90 replies to this topic

[maph2]

hi bigandy, yeah that would be good to have a look.

[kitch]

Hi Bigandy,

What silver paint did you use to paint the gearbox, so I can get some to paint mine, it looks quality!

Kool car, if your living in leam next year u must be a warwick uni student like me right??

Mark

[Lund]

What did you do with the group 2 arches? As Im interested if your selling them

[v8mini]

i take it you've got long legs and will be sitting way back, as gear stick / linkage is where the hand brake would normally be, and hand brake futher back to the rear
or was you restricted by length of gear control cables ??

Edited by v8mini, 27 July 2006 - 03:30 PM.

[Bam]

That is an awsome peice of Engineering i am VERY impressed.

I have read youre build diry about 3 times. That mini is amazing, it will be so cool when it finished.

Well done for producing such an amazing mini.

Keep up the good work Andy.

Chris.

[bigandy]

Chers for the comments peeps. Yup 6ft 5" and a bit - i need my seat wayyy back. Having it positioned there makes it a nice position like modern sports cars - mr2 etc, where its reasonably high and close. Yup warwick uni, all the cool people live in leam The silver paint is just plain hammerite smooth finish paint. I wire brushed the gearbox, then degreased it then put on two coats - im pleased with the finish - when you get up close its not perfect, but its very close, considering the little effort it took, and looks good all installed.

Sorry, the group2's got binned during a shed clearing when i moved house - chucked away a load of stuff i shouldn't have, but had nowhere to keep it all in the new house

[maph2]

does the mgf gear linkage cables allow it to be mounted nearer than you have? ie where the standard mini gearstick is?

[bigandy]

does the mgf gear linkage cables allow it to be mounted nearer than you have? ie where the standard mini gearstick is?

Yeah, theres a fair bit of slack in the cables, so the assembly can be moved forward to way past the original gear lever mounting place if you wanted.

[bigandy]

Not done anything on it for a while, spending time with the gf, and had a couple of holidays (ooh get me) in Provence and mountain biking in the French/Swiss alps.

been playing with the exhaust today. for those of you who dont know im using a Series 1 elise backbox which looks like this



thats not mine by the way, mines a new one. My silencer is also bigger because its a standard item, whereas that one is a janspeed performance one. Mine will be loud enough tho

Im mounting it upside down so the inlet is on the correct side, this also means the tailpipes come out the valance instead of the boot. Ive also offset the silencer to the NS, to allow more room for the inlet elbow



So here it is fitted - just need to make the inlet elbow, and make a joint between the manifold and silencer. Im quite chuffed because none of of it sticks out under the valance too far so its quite subtle, and all the piping cant be seen unless ur kneeling under the car.



and heres the view from above, its a tight fit, but with a bit of tweaking it will fit very nicely in the space.



Sorry about the pics - it was pretty dark in the garage

heres a mock-up of how it weould look that i did ages ago - its a better photo so you get the idea of whats going one

[maph2]

Proper job!

[Baldspeed Racing]

the exhaust looks cool, nice and simple not too over the top

[superted87]

hey andy

i am thinking that my resto is just yearning to have this done to it seeing as it is stripped out already and is now a perfectly sound shell. I am hesitant about cutting the arse off but really want a 16v mini. would you reccommend this as a good project for someone with good tech knowledge and welding skill but limited 16v knowledge. It seems as though the more technical bits are structural rather than engine , is this the case??

Ted

p.s. Mucho Impressto senioro

[bigandy]

Well, up until now none of the work has really been anything to do with running a 16v engine or getting the engine to run - its all been fabrication/welding/design and research etc. So if you can do that kind of work and have a fair amount of patience then go for it. Only thing is - i regret doing this to a sound shell, because if id have got a rotten shell, so much of it would have been chopped out along the way anyway. Im getting on to engine wiring at the moment which is proving difficult because ive never had a proper donor car - parts have been acquired along the way, so fuse boxes dont match, and wiring diagrams use different colours etc. which is making it much more complicated than it needs to be. If you have a basic understanding of automotive electronics (or even a complete donor car to copy the wiring from) and a good level of fabrication/fitting skill then its not too difficult. It may be worth doing a front engined conversion first - as you can buy the kits for them and its a simple case of taking the engine from the donor car and putting it in the new subframe and connecting everything up.

[superted87]

brilliant, i am thinking that it would be cool to do a carburettor version but maybe even running a twin cam punto engine in the 1600cc variant or a k series again maybe running dellortos or webers. this would save a lot of hassle me thinks and likewise my perfect resto shell is still going to be a nice run around for me or i will sell her. i have not got the balls to cut her shiny new arse end off.

Cheers mate

[superted87]

tell us more uncle andy. i need some more inspiration to build my one.