around the edges it should look like nothing has be altered when painted.

Took a bit of the handbrake





ARB blade bolts





An interesting one, the frame saves 564g just by running different Ti tie bars.





A few I didn't weigh



Cylinder was all trimmed down etc


Here's the weight of the standard front end with most of the inner wings. Probably another 400g with the rest i cut off. Quite heavy at about 7.65kg.