329 replies to this topic

[thelegg]

wow thats a massive improvement and defiantly has plenty on power good luck getting all the other little odd jobs done over the winter ready for some good runs in the warmer months 

[Camshaft1982]

Nice build.

I will be installing the same engine in my mini soon and its good to see that it will work well. I like your video of you out for the drive as well.

[scotty_1987]

Nice one mate  , just re-read the thread, looks well mate, it's a credit to the great work you've put into it!! The Turbo plan sounds very, very interesting, will be checking back to see what craziness you shall be getting up too hahaha 

 

Nathan

[Kam]

Excellent going Kieran 

 

Your vtec woes sounded just like mine but mine was a dodgy relay, glad you got it sorted and finally made some noise with it 

 

Loving the new plans so look forward to that, but in the meantime pat on the back to yourself for getting it all on the road and using it properly and experiencing one - fair play mate 

[KieranB]

Well......seems like ages since I last updated this. And seeing as we are in a new year I suppose I should

 

Nothing much has changed in terms on the mini, just today got it all back together again and drove it. Managed to get insurance for both cars with Admiral for a decent price.

 

I first started striping the car down just before Christmas, as per my last post I had mega plans involving a B18, new clutch etc however that really hasn't happened. But the things I have done are little tweaks to make it a little bit better (I have a feeling I'm gonna do that a lot), these include taking the cat off the exhaust, it was totally clogged and weighed a tonne. My poor exhaust clamps didn't fair well when it was on

 

 

 

I also got the exhaust manifold skimmed....

 

 

And then set to with the exhaust wrap. Bit of a top tip, soak the wrap in water first, the idea being it will shrink when it dries and will tighten around the manifold.

 

 

 

 

Other little jobs I've done include new oil, coolant, sorted an oil leak (I hope) around the oil filter sandwich, new radiator bracket because the old one snapped, welded the radiator a bit because it leaked at full temperature, put some damping under the radiator because it was sat on the cross member and rattled, tidied up the loom a bit and put a loom plug for the front end. Took it out for a drive and it was extremely good fun (and fast), I think the cones have had chance to settle. 

 

Anyway final photo of the day

 

 

I will post as many photos of the various trips and breakdowns throughout the year. Gonna build a new home for it in the next two months and will then begin gathering parts for the next stage in its life ;)

 

Kieran

[BronkoMini]

Very nice do you have any videos of it?

[KieranB]

Very nice do you have any videos of it?

I have a video one page back, no recent videos unfortunitly.

[BronkoMini]

ok thanks

[thelegg]

Looking smart mate :) I really need to get back and do some work on mine

[KieranB]

For Sale : 1 Vtec Mini......

 

 

 

 

Only kidding

 

Managed to award myself a free half hour this afternoon so if anyone is interested I could give a slight update on the mini 

 

Truth be told not a great deal has happened really, just been out enjoying it really. It even made it to Scotland and back a couple of weeks ago. I really had to convince myself to take it but after studying the weather and having my father nag in my ear I swallowed a brave pill and took it.

 

I wasn't quite sure why I was anxious, I suppose the thought of being sat at the side of the M6 for hours wasn't that appealing but thought I might as well make the effort. A 6am start didn't please the neighbors but once I got onto the A65 it wasn't bad at all especially when presented with a 106 GTI (which didn't stand a chance ), but the thought of the M6 looming somehow unnerved me. I'm not usually one to be tense about a motorway journey but I was this time. I pulled onto the motorway (blast of vtec ofcourse) and suddenly the anxiousness was gone. I just cruised at 60-65mph all the way and the car was perfect, OK I had headphones in but it was surprisingly comfy and at the speed overtaking lorries etc was done by simply flexing my big toe. Many thumbs up from passing motorists and brief chats with people at service stations made it all the more bearable. Fuel Consumption? Well I think I filled up 3 times, each one costing about £15. Not bad considering it was sat at 4000rpm and I was carrying more weight in tools than me and my luggage. 

 

 

And after about 5 hours I made it home, I end up going past my dad's workshop en-route to my folks house so I made sure he knew I was in the area by blipping the throttle on a down change opposite the entrance. This proved successful when he turned up home and said that the car should carry a government health warning for "being far to loud", mission = successful "

 

One thing I did notice, the mini is in it's element on the twisting b roads around tayside. My peugeot is fun because you keep your foot planted and let the suspension take the knocks and bangs but the mini is quite a bit quicker so you come out of corners, nail it, let vtec sign then with no assisted brakes or power steering you have to put that bit more effort and thought into getting round the next corner. Yes it's not amazingly comfy but I didn't build it for that. It's fantastically rewarding to drive and makes a fantastic noise that bellows around valleys. 

 

 

 

 

 

So it made it there and back with no real issues, although it chewed the nearside front wheel bearings (which I put down to poorly assembled as it was the first thing I did), I snapped the radiator bracket again and the fan decided to stay on all the time which is a bad earth. All in all I can't complain really

 

So I got back, left it for a week or so and set to with the spanners again. 

 

 

It got new front bearings, re-enforced radiator brackets, new brake switch (old one was dodgy) and a general go over. So at the moment I'm on a bit of a high with the car to be honest (touch wood), and the summer ain't in full swing yet

 

In other news, you may remember a few pages back I'm part of a race team, well we have been going from strength to strength and just released a short team video. Now I know it's not good practice on the forum to share things that are not mini related BUT if it wasn't for the mini I probably wouldn't be part of this team which is now a massive part of my life. Here's the video, enjoy :)

 

 

That's all for now. Will keep things updated as and when they happen but till next time......

 

Kieran

Edited by KieranB, 07 May 2014 - 09:14 PM.

[DangerousDave17]

Nice to see it going well with only a few minor niggles.

[KieranB]

It's fairly quietened down in the Honda section recently, or is that just me? Either way I can only apologise for not putting any updates on this thread for some time, basically because there has been very little to update. Plenty has happened in life but not a vast amount on the mini front........well relatively speaking. More on that in a bit, I shall bore you all with what's been happening in life since we last spoke. 

 

Firstly the mini has now got a new companion, the Peugeot was on it's last legs so I had the choice of sell it cheap or repair it, long behold a nice insurance quote prompted me to get one of these......(sorry about the large images, really cant be bothered making them smaller)

 

 

So ye it's a nice change from the 106, goes like stink and revs to 9,000rpm, quite a fitting match for the Honda engine For those wondering, it's the R3 model of the RX-8.

 

So another development is the very welcome arrival of the mini's new home, yes that garage I've been banging on about for the last 5 pages of this thread has finally been made, to give everyone an idea of the before and after, this is when I first moved in...

 

 

And now....

 

 

Loads of room now, nice painted floor, proper non-lethal electrics and its waterproof, mostly anyway. 

 

So with all that out of the way the mini ran out of MOT at the end of September and I will admit it took at least until November for me to do anything to it. It got thoroughly enjoyed over the summer, turns many heads, embarrassed a few cars, got thumbs up from a bloke in a XJR which I liked. I had the intention of simply removing the engine, checking all the subframe etc was ok and tidying a few things up. Money was tight and with various rallying and work commitments I didn't have a great deal of time. So I set to one day and removed the engine.

 

 

 

 

Considering it had been sat in there for so long and I didn't really know what I was doing when I first installed it, everything was tight and well secure. I forgot just how much of a pig it was to get out of the subframe with the engine reached a very significant angle to clear the gearbox. So it sat on the floor for a few weeks looking sorry for itself, I cleaned the bulkhead up and sorted a few niggles with the loom, cable tied the hell out of everything and was gonna leave it like that. 

 

Then I got talking to my mate who has a very good nack for convincing me to do things I want to do but don't really need to do. After a little bit of only shopping (and finishing my apprenticeship) I ordered an entire rebuild kit for the engine. Fairly expensive but considering I have never rebuilt an engine completely on my own I figured why not, besides it had done over 100k when I bought it, no idea of previous work and it smoked on Vtec so this convinced me enough to pluck up the courage. 

 

So got going and within maybe 10minutes hit a massive problem, the bloody crank pulley bolt. I mean some things need to be secure but this took the pi$$. I tried everything, socket with a 1m piece of 50mm box section on it, Hilty impact gun, hammers, everything. I'm a bit superstitious so was beginning to think this was a sign that I should go no further but I didn't want to give in so broke out the welder. Thankfully my welding has gotten slightly better, by no means perfect but a lot better...

 

 

Ofcourse Honda have a special pulley tool that allows you to keep the crankshaft still while you swing on the bolt but that costs nearly £30 so I thought bugger that I'll make my own, it took a few attempts but here is the final product

 

 

 

So with a mate swinging on the new tool and me on the breaker bar PLUS the 1m length of 50mm box section the bolt finally budged, unreal how tight it was. So after that the rest was plain sailing. After inspection the bottom end bearings seemed to have a bit of scoring on them and the valve stem oil seals were past their best. So the new parts include:

• all bearings


• skimmed cylinder head


•  lapped valves


• lightened ACT Flywheel (5.7kg)


• ARP head bolts


• new piston rings


• oil seals


• water pump


• timing belt


• multy-layer metal head gasket

I'm sure there is more but can't remember off the top of my head, anyway here are the photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally back together

 

 

So then got the engine mounted back in, sorted a few things like the radiator brackets, oh and I also tweaked the front cross member to stop the radiator vibrating on it

 

 

Also repainted the inlet manifold, I've gone for a black and silver theme this time purely because the paint was cheap. So this weekend seen the first start of the engine since last October and although there has been a few electrical gremlins causing the spark plugs to have a very weak spark it finally coughed into life. There was a water leak from the rad pipe onto the thermostat but other than that there were no serious issues (touch wood). The lightened flywheel is interesting, it really doesn't like to idle but I'll soon sort that. Few photos from this weekend

 

 

 

 

Oh I also replaced the rear arches, sorted the gear linkage a little because the steady arm thing wasn't sat on the gearbox properly and found a spot for the transformers page 

 

So with a bit of luck I will sort out a few niggles in the coming weeks and sort the MOT, insurance blah blah and will report back with good news hopefully

 

That's all for now

 

Kieran

 

 

[One step at a time]

Wow, just spent the last hour reading. Looks fantastic and quite a quick(ish) build.
I'm now itching to start mine, just need a few more £££

[dougie1142]

Awesome pal! Garage looks mega too

[KieranB]

Wow, just spent the last hour reading. Looks fantastic and quite a quick(ish) build.
I'm now itching to start mine, just need a few more £££

 

Cheers, you start to get a bit desperate towards the end to get it finished dispite the build only taking about 18months. Theres more than enough information on the type of build it just depends on hoq quickly you want to throw money at it. Budget wise it depends on your abilities, but I really wouldn't start with a set budget because it all very quickly chances, for the better and the worse

Awesome pal! Garage looks mega too

Cheers Dougie, ye it is pretty good, nice to have a proper setup the doesn't trying to electricute me