My Mini Cooper Race Car
Discussion
Thought I might as well start a thread for my race car. Its an 02 Mini Cooper to be raced in the Scottish Mini Cooper Cup at Knockhill with guest rounds at Oulton Park (on the GP Circuit) and Croft.
Well, finally got up to Knockhill on Saturday and picked up my car from Craig at Minimax who'd been doing some work on it in the off season (and doing a remarkable job not getting pissed off at my barrage of phonecalls about when the suspension was going to be back from getting rebuilt
)
Here it is loaded up on the transporter:
Massive thanks to Gerry at Performance Tek ( www.performancetek.co.uk) for the loan of his transporter without which I'd have been seriously gubbed. Book it an MOT and try driving it home being the back up plan!
I went up to Knockhill with my mind set on renaming her and painting her white for this season. I've since found out its unlucky to rename cars so she'll be staying Keira and since theres a lot of all white cars entered this year, looks like I'll be coming up with a new paint job too.
So since I dont know what I'm painting it, I decided just to remove some of the graphics at the moment and focus on getting her MOT'd so I can use it on the roads for a laugh and to visit companies looking for sponsorship.
She's now parked up at HWS Motor Engineers in Dumbarton ( www.hwsmotorengineers.co.uk). Here's how she started the day:
I'm mighty impressed with my trusty hair drier. Must have been on for 4hrs solid and didnt hit the thermal cut off once!
Here's how she'll be for the next while.
Next on the cards:
- new tow straps front and rear
- firex bottle recharged
- new race seat since the one in it is out of date
- rebuild the spare rear calipers and fit them
- refit the AST suspension and set it up
- replace the windscreen for its MOT
- find some washer nozzles for its MOT
Well, finally got up to Knockhill on Saturday and picked up my car from Craig at Minimax who'd been doing some work on it in the off season (and doing a remarkable job not getting pissed off at my barrage of phonecalls about when the suspension was going to be back from getting rebuilt
)Here it is loaded up on the transporter:
Massive thanks to Gerry at Performance Tek ( www.performancetek.co.uk) for the loan of his transporter without which I'd have been seriously gubbed. Book it an MOT and try driving it home being the back up plan!
I went up to Knockhill with my mind set on renaming her and painting her white for this season. I've since found out its unlucky to rename cars so she'll be staying Keira and since theres a lot of all white cars entered this year, looks like I'll be coming up with a new paint job too.
So since I dont know what I'm painting it, I decided just to remove some of the graphics at the moment and focus on getting her MOT'd so I can use it on the roads for a laugh and to visit companies looking for sponsorship.
She's now parked up at HWS Motor Engineers in Dumbarton ( www.hwsmotorengineers.co.uk). Here's how she started the day:
I'm mighty impressed with my trusty hair drier. Must have been on for 4hrs solid and didnt hit the thermal cut off once!
Here's how she'll be for the next while.
Next on the cards:
- new tow straps front and rear
- firex bottle recharged
- new race seat since the one in it is out of date
- rebuild the spare rear calipers and fit them
- refit the AST suspension and set it up
- replace the windscreen for its MOT
- find some washer nozzles for its MOT
Edited by emicen on Sunday 21st February 21:03
Especially like the 'Renault Sport' steering wheel 
Graham said:
Does your championship spec that the seat has to be fia and in date? are you sure you need to change it?
I'm in the process of checking that at the moment. However, I need a spare seat for passenger rides and since an FIA compliant Sparco Sprint 5 is ~£150 and non-FIA seats arent much cheaper, probably might as well get one. (the immediacy would drop though!)madrob6 said:
Looks like fun. Is it me or is your front left tyre on the wrong way around?
3 out the 4 are on the wrong way round. They were just thrown on to get her down the road. It came with the ones fitted and another complete set. The tyres range from utterly f
ked to plenty of tread I'll need to find her best 4 for the MOT!
mattsayle said:
Leave it pink. sponsors will love it if it stands out and I know I would rather photograph the really colourfull one rather then the duller one!
I have been debating this. This is my mates supra, got to be honest, I'm rather tempted:
My crappy phone camera doesn't do the colour justice. It's very similar to the purple dairy milk foil used to be. We've christened it "koolaid-dildo purple"
Only a single pic from this weekend, my damn phone decided to delete all the other pics. Start of the day:
Got the front bumper off and had a look at what damage it was carrying from last season and attached the sidelight/indicator unit on the passenger side properly. Reconnected the sidelights and indicators (for some reason the plugs had been ripped off a couple of the wires). Got the number plate light working again, just need to figure out why the reverse light isnt working now. Got the mirror caps and wing off and painted them matt black, also replaced the rusty nuts and bolts on the wing with new ones. Repositioned the race seat to suit my size and prefered stance. Did a fluid check and stripped some un-used P-clips etc to shave some weight (probably about 20grams :lol: ).
So this week I need to buy my transponder, get some race fluid for the brakes, get the caliper seal kits ordered up to rebuild the new rear calipers before putting them on, get the suspension fitted, get some graphics sorted out before next week's local cruise (might as well use her on the road eh :lol: ) and get a proper alignment/corner-weight session done (which I can then use as datum for my own jigs to allow me to adjust the settings myself :wink: )
Got the front bumper off and had a look at what damage it was carrying from last season and attached the sidelight/indicator unit on the passenger side properly. Reconnected the sidelights and indicators (for some reason the plugs had been ripped off a couple of the wires). Got the number plate light working again, just need to figure out why the reverse light isnt working now. Got the mirror caps and wing off and painted them matt black, also replaced the rusty nuts and bolts on the wing with new ones. Repositioned the race seat to suit my size and prefered stance. Did a fluid check and stripped some un-used P-clips etc to shave some weight (probably about 20grams :lol: ).
So this week I need to buy my transponder, get some race fluid for the brakes, get the caliper seal kits ordered up to rebuild the new rear calipers before putting them on, get the suspension fitted, get some graphics sorted out before next week's local cruise (might as well use her on the road eh :lol: ) and get a proper alignment/corner-weight session done (which I can then use as datum for my own jigs to allow me to adjust the settings myself :wink: )
Short update. Had to take a trip up to Knockhill on Thursday to get some suspension bits. By coincidence, I'd got a call off them that morning saying my ARDS test was snowed off. That's balls thought I. Then I got up there:
Back to Glasgow with the suspension bits and got the AST gear fitted. Goodbye 4x4 ride height!
Few other small jobs completed, little bit of nail biting. Then on Friday, taxed and tested (^_^)
Had a shake down on some of my localtest tracks country roads to see how she faired. It's got some niggles I need to look at but overall all appears well.
Transponder is ordered, should be here in the next couple of days. Brake refurb kit is also here so I need to get the finger out and get them done to get them on this weekend.
Was fun taking it to the ski club on Saturday. Kids and adults alike going WTF?!
Back to Glasgow with the suspension bits and got the AST gear fitted. Goodbye 4x4 ride height!
Few other small jobs completed, little bit of nail biting. Then on Friday, taxed and tested (^_^)
Had a shake down on some of my local
Transponder is ordered, should be here in the next couple of days. Brake refurb kit is also here so I need to get the finger out and get them done to get them on this weekend.
Was fun taking it to the ski club on Saturday. Kids and adults alike going WTF?!
After the MOT, I had more stress and I am now qualified to panel beat small dents, replace bonnets, cataloy stuff and align panels. Lets just say, bonnet pins will be an OCD item for me from now on and bonnet through the windscreen at 80mph is exciting to say the least!
Anyways, here she is at Knockhill last Sunday on the first test day of the season for us.
Was my first time out on track in a car basically ever. Had a single seater experience at Knockhill when I was 18 (10 years ago), had 5 laps for my ARDS test 2 weeks ago and had an afternoon dicking about on an airfield in my mate's M5 last year, but outwith them, my last proper racing session was when I was 13 in karts!
So off we went without much of a clue what we should be doing. You get to the pits and take the car off the transporter and get signed on etc. Everyone else is beaving away checking this and that. I'd checked and changed the oil the night before and checked my water level, so gave them a cursory glance again and all was well. Checked I'd done the bonnet pins. Checked the wheel nuts. Checked the bonnet pins again. Checked and noted tyre pressures. Jumped in and off for my first session. Only got 3 laps but was ok just for sighting and getting a slight feel for the car.
Went out for 2 more session before lunch, about 15mins a piece and then we had another 3 sessions after lunch at 25mins a piece.
Was pretty happy with my performance in as much as I was consistent through every session with all my hot laps being within typically a 0.3s range and my times dropping consistently in each session.
I now need to go back to the guy that set up my suspension to get his suggestions for what I can do to cure a couple of handling issues and also to review the tyre wear with him to see if we were running optimum camber etc.
Mechanically she's going to get a nose to tail bolt check, all the bodywork finished (it looks ghetto just now but that was all we had time for to get it out on track), rear brake calipers are getting rebuilt to cure it's desire to brake sideways on a couple of corners, full fluid & filters refresh, new plugs, damn good clean to get all the gravel out from my couple of rallycross moments and wire in my timing transponder.
Anyways, here she is at Knockhill last Sunday on the first test day of the season for us.
Was my first time out on track in a car basically ever. Had a single seater experience at Knockhill when I was 18 (10 years ago), had 5 laps for my ARDS test 2 weeks ago and had an afternoon dicking about on an airfield in my mate's M5 last year, but outwith them, my last proper racing session was when I was 13 in karts!
So off we went without much of a clue what we should be doing. You get to the pits and take the car off the transporter and get signed on etc. Everyone else is beaving away checking this and that. I'd checked and changed the oil the night before and checked my water level, so gave them a cursory glance again and all was well. Checked I'd done the bonnet pins. Checked the wheel nuts. Checked the bonnet pins again. Checked and noted tyre pressures. Jumped in and off for my first session. Only got 3 laps but was ok just for sighting and getting a slight feel for the car.
Went out for 2 more session before lunch, about 15mins a piece and then we had another 3 sessions after lunch at 25mins a piece.
Was pretty happy with my performance in as much as I was consistent through every session with all my hot laps being within typically a 0.3s range and my times dropping consistently in each session.
I now need to go back to the guy that set up my suspension to get his suggestions for what I can do to cure a couple of handling issues and also to review the tyre wear with him to see if we were running optimum camber etc.
Mechanically she's going to get a nose to tail bolt check, all the bodywork finished (it looks ghetto just now but that was all we had time for to get it out on track), rear brake calipers are getting rebuilt to cure it's desire to brake sideways on a couple of corners, full fluid & filters refresh, new plugs, damn good clean to get all the gravel out from my couple of rallycross moments and wire in my timing transponder.
Hi all. This is my old car and I'm glad she has gone to a good home. Missing the stress of racing already.....
I just wanted to clarify that the pink livery was for a purpose. Have way through last year I lost a bet with the team boss and said I'd have the car pink but I wanted to do it properly and for a reason so we decided to raise money for Cancer Research UK...something very close to my heart unfortunately.
www.justgiving.com/pink-my-ride is my fundraising site and we did very well, receiving huge support from my friends, family and team mates.
We have some plans this year to keep it going away from the track as I'm taking a year out of racing for personal reasons.
The stars did have a significance, they represented every person my family know who have won, lost or are battling this dreadful disease.
Good luck with season mate and I'll be watching with interest to see how you go.
cp
I just wanted to clarify that the pink livery was for a purpose. Have way through last year I lost a bet with the team boss and said I'd have the car pink but I wanted to do it properly and for a reason so we decided to raise money for Cancer Research UK...something very close to my heart unfortunately.
www.justgiving.com/pink-my-ride is my fundraising site and we did very well, receiving huge support from my friends, family and team mates.
We have some plans this year to keep it going away from the track as I'm taking a year out of racing for personal reasons.
The stars did have a significance, they represented every person my family know who have won, lost or are battling this dreadful disease.
Good luck with season mate and I'll be watching with interest to see how you go.
cp
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