151 replies to this topic

[28hodge]

Ok I'll keep and eye out as the car has a scottish dural sump guard so we should be fine.

[DUF2]

28hodge, if you care to PM me your email address, I shall send you draft regs for the Shaw, so you can decide whether it is an event that interests you.
Thanks Gordon

[28hodge]

I have managed to buy another engine, there were 2 reasons for this.

 

1 it was cheap

2 I’d kind of like a period correct a series engine in the car rather than the mg metro engine.

 

I am not after peak power and numbers, its of no real use or benefit for what I want to use the car for, but we all like tinkering. So I wanted an engine that I can build up over a bit of time and then swap into the car, this will alos let me learn how to build an engine, as I am happy with rebuilding 2 strikes and doing top ends on my race bikes I tend to leave all bottom end rebuild works to a shop.

 

There was a 1275 innocenti engine on ebay about 5 miles from my house, it had from the pics an 11 stud head and remote box, so I went to have a look and did a deal. Once home I had a look and although it has an 11 stud head its not a factory 11 stud head as it only has 33.3mm valves. 

 

The Block is on its std bore which was also a big plus in my book (happy having 3 bores to go at) and looks as though its been rebuilt, its got new core plugs the pistons look brand new (are 20142’s which I think are discontinued? And mg metro turbo pistons? Anyone confirm?) and the crank will turn over by hand very very easily and lovely and smoothly. There is no cam in it so will need to source a nice mannered fast road cam. The engine number has disappeared but the casting number od 12g1279 is a 1275gt block so correct for the car.

 

What I am struggling to decide is what to do with the box and head. Box I need to check the castings and see if it is an original remote gearbox from a mini, if so I may send it off to guessworks and have it rebuilt and use it, though I am tempted to sell it on and source a rod change box as the current box I have is a MED box bought by the previous owner and a decent chunk of money, so I think it may be more sensible to use that as both my cars are on rod change boxes so it’ll allow swapping of boxes between cars more practical.

 

Head I’ll not lie I was a little disappointed when I measured the valves up at 33.3mm as I was told the engine had come out of a innocent 1300 export so should have had a large valve head on it I think, also (correct me if I am wrong) wasn’t the 11 stud head only ever sold in large valve guise? So it’ll need rebuilding with guides and valves but its whether I have it machined for larger valves or not. Again I am not after or needing every BHP out of the engine I can get 75-80bhp at the fly wheel I’ll be happy.

 

I’ll also need to sort a clutch out so will put a pre verto in as the reg for HRCR state a inertia starter motor is to be used strictly speaking.

 

So does anyone want to advise me on the best way forward with the head and a gearbox, then suggest a cam? Or anything else.

[28hodge]

28hodge, if you care to PM me your email address, I shall send you draft regs for the Shaw, so you can decide whether it is an event that interests you.
Thanks Gordon

Regs recieved and looks like a good event, if nothing else clashes i think we will try and have a look at it. We have a lot of weddings this year which are getting in the way of the bike racing and it'll be sods law they clash with this as well.

 

When are regs released and entries open?

[28hodge]

Had it on the Dyno at the weekend.

 

Dyno is a good little find as its about 20 mins from home, on a farm in a shed. Car gave a good performance/account of itself, fuelling was good, little rich at idle and little rich at what, but bang on in the mid range which is where i will be using the engine the most, It starts to go rich at about 5500rpm, I only took it to 6000rpm, and really it'll spend little of its time up there given what we will be doing with it. However it was still making power but as i am unsure what the engine internals are I wasn't taking it any higher

 

I started of only revving it to 5000rpm initially and he said i needed to rev it harder as it was still making power and hadn't reached its max. when taken to 6000rpm it showed 85bhp corrected at the flywheel so i am happy with that. Also did a compression test whilst i was there and lowest was 148psi highest was 160psi.

 

So i think we are happy and ready for Ilkley Jubilee on Sunday, well the car is, me and the other half haven't a clue what we are doing and there is plot and bash, so i think we will be struggling. 

 

Still, its a day out in the mini isn't it!

[28hodge]

Ilkley Jubilee

 

After the false start that was the Tour of Cheshire I went looking for another event for us to have a go at, the Ilkley Jubilee was the closest so without really looking into it that much to see how hard it was/is, I entered and away we went.

 

The car was pretty much ready to go so the lead up was pretty relaxed, the club put on a novices training day the afternoon before so the other Half (V) set off a couple hours before me to go to that whilst I waited for my mum to come and take over child care duties, slight hiccup here as she was down in London where her other half works so was travelling back up on the Saturday morning, and managed to miss the train. So she was running a couple hours late which was potentially going to make me tight on time to set off and drive across to Ilkley for scruit and sign on. But a bit of on the hoof planning saw us right.

 

Car went through noise (89dB) and scruit with no issues and we were signed on in the pub to start the plotting whilst having a pint and some tea before 7. Now the plotting was fine, that is for the 3 regs we had, (That said I struggle with herring bones) but we managed. However there were 6 regs in total, so 3 plot and bash regs! We plotted the start and finish of these and looked at them as potential cut and runs to help us get back on time if needs be. With that it was off to the hotel I had booked which, was, well, cheap, and I am happy we were only there for the one night, still cheap is good.

 

Sunday Forecast wasn’t great giving heavy rain in the afternoon. There was also a (growing) list of other concerns –

 

• I had never really used the trip or set the calibration etc, it was wired in and I had driven around with it turned on to ensure it did work, I also had all the instructions, just they were 75miles away on the kitchen worktop, thank god for wifi and roamertime+ having the full instructions on the website.
• The car was a bit of an unknown, I think the most I had driven it in one stint was 60miles, it certainly hadn’t been used for 8 hours straight in one go including tests in quarries etc
• Fuel gauge, it works, when its full it shows full when its half full it’ll show empty, when its empty, well you get the picture.
• I may also have forgotten to put the Map board in the car.
• Plot and bash, could be good, could be really bad!

 

So the trip started causing issues instantly, It randomly reset it self when 90% way round the measured distance, so we had to do it again, using more fuel. Which was full when I left the hotel, but was going down and I needed most of it to get to the fuel at lunch. Anyway 2^nd time round the trip worked and we set the calibration, I had wanted to check it was calibrated correctly but there was no way I was going round the loop for a 3^rd time. Then the car started to get a bit hot on the way back to the start venue at millstones. I had filled the rad before leaving home. At millstones I took the rad cap off to quite a bit of steam, I put a litre into the rad went to fill up the bottle to take with us and bumped into a very helpful guy who was doing the results and he lent me a map board.

 

The road book was based on tulips with the cumulative and intermediate distances, the first tulip in the road book on the transport section was nervous, as that would let us know if the trip was calibrated correctly, low and behold it was bang on, so suddenly Reg 1 which was plot and bash, based on tulips with the cumulative and intermediate distances suddenly seemed a little less of a task. And in all honestly going the right way was pretty straightforward, we ignored time/speed, pointless going the right speed if you are going in the wrong direction, V just told me the avg speed I was meant to be doing and I “attempted” to avg that. We got quite a few penalties for being early in the morning, this was mainly down to me forgetting that the speedo is set up for 12” wheels and reads low. Ah well. The reg was really good fun though as it took us down a private road into a farm yard and then along a rough rutty wet mess of a farm access track for ½ mile, which was entertaining on A008’s

 

At the end of reg 1 we showed our lack of experience. We were expecting a board or something to signify the reg had finished, we saw nothing and were sure we had gone the right way, but then we saw the car in front of use emerge from a side road, we instantly thought we had gone wrong and missed a little turning so doubled back, figured out we were right and that the car in front had gone wrong on the first instruction within the road book for the transport section to the start of reg 2. Now this wouldn’t have caused us an issue, but!!

 

There was a rally and a “run” event on, the run was for people without MSA licenses and they were on tulip road books the entire way round. We were last car of the rally starting at 71 with the run starting 3mins later with car 74, driven by a guy who was very good at this but seemed to think he was in a world championship event. He slipped in front of us on the road section and basically caused us problems in reg 2 then attempted to have a go at me at TC2 after reg 2. Basically there was little need for his attitude.

 

Reg 3 was pre plotted and we did ok, went the right way and had a couple ITC’s were we were only on single digit penalties. Main thing was we hadn’t taken a wrong turn or missed a ITC on any of the regs. Then the fun started –

 

Next was 5 tests back to back at coldstones quarry.

 

Test 2 was the first test ( they had lost a test venue late on I think) and was flat out up the access road to the quarry for 1/3^rd of a mile ish (I was flat out in 3^rd when I got on the brakes) then slalom through 5 cones back on the throttle for another 1/3^rd of a mile ish and another 5 cones to slalom through then a 300yrd dash to the stop astride, V couldn’t stop giggling after this test, I think it was a bit of a shock to the system after the gentle nature of the regs. We posted a good time on this test within the top half.

 

Test 3 and 4 were on the quarry floor which was pretty wet and nasty, test 3 we nailed and posted 22^nd best time. Some exuberant use of the hand brake helped!

 

Test 4 we flew round, there was a drop off the harder area of the quarry floor into some deeper gravel, we launched of this and the entire of the front end bottomed out onto the sump guard, it sounded a lot worse then it was as it was only on loose gravel nothing solid and immobile. But then right at the end  I missed an instruction to 360 round the final cone so had to reverse back a couple yards and then go round it, we didn’t get a fail but it lost a bit of time.

 

Test 5 was a complicated long test (14 cones I think) round the loading bays for the trucks. I made one small error where I though we had to go the left side rather than the right side of the cone, V managed to get me corrected before I had passed the cone so a quick 2 yrd reverse and away we went, I then took it steady on the rest of the test as it was complicated and I wanted to avoid a fail. That done we were to go back round to test 2 for a re run of that as test 6. And giddy after all the test shenanigans, we made a balls up of the transport section back.

 

The quarry had 2 entrances/ and entrance and a exit, I thought these were on the same road, so exit the quarry, turn left follow the road to turn left again to the entrance. WRONG. We missed a small turning up another road that took you back o the entrance, we seemed to make errors at the ends of things, like the end of a reg when you need to swap back to the road book or the tests were again you need to swap back to the road book, its just inexperience really. Anyway the slight mistake wouldn’t have really mattered, but we were low on fuel, and could have done without the extra miles. Not that the thought of running out of fuel stopped me from nailing it along Test 6, a repeat of test 2 up the quarry access road, managed to trim 1 second of my previous time, it could have been more but we were catching a big old brute of a thing, and he left me very little room on the stop astride line so I had to steady up a bit from the last cone to the stop astride.

 

That was the end of the morning loop with just a transport section to lunch and thankfully fuel!!

[Richard19]

How’s the Mini coming along & have you done any more events?

[28hodge]

Hi,

 

All good thanks, i gave up writing this as it seemed to get little to no traction/views. Essentially the rest of ilkeley went well, from memory the afternoon was really good, we missed one turn all day and the plot and bash was Ok, we had to stop at one point so that the GF could check something with me as she was unsure (what she thought i also thought was right and turned out to be)

 

We won our class and were 2nd in category, though as there was only 3 entries in our class so we didn't get an award for that.

 

After That we were pretty quiet as i was back into bike racing season and the GF was away with the horse. 

 

Tour of cheshire was re planned for 29th Sept and we di that, after making an utter arse of the morning, we got our act together in the afternoon and managed to salvage a 3rd in class (all novice classes were amalgamated) we were awesome in the tests, i was only 3 secs off the fastest in 2 tests and just outside the top 10 on a couple occasions.

 

We had a mare the night before the rally and in the morning of the rally where i wire got nicked and snapped, rendering the car with no spark, until an hour before our start time i was pretty sure we weren't going to be able to compete. but i found it and got going. unfortunately it happened again on a test so we got a test maximum for that which ruined our overall test time result up.

 

We have the Devils own rally on the 20th which is meant to be pretty hard, but it starts about 2 miles down the road from me and is organised by my motorclub. so i can't not do it but i think finishing it will be classed as a result.

[Cooperman]

Good luck on the Devil's Own.

My son is doing it with local man John Thornley in an Escort RS2000.

I have a photo of me navigating an Escort Mexico on the Devil's Own in 1973   . Back then is was a 200+ mile long night rally and part of the Ford Escort Mexico Championship.

[Richard19]

I appreciate it takes a lot of work to document all the work your Mini, time better spent elsewhere like with the Mini and actually driving it.!! Glad to hear though that you are doing well, and good luck on the Devils Own later this month

[GraemeC]

The Devil’s is a challenge, no doubt about that.
It’s one of the best organised and interesting rounds on the HRCR Clubmans championship and attracts the best crews in the country. Getting in at the deep end and giving it a go is invaluable experience and you won’t regret it.

See you there!

[28hodge]

I'm hoping knowing the general area a lot better will lend us a hand. We got ourselves disorientated at one point on the TOC, and it was a pain to try and get ourselves back to a point we could nav from, it was on a transport section too which was a pain in the bum really.

Knowing the area should mean we can get back to a place we know pretty quickly and easily, idea is not to go wrong to start with mind.

Hoping it's into grizedale for the evening and the aim is not to be otl before that. I've fitted some spots and a interior map light for the gf, he'll I've even shelled out £7 on a head torch for her, the lucky thing.

Graeme are you doing the mcr Northumberland borders this year? I was wanting to but it's all plot and bash so we don't want to go that far only to realise we are way out of our depth?

[GraemeC]

I am doing Northumberland Borders, yes.
I would say get an entry in - the Tynedale section for novices isn’t too taxing and you’ll have a blast. Niall and the rest of the team run a very good, social event and certainly aren’t in it to scare people off from coming back - most of the crews come back year after year.

[DUF2]

I am doing Northumberland Borders, yes.
I would say get an entry in - the Tynedale section for novices isn’t too taxing and you’ll have a blast. Niall and the rest of the team run a very good, social event and certainly aren’t in it to scare people off from coming back - most of the crews come back year after year.

I will see you there, I will be marshaling somewhere on the route.

[28hodge]

We may be at the borders, but I'm not sure, the car took a bit of a beating on the devil's own. So needs a proper look over before we enter anything else. 

 

We about drowned it (has yours dried out Graeme?) semi beached it once, did something to it that made it run like crap for about 2 hours, missing and stuttering a bit below 3k but it was intermittent. That cleared after going round an off road regularity that was nearly a PCT test. We lost lights after the evening rest halt whilst on our way into grizedale, which then came back all of there own accord but it was too late so we had to cut and run and miss the grizedale forest regularity which was a bit gutting.

 

We then lost dipped lights all together so only had high beam and spots, I can knock the spots of independently so we carried on as it was getting on for 9ish on a sat night and most of the route went nowhere near any major roads again. I completely lost the car at one point heading down a rutted track that was basically a downhill swamp into a control and then whilst sat at the control watched the mini behind us do the exact same thing so had to pull forward and get out of his way to avoid being hit.

 

It was eventful and i am putting off looking underneath the car as the number of times it took a clattering was, well a lot. I am going to order the minispares sump guard/skid plate extension piece on friday when its pay day.

 

BUT

 

We finished it, and pretty much went right all day/night.

 

The O/A result was rubbish, but we picked up nearly half our penalties when we missed the regularity through grizedale. 22min 30secs, take that away and we would have been midpack and battling for 2nd-3rd in class. we were 18th O/A at one point which was nice, but in truth a bit misleading as that was after 1 reg and then 6 tests back to back, and the first test was less than 1/2 mile from my dads house where i grew up and the first reg started on my dads lane, followed in part my old school run to my primary school, carried on past 2 of my friends houses and then finished at my brothers house, I'd of hated it if I hadn't known the area.  

 

It was a lot of fun and happy we finished it, the O/A results is a bit annoying, as is not having got the chance to go through grizedale, so we will have to have another go next year. The car needs some work though before that.