Does no one tune classic minis anymore?

[ARHarh]

I got given a tidy 998 mk2 cooper in 1985. My mate had hit a curb rather hard and twisted the front sub-frame and destroyed the suspension on the front left. I was going to put a new sub-frame on it and use it, but someone offered me £200 for the engine so I sold the engine and some other bits and scrapped it. Had loads over the years, 3 Mk1's, 2 mk2's and 2 mk3's plus I broke about 10 for parts in the 80's

My 1960 MK1 modified 850 pushing 35bhp on the rollers. 22 years ago.

[Bungleaio]

Southam Mini metro center know their onions too. They set mine up a treat on the rollers.

MED in Leicester are still building engines and gearboxes too.

[rossb]

answer to OP question is that a good reason why people don't is that they are such a pain to work on unless you are a double jointed midget with very small and strong hands. I bought a 1293 turbo producing 159 bhp with 155 ibft torque based on a 78 shell - weighs about 520 kg - a few months ago.

edited - to remove loads of text moaning about jobs i hate doing on it - to confirmation that is a lot of fun to drive and now i have finished latest batch of jobs - i'm back in love with it

Edited by rossb on Wednesday 31st August 12:50

[Athboy501]

I have just built myself a modified mini for sprints and hillclimbs.

Its an MED engine and gearbox. 1380cc with a modified 7 port head with bigger valves. It's on Jenvey throttle bodies with an Omex ECU. The cam is by AC Dodd (SPR).

Straight cut 4 speed with a shorter final drive (car is geared for 100mph in 4th)

It's good for 125bhp and car has lots of other modifications for lightweighting and fully adjustable suspension (albeit still based on rubber cones).

[rufusruffcutt]

^Gorgeous

[rossb]

Athboy501 said:

I have just built myself a modified mini for sprints and hillclimbs.

yes that is lovely - can see your workshop facilities are pretty impressive too!

[Red9zero]

That is a thing of beauty. Good to see AC Dodd is still around. I had one of his needles in the SU on my old Mini.

[Randy Winkman]

For me, the whole point of Minis is that the parts are mostly interchangeable and you can buy "hopped up" replacement parts for pretty much anything. I hope people will keep modifying Minis, make-up their own ideal cars and not be scared to modify them. Most of the 5 million Minis that were made were just boring mainstream vehicles or cheesy special editions that could be used as the basis for some really cool, fast sporty cars. I hope people keep doing that and don't get hung up on the originality thing. That might be relevant for MK1s and MK2s but not for the rest. Just my view, of course.

[chrisxr2]

The forums are dead the Facebook pages are dead and blow me down with a feather if trying to find somewhere to get one remotely tuned isn't like finding a needle in a bloody haystack, got minw out the dry stored garage and it's flown through its MOT and we'll be back on the road tomorrow for what's left of the summer but I don't know anything about metro turbo engines and carb needles I really need some old guy to tune it by ear and help me out but even looking on the forums at the places that used to do classic minis they just do not exist anymore.

[Manxwilliams]

Try Steve Harris at Wilton, just outside Salisbury, top bloke , a mini legend.

[stevieturbo]

rossb said:

answer to OP question is that a good reason why people don't is that they are such a pain to work on unless you are a double jointed midget with very small and strong hands. I bought a 1293 turbo producing 159 bhp with 155 ibft torque based on a 78 shell - weighs about 520 kg - a few months ago.

edited - to remove loads of text moaning about jobs i hate doing on it - to confirmation that is a lot of fun to drive and now i have finished latest batch of jobs - i'm back in love with it

Edited by rossb on Wednesday 31st August 12:50

compared to many modern cars, old Mini's are very easy to work on ! So few parts, and relatively more room than most modern stuff where you need to dismantle everything to get at things.

[P5BNij]

Randy Winkman said:

For me, the whole point of Minis is that the parts are mostly interchangeable and you can buy "hopped up" replacement parts for pretty much anything. I hope people will keep modifying Minis, make-up their own ideal cars and not be scared to modify them. Most of the 5 million Minis that were made were just boring mainstream vehicles or cheesy special editions that could be used as the basis for some really cool, fast sporty cars. I hope people keep doing that and don't get hung up on the originality thing. That might be relevant for MK1s and MK2s but not for the rest. Just my view, of course.

Agree wholeheartedly, in the '70s and '80s most surviving Mk1s and 2s were seen as old bangers, with bolt on bits and body modifications galore, they were treated as cheap fun cars. These days the values and originality thing can get in the way, but I've already started changing a few things on the '68 Mk2 Cooper I bought last month. Nothing drastic yet but having already replaced the standard steel wheels with early '70s Mk3 Cosmics I'm going to remove these and fit wider Mk2 Cosmics and Wood & Picket arches. I've just fitted a Benelite grille and set of period Microcell fronts seats in and I'm very tempted to put a black vinyl roof on it over the Winter...







It definitely needs lowering a bit more and I want to cover up more of the painted metal areas of the interior with black vinyl or leather. Like so many other '60s Minis, the original hydrolastic suspension was ditched years ago and the commission plate that was fitted in the engine bay is long gone (this was a Mk2 thing, Mk1s don't have them), but it is in its original shell with the correct chassis number and engine and has documented history from new.

Edited by P5BNij on Saturday 3rd September 16:04

Edited by P5BNij on Saturday 3rd September 16:06

[rossb]

stevieturbo said:

compared to many modern cars, old Mini's are very easy to work on ! So few parts, and relatively more room than most modern stuff where you need to dismantle everything to get at things.

I think it depends how modified - you have to undo/dismantle a lot to do something simple like inlet/exhaust manifold gasket on this - access to some of the old imperial nuts is difficult to say the least

[stevieturbo]

rossb said:

I think it depends how modified - you have to undo/dismantle a lot to do something simple like inlet/exhaust manifold gasket on this - access to some of the old imperial nuts is difficult to say the least

If you build it to be awkward, then yes it can be. A little forward thinking makes a huge difference. ( so no idea what they're thinking on modern cars !! )

Even the OE turbo inlet manifold had the lower half slotted so you could just undo the nuts and it would lift out of place without having to fully remove the nuts. Which then made getting at the exhaust parts much easier. And as even the OE turbo inlet gasket could be considered a consumable in a lot of cases, I cut it into sections so I could easily replace just the blown section when needed.
Pretty sure I also slotted the stud holes for it too, so it could be removed and replaced with all parts in-situ

I recall one time even changing the head gasket in a similar fashion ! lol Pulled the studs, wedged the head up a little, removed old, slot in the new and away. The good Payen/OE gaskets back then always came off nice and clean.

[T70RPM]

I've had a lot; as a kid my second car was an 21 year old 970S, then 1275GT.
Left them for many years, then drove a bog standard 998 one....instantly hooked again, and I've been involved ever since.
Last one was Wolseley Hornet Shorty, which was totally nuts.
They are pretty expensive to modify, so my current one is a restored clubman (so someone else paid for that) and I'm doing a 7 Port 1310 for it with twin 40 DCOEs.
My other one is a mini based kit car, Stimson Scorcher.
Fact is, whenever I drive a mini, they are laugh out loud fun, and fully engaging, within the speed limit.
There isn't much like that now.
I can't ever see myself without one TBH.
They are such a great blank canvas.

Edited by T70RPM on Wednesday 7th September 13:43

[ChocolateFrog]

Mr Peel said:

I bought a 3-year-old Rover Cooper in 2001. Paid £4,250. Adjusted for inflation that's about £6.5k. You could pay twice that for a good one today.

My 96 SPI in BRG was £1300 in 2005.

Times a changing.

[pigface1000]

Would it not be cheaper to drop in a turbo unit than the kad 16v head?

[stevieturbo]

pigface1000 said:

Would it not be cheaper to drop in a turbo unit than the kad 16v head?

depends how you go about it, and also your goals. And if you need to abide by any rules if it is a racing scenario

But yes you can turbocharge on a budget if you can fab a lot yourself.

Some people prefer turbos, some prefer n/a though

[Dave L]

Jezza1983 said:

Hi
I'm thinking to build a track day mini with kad 16v.
Trawling the forums all the posts are from early internet days and very little these days.
Wondering if the humble mini still has a following or the kids have moved on?

I circled back to a mini after obviously my very first car being one. I wanted something as high spec as possible for track. Ended up with an R1 bike engined ground up build with as much carbon, titanium and alloy as possible, but still looks “normal”. Front wheel drive and 151bhp and 475kg. It’s a lot of fun.

[Stan the Bat]

Is Z cars still going ?