Hello David, and welcome,

i fear you have been away from the mini scene too long as there are a good few 5 port cars with anyhting from 150 to 200 neddies ATW, add in 16 valves and it appears some come with quite a bit more .
these are of course turbo charged ,lol

regards carl

Carl - come -on, I'm talking no turbo and no nitrous.

If we throw a turbo into the equation it's possible to make enough TQ and HP to grenade everything on a mini, block, crank, rods gearbox etc. The last super boosted A Series I had anything to do with passed the 300 hp mark on the engine dyno. If we could re-enforce everything to hold together 450 hp should be on. I always thought it would be fun to race a de-stroked 1000 S at 850 odd cc and turbo it. This should leave it legal for the 1300 cc class at least as the rules stood last time I looked. I think about 130 at the wheels should be on so that would have been very competitive.

But if we want bragging numbers the 1986 2 liter (litre)drag race Mitsubishi Lancer I ported the head for and gave word by word instructions to the engine builder who was 550 miles away, on how to build the motor, made 1172 observed hp at the wheels on wrinckle wall drag slicks and a stinking hot and humid Florida summers day. At the track for the final round of the Import Winter Nationals in Palmdale, California and with Ryan Garcia driving, it shut down all the competition in grand style. In truth it was not so much a race as a demonstration of annihilation. Got my name on TV big time that day.

DV

Hi david, there are one or two mini owners that are sticking to NA and still running very serpectable power and times here in the uk, but the real quick minis are all turbocharged[its the future you know]
lol.

Take myself for instance,way back in late 98 i callud up a guy in the states who had the same name as you,coincidence?, i was looking for a one off nitrous cam for my 5 port as the 296 cam i was using was just not allowing the kind of power needed to go really quick,

The guy with the same name as you asked all kinds of questions about valve size, cc, exhaust,carburation and CR. and assured me that the cam he would spec out would do the business, i beleived him so sent off the relevent monies and info and i eventually received through a third party the camshaft i had egerly awaited,

having received said cam and installing it in my rebuild engine for the new 99 season i had real bad trouble with stand off, i called up the guy in the states who had the same name as you,who told me exactly where in the revs the stand off was occuring, i thought this was really clever of him as he wasn't even there at the dyno session,lol.

i took the advice of the man with the same name as you and made up some long inlet ram pipes, and hey presto stand of takes a vacation,

so i use said cam in engine for a few drag events with fantastic results and during the course of 1999 happen to bump into the man with the same name as you at Silverstone mini 40 ,

ring any bells,lol


carl

It seems to me that the real performance issue here is getting a gearbox to take the crushing torque output possible with a turbo. I have to admit my knowledge of current transmission tech is weak at best. What are the best possible choices for a tranny if I was to build a Turbo mini?? Some help please guys.
David Vizard

hi david ,
transmission wise ,heres what i have found at 248.7 bhp on a a plus box ...,some of it a bit contrary to popular opinion .

running through the drive train from the bottom up ,

the diff pin welds itself to the planet gears ,then rotates and digests the roll pin ,then the whole assembly rotates in the diff carrier...this all needs to be replaced with a 4 pin diff ,i use the one from min-its .

eg


or you can go to the expense of a quaife atb ,or a plate type from trannex or mini spares etc .

the helical gearbox strips the teeth from 3rd gear and the 1st motion gear ,and leaves you with a box of teeth in the bottom and 4 stripped gears ,note this is on falken treaded tyres ,not grippy yok's.

eg



solution ,i fitted the trannex clubman set ,straight cut ,with a 2.58 1st gear .first is a bit high for a 3.1:diff , but bearable .

now drop gears , i think i am the only one in the over 200 bhp elite lol using a helical gearset still , this has been fine and caused no problems ,this is quite contrary to accepted opinion ,generally from those who have no experience of running this sort of power.

here they are after a few years of abuse




clutches ..

well the normal thing to do used to be to run a grey cover or double grey ,and replace the thrust bearings every now and again due to the heavy loads put on the crank..
i then designed and built a twin spring verto clutch ,this is now used by most of the top bhp mini's,and seems to have solved the thrusts problem ,you may have read of them under the name 'rts' clutch ,egotistically standing for 'robert twin spring '(embarrised icon here! )
some have made thier own ,and some have asked me to make them ,both the fastest rd mini (12.5s 120 mph 1/4 mile nic rizzardini) and the most powerfull a series(16v,310 bhp john kimmens)...run my own bespoke clutches .so i think they are a proven solution .


lastly ,the bearing in the primary gear ,i run the floating bush ,and this HAS got well hot in the gear ,showing a sublte pinkish tinge and a few stripes ... i would say this is handling a fair bit more than its design spec !

generally 3rd gear is the gear that breaks ,i think i may have been a little easier on my box than those running relly grippy yokohamas ,and lsd diffs, i run a best of 2.32 60 ft and .767 g in 2nd gear on 23 lbs of boost ,they car is still wheelspinning at 70 mph on a grippy avon park track ,as data logged .

those with lsd 's etc can run anywhere from 1.95 to 2.2 60 fts ,which knocks a fair bit more off the overall time .

regards
robert

thanks lee ... i thought i was talking to myself lol.

Realworld experiences are always worthy.

hi david , its robert ( bob hattons mate ?) .we spoke on go fast news about my fiat 16v head conversion on the a series.