£500 to spend on modification, what should I do?
Discussion
Ok chaps, I've decided to treat myself to £500 on the mini for upgrades...now, I can't decide what to do so I thought i'd open it to the floor for ideas/debate.
to help you, here's a full spec of the car:
:7x13 supalites with bridgestone potenza 175/13/50 tyres
:1275cc metro engine with MG metro head & Kent 286 cam
:standard gearbox (in every way)
:LCB maniflow manifold with RC40 S/S exhaust
:stage one kit
:Corbeau FIA compliant (2002) buckets with Luke 6 point FIA (2003) compliant harnesses
:SPAX adjustable shocks
:mountney steering wheel
decent head unit, speakers, amp and sub
semi stripped out
any ideas?
to help you, here's a full spec of the car:
:7x13 supalites with bridgestone potenza 175/13/50 tyres
:1275cc metro engine with MG metro head & Kent 286 cam
:standard gearbox (in every way)
:LCB maniflow manifold with RC40 S/S exhaust
:stage one kit
:Corbeau FIA compliant (2002) buckets with Luke 6 point FIA (2003) compliant harnesses
:SPAX adjustable shocks
:mountney steering wheel
decent head unit, speakers, amp and sub
semi stripped out
any ideas?
As Chapman said, for more speed just add lightness.
CF front and bootlid and perspex windows - should save rather a lot of weight, though may compromise the structural rigidity...
I dont want this to sound trite as its really not supposed to be for £500 the best A-B time improvement you are going to see would be to spend the money on a 1st Lotus or similar days instruction...
CF front and bootlid and perspex windows - should save rather a lot of weight, though may compromise the structural rigidity...
I dont want this to sound trite as its really not supposed to be for £500 the best A-B time improvement you are going to see would be to spend the money on a 1st Lotus or similar days instruction...
It sounds that you have a reasonably powerful motor, i'd go for handing improvments. Personally i prefer 10s rather than 13s. Get the suspension set up and reduce that understeer, maybe fit adjustable tie rods, bottom arms and rear camber brackets. A roll cage improves the handling by stiffening it all up and handling improvements definately make a big difference to the driving experience.
haynes said:
It sounds that you have a reasonably powerful motor, i'd go for handing improvments. Personally i prefer 10s rather than 13s. Get the suspension set up and reduce that understeer, maybe fit adjustable tie rods, bottom arms and rear camber brackets. A roll cage improves the handling by stiffening it all up and handling improvements definately make a big difference to the driving experience.
Almost exactly what I would have said.
Definately go for Cooper 'S' brakes (7.5") and 5J x 10" wheels with 165/70 x 10 Yoko tyres.
Set the rear track to 1/8" toe-in and the rear camber to 0-1/2 degree negative.
Use really good brake pads, like the Carbon Metallic ones mini spares sell.
Make sure the castor on the front is between 2.72 and 3 degrees by using adjustable tie bars.
Remove whatever weight you can without compromising structural integrity (no flip front!!!). Do without a radio/stereo system (they're heavy).
Get the engine properly set up on a good rolling road.
That should spend a bit of your cash.
Peter
Look on Adtrader.co.uk for secondhand good stuff, as well as miniclassic.co.uk and loads of others. You can get the stuff cheap. 10" wheels are a must.
You need to get 10" wheels on there. BUT down spend a fortune on Cooper S brakes which need an expensive rebuild, like I did. Maybe you could run Wellers, before everyone starts shouting about KPO, look at the modern split rims.
Rear Anti-Roll bar is the best thing I have on my car. Someone with a bit of knowhow could make you one.
Huddersfield Mini Spares are the best for geometry stuff. Personally I bought all adjustable as it does vary from wheel to wheel. Also a good idea to grease/rebuild your suspension arms.
MWS for tyres (cheapest 032R's).
Go down to your scrapyard and start modifying your own heads/manifolds. It works.
My MG mini was a bit silly on 10" wheels, after I had tweaked it, I would consider putting a more long legged FD in.
Next time you do the clutch, put in a secondhand lightened flywheel (miniclassic?) and get that verto tractor clutch out of there.
Whilst they are cheap, get yourself a BMW mini supercharger and visit turbominis.co.uk.
The whole thing of miniing is doing it on the cheap.
I have a 66 Mk1 which I bought restored on here for £1500. Perfect. I then did a dry suspension swap (££££££ OUCH!) and whammed in an MG Metro engine. Put some S brakes, etc, etc, rollcage, took out the interior. Have my Bini supercharger and am now going for an engine build in my shed. (£££££££JEEZ!) Hopefully will get into club rallying and doing a bit of hillclimbing.
I could waffle about bollocks all night, but time is ticking. Get your suspension sorted and then start buying bits here and there for a fresh engine rebuild. As an old metro engine is likely to go bang (like mine).
You need to get 10" wheels on there. BUT down spend a fortune on Cooper S brakes which need an expensive rebuild, like I did. Maybe you could run Wellers, before everyone starts shouting about KPO, look at the modern split rims.
Rear Anti-Roll bar is the best thing I have on my car. Someone with a bit of knowhow could make you one.
Huddersfield Mini Spares are the best for geometry stuff. Personally I bought all adjustable as it does vary from wheel to wheel. Also a good idea to grease/rebuild your suspension arms.
MWS for tyres (cheapest 032R's).
Go down to your scrapyard and start modifying your own heads/manifolds. It works.
My MG mini was a bit silly on 10" wheels, after I had tweaked it, I would consider putting a more long legged FD in.
Next time you do the clutch, put in a secondhand lightened flywheel (miniclassic?) and get that verto tractor clutch out of there.
Whilst they are cheap, get yourself a BMW mini supercharger and visit turbominis.co.uk.
The whole thing of miniing is doing it on the cheap.
I have a 66 Mk1 which I bought restored on here for £1500. Perfect. I then did a dry suspension swap (££££££ OUCH!) and whammed in an MG Metro engine. Put some S brakes, etc, etc, rollcage, took out the interior. Have my Bini supercharger and am now going for an engine build in my shed. (£££££££JEEZ!) Hopefully will get into club rallying and doing a bit of hillclimbing.
I could waffle about bollocks all night, but time is ticking. Get your suspension sorted and then start buying bits here and there for a fresh engine rebuild. As an old metro engine is likely to go bang (like mine).
tim williams said:
a 286 cam - in my opinion it always seems a bit wild for a road car, go for something milder, it'll make it more driveable.
I am addicted to it coming on cam and screaming up the revs though!
I'm think so far I shall invest in a cylinder head or two from a scappie + an inlet manifold and play with them, and also sort out the geometry - camber and the like. so what about 1 degree on the rear and 1.5 on the front? and I think I'll go for non adjustable as my area is covered in speed bumps and I don't want to have to keep adjusting them every time I get to work!
If you like it coming on cam, then go for a 296 and 3.9 diff, with straight cut gears of course. The adjustable bits wouldnt go out of true anymore than fixed, just that you would have the option to set them up spot on and be able to correct when ever necessary.
I'd still go for a roll cage, looks cool and helps with the handling.
I'd still go for a roll cage, looks cool and helps with the handling.
rougeleo said:
£500 would buy a nice sound system for your rally car Pete . 
Mind you I have just spent £300 on a wooden steering wheel for one of my old uns .
>> Edited by rougeleo on Wednesday 22 December 22:16
I thought I had a sound system - it's an lcb manifold, a Maniflow cherry-bomb and an RC 40 rear box! It sounds good to me and the scrutineers seem to think it's not too noisy!!
Rollcage does stiffen it right up.
I suppose if you were a nutter, you could get an old Metro Turbo donk and some SC drop gears to keep it slightly alive.
I do believe that forced induction is the cheapest way to get a good 120hp.
Am I right when I say that a long duration cam works best and agrees most with a higher CR?
If you are going cammy, you may as well get properly cammy. You can often see 649's for sale cheap on ebay. You start running out of octane with those high CR's though.
I suppose if you were a nutter, you could get an old Metro Turbo donk and some SC drop gears to keep it slightly alive.
I do believe that forced induction is the cheapest way to get a good 120hp.
Am I right when I say that a long duration cam works best and agrees most with a higher CR?
If you are going cammy, you may as well get properly cammy. You can often see 649's for sale cheap on ebay. You start running out of octane with those high CR's though.
A few points from the above if I may:
1. Don't ever go to a 649 cam, they are horrible. Apart from the largely useless 731, it's about the most over-rated and nasty cam ever ground for a Mini. It's all top end, but even then it gives less power than a 286. It has too much duration and too little lift, but with offset rockers you lose even more bottom end and gain little more at the top. It's no good having a cam which 'comes in' at 5000 and tops out at 7500 if you want to drive the car on the road. My personal favourite is the 286 where you get best performance between 4000 and 6200 - ideal for a Mini. If you just want a track car with no road use at all that's different. Get the head properly flowed, then get a good dizzy and exhaust system, then get a cam with good overall characteristics.
2. A Safety Devices full cage (in my opinion the best available) weighs in at around 24 Kg. the sprayed-on soundproofing on the floor of later cars weighs 14 Kg and the sound proofing felt under the carpets, dashboard and side trims weighs 10 Kg. The radio and speakers weighs around 7 Kg.
3. The insurance loadings for a turbo or supercharger outweighs the performance advantages, plus the increased loading on the transmission makes reliability suspect.
4. If you are on a budget, then to increase overall performance it's best to do the suspension and brakes. remember, if you can get through a corner 8 mph faster, then you'll carry that speed down the next straight and into the next corner. You need a lot of extra power to make up for poor handling or roadholding. The old rule of performance tuning: Brakes, Suspension, Transmission, Engine, in that order, still holds very true.
5. Get a good exhaust system, not too noisy, but nicely free-flow. I use an RC40 centre-exit back box plus a Maniflow cherry-bomb with a big-bore LCB. decibels are around 94 at 4500 rpm.
6. One of the biggest disadvantages with a Mini are the gear ratios. Third to top is too wide and the diff ratios in later cars too high. Ideally, for the road, the original Cooper 'S' ratios (not the s/c, c/r ratios) with a 3.44 or 3.76 diff are best, but that's on 10" wheels, which are always best anyway. Improving the gear ratios will give a real performance increase.
Finally, let's just say that engine power is not the correct measure of a car's performance. We did a group test of 8 rally Minis for Mini World a couple of years ago. My 1964 car was not the most powerful or the fastest over the standing 1/4 mile. It was, however, the quickest around a 1 mile handling course and the general opinion was also that it was the easiest to drive quickly in view of its friendly handling - we all drove each others cars. It has twin 1.5 SU's and a 286 cam with 11.1:1 c.r, etc. Slightly raised suspension as well with neutral handling tending to oversteer.
Tha nastiest car there was Peter Horsborough's 1964 Cooper 'S' with a 649, Weber and a lim slip diff. After he drove mine he rebuilt his engine to an identical spec and his stage times improved, even with the reduction in power.
1. Don't ever go to a 649 cam, they are horrible. Apart from the largely useless 731, it's about the most over-rated and nasty cam ever ground for a Mini. It's all top end, but even then it gives less power than a 286. It has too much duration and too little lift, but with offset rockers you lose even more bottom end and gain little more at the top. It's no good having a cam which 'comes in' at 5000 and tops out at 7500 if you want to drive the car on the road. My personal favourite is the 286 where you get best performance between 4000 and 6200 - ideal for a Mini. If you just want a track car with no road use at all that's different. Get the head properly flowed, then get a good dizzy and exhaust system, then get a cam with good overall characteristics.
2. A Safety Devices full cage (in my opinion the best available) weighs in at around 24 Kg. the sprayed-on soundproofing on the floor of later cars weighs 14 Kg and the sound proofing felt under the carpets, dashboard and side trims weighs 10 Kg. The radio and speakers weighs around 7 Kg.
3. The insurance loadings for a turbo or supercharger outweighs the performance advantages, plus the increased loading on the transmission makes reliability suspect.
4. If you are on a budget, then to increase overall performance it's best to do the suspension and brakes. remember, if you can get through a corner 8 mph faster, then you'll carry that speed down the next straight and into the next corner. You need a lot of extra power to make up for poor handling or roadholding. The old rule of performance tuning: Brakes, Suspension, Transmission, Engine, in that order, still holds very true.
5. Get a good exhaust system, not too noisy, but nicely free-flow. I use an RC40 centre-exit back box plus a Maniflow cherry-bomb with a big-bore LCB. decibels are around 94 at 4500 rpm.
6. One of the biggest disadvantages with a Mini are the gear ratios. Third to top is too wide and the diff ratios in later cars too high. Ideally, for the road, the original Cooper 'S' ratios (not the s/c, c/r ratios) with a 3.44 or 3.76 diff are best, but that's on 10" wheels, which are always best anyway. Improving the gear ratios will give a real performance increase.
Finally, let's just say that engine power is not the correct measure of a car's performance. We did a group test of 8 rally Minis for Mini World a couple of years ago. My 1964 car was not the most powerful or the fastest over the standing 1/4 mile. It was, however, the quickest around a 1 mile handling course and the general opinion was also that it was the easiest to drive quickly in view of its friendly handling - we all drove each others cars. It has twin 1.5 SU's and a 286 cam with 11.1:1 c.r, etc. Slightly raised suspension as well with neutral handling tending to oversteer.
Tha nastiest car there was Peter Horsborough's 1964 Cooper 'S' with a 649, Weber and a lim slip diff. After he drove mine he rebuilt his engine to an identical spec and his stage times improved, even with the reduction in power.
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