46 replies to this topic

[l_jonez]

Thanks; my idea was that the mini frames strength was down low at the base of the towers so I tried to work from this point, building from the top of the suspension towers has been popular in starlet conversions over here but now they are literally beginning to crack.

Really? Nearly all other conversions vaux, vtec etc etc use bracing between the towers and front of the frame and I can't say I've heard of a single case of any problems over on the 16v mini club the 5 years I've been a member.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

Really? Nearly all other conversions vaux, vtec etc etc use bracing between the towers and front of the frame and I can't say I've heard of a single case of any problems over on the 16v mini club the 5 years I've been a member.

These were a bit different; there was only two rails running from the top of the subframe towers, these came out picked up the engine mounts then dropped down to the tie bars mounts, the front was joined but there was no supports running underneath the engine. Added to this the inner wings generally needed to be chopped. As I understand the tie bars flexed the whole thing and it cracked sometimes with the body at the front

The one's that have cracked have been pretty high HP conversions ~200hp Starlet GTs, they are now putting bolt on bars below the engine to brace these subframes up.
They are quite different from the cradles I've seen on this site, and different to bracing you describe, I was tempted to add similar bracing to mine.

[l_jonez]

Ah ok that makes more sense, also sounds like a poor design from the start.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

Ah ok that makes more sense, also sounds like a poor design from the start.

Yeah, it's not how I would have done it. It looked even worse when I worked out how much force the tie rods must be asked to take.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

That is a interesting read about the alternators on that TurboMinis link.

Hopefully downsizing my alternator will stop from hanging out the front.

I just went and bought a 91 Daihatsu Charade Alternator (Denso) that has a 4 groove belt the same as the waterpump belt! (relevant number is 27060-87721)
Good for 2 reasons, I don't have to sort out a new pulley to get it to work and I now know I have enough belt to drive my alternator properly.

Not sure how well it will fit and I won't be able to find out for a while I'm afraid, as I'm not near my mini at the moment.

Worst case it might help alleviate clearance issues in and around the Brake master cylinder if I have to mount it up there.

The Micra crank pulley is 88mm and the alternator's pulley is 45mm (by eye) so the alternator should be doing close to twice the speed of the crank which probably means it might be able to use a smaller pulley again if the top rpm is near the 18000 suggested on the turbo minis link (this was for Brise though maybe they use better bearings).
I haven't been able to find out the diameter of the charade's crank pulley so not sure how fast the alternator is supposed to spin...

[rids]

was this car in minimag 2006ish with an a series engine in?

[MiniNissan]

Well spotted! it was in miniworld may 2006 issue. it was just finished back then. it had a lot of changes since then. including stage 4 head and 286 cam and such, but ongoing reliability problems with the a-series(a crankshaft trust bearing decided it was time to leave), made me go the nissan route.

[MiniNissan]

just before the a-series went out it looked like this:

[MiniNissan]

i started to make a dashbord today, not sure what to do with gauges, ideas anyone?

[MiniNissan]

didn't do much on the car lately and i got bored last saturday, so i decided to shave the word nissan off the rocker cover, and because the standard HT leads were a little short with the standard cap, i fitted a side-entry-version.

Edited by MiniNissan, 16 October 2012 - 05:54 PM.

[domdee]

lovely car! any more progress?

[Tomm]

This is such a tidy install I love it!

 

I also took the Nissan off of my rocker cover and left the 16V lettering.

 

Huge inspiration to sort my bay out.

[MiniNissan]

Thanks, no updates unfortunately, i'm busy renovating our house atm. next job on the car is repainting the inside.

[Roelandt]

Hi Bart,

what model R1 carbs did you use?? Would you also be able to give me a bit more information about fitting the A-series distributer to the cg13 engine.

 

Thanks

Roel

[blue gt]

This has to be the cleanest micra engine conversion I've seen! I'm now very tempted to give this ago to my mini!

Edited by blue gt, 16 November 2015 - 05:46 AM.