718 replies to this topic

[F1 Mini]

So as you can see here, thats the axle in position so the height of the wheel ( mock wheel in wood just in front), with the 2" clearance for compression means the wheel arches will start at the bottom of the side windows. The arches will start life as Lotus 7 Kit Car rear arches, that will be modified of course, but at least it gives me the basic shape.

[Pavel]

Looks great, and its coming along really well.

Can you tell us though why you decided to use a dedion rear suspension? It's not the best at performance, and more importantly it's quite heavy compared to a mcpherson strut, which I believe is used on the Z cars kit?

Either way the quality looks great and in such a small car the handling should be good (given a good setup) with almost any suspension type :]

[F1 Mini]

Z Cars use a trailing arm Swing axle, similar to what a standard Mini uses at the rear. Having spoke to Chris Alerson he was insistant that the Swing Axle works well, and great for striaght line traction. But I want an axle that keeps it's tyre contact patch on the bends as I building it more for circuit racing. A Swing axle never gains any camber in bump, and any roll will lose it's contact patch.

The De Dion alows me to use a Axle which will keep the contact and any roll will not affect it. I wanted a double arm rear suspension but the extra wieght needed I was not happy with and speaking to the Westfield 7 racers they use a solid axle to keep the wieght down. So the De Dion was the best choice.

Also Speaking to Hundersfield Mini Spares ( the owners of the only Hayabusa Turbo Z Cars mini with 400 bhp), they said the swing axle was having alot of trouble in putting the power to the floor, and they are modifing the mini as we speak to alter the rear suspension.

So all in all the De Dion was my solution.....

Todays progress was to bolt some stright edges on the hub tubes and to measure the camber / toein etc before I welded the axle up. Toein on both wheels is about 10 Minutes ( 1/6 of a Degree ) and about 1 Degree of camber. Still got some Gusseting to do but nearly there......will post pic tomorrow.

PS Mc Strut suspension not used on any Mini I know of at present ( Apart from that BMW thing)....

[F1 Mini]

Have welded up most of the axle now. Just have to trun a Mount for the Pan Hard rod, then machine a curve on it so it can be welded to the main tube.

[F1 Mini]

and

[F1 Mini]

Have decided where to mount the coil-over shock now everthing else is in place.
So have welded the brackets on top of the axle, to mount them. Will now have to turn up some 38mm OD bar so it slides it the tubing im using, and tap it 1/2 unf for the Top mounts that will go on the chassis. Will have to turn 4 off them, as the same ones will do for the pan hard rod mountings.

[F1 Mini]

Also started to mock up one of the hubs so that i could look at how to mount the rear calipers.

[F1 Mini]

Here's it in position, with Caliper. Have mocked up the handbrake cable to make sure it's long enough etc, and have drawn out the caliper barckets. Time for some metal cutting again......

[F1 Mini]

With it all in postion this sort of shows you how wide the track now is. Going to be easy to route the brake cooling I think.!!

[clubman_dan]

this is gonna be a mental mini!, to say i am just a little bit envious would be the understatement of the century!
DAN

[smudgersmb]

Err, instead of L7 type rear arch why not just use the Fortech style arch? Did think of putting Bike engine in the Mozzie but after lots of talking to people with bike engines in their cars (its a kit thing) have deceided that it would not make a good everyday going to work type of car. Just the thought of a Busa Turbo in the back of my Mozzie makes me go all...................

[F1 Mini]

http://www.kliktronic.co.uk/home.htm


Found a Push button gear change that's under £500, the unit does not do the ignition interupt, but the Motec ECU can handle that.....

[The Matt]

What do you get in the kit? Just an actuator, or control gear too?

[Madmax]

so in theory now, you can have a flappy paddle gear shift?

[The Matt]

push + button to change up
push - button to change down
Or that's what I'm guessin.

Cooool!