66 replies to this topic

[mmaci]

Afternoon everyone,

 

Not a particularly exciting update. It's more been a month of getting through wee jobs that need done. Carbon for the switch panel is being cut and will be sorted soon, I pulled the wiper motor and linkages and rear lights out of an old mini I've had for years, gave it all a clean and paint. Saves a few quid and satisfying to see!

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

This will get mounted on a bracket just above where the cage meets the front subframe, about as close to its original position as possible.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

 

The rear bulkhead is ready for drilling and nutserting to the cage. I'll aim to make this as sealed as possible but once the side panels are in the rest can wait till after it's running.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

 

Nice shiny arrival;

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

This'll need a bracket made, as will the header tank. Any suggestions on where to fix it welcome. At the moment my plan is a bracket to mount them both behind the passenger seat (engine side of bulkhead) on a bracket coming down from the harness loop bar. 

 

Most pressing job next is sorting what seems to be a common issue. 

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

The bottom UJ catches the brake pedal. Not ideal but I think the best way is to do as cptkirk has and cut where the bolt is and weld it.

 

Hopefully this week I'll get my box from gonzo which hopefully solves the rear brake issue and allow me to select gears! We seem to be missing a bag of banjos and fittings for the brakes which has led to a fair bit of head scratching. Hopefully enough will be done for the car to go off to PerformanceTek in March so a busy few weeks ahead.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[cptkirk]

If you do weld try n get something clamped to the UJ to dissapate some of the heat.

 

I was looking through my old photos for wiper motor bracket and was going to post them in here for you, but after seeing you noticed the welding of the UJ you've probably seen my effort...Let me know if not and I'll DM you

 

Looking good..

[mmaci]

Thanks, I have indeed seen the pics, a great help as always!

[mmaci]

Few wee jobs sorted this week. Collected my carbon fibre and steering column from an excellent engineering company which is handily round the corner from the house. They used a water jet to cut the carbon and their welder sorted the column without damaging the UJ:

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

The red part on the UJ will need ground further but it's much improved on before. Also sorted the bracket for the wiper motor and fuel pressure regulator. They both just need drilled and painted before fitting.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

All small jobs in the grand scheme but nice to get them out of the way.

 

Have a good weekend 

[mmaci]

A nice chunky update, starting where I left off..

 

Wiper motor and screen wash pump are in. Using a very simple in-line pump which means I'll be able to fit a wee bottle wherever I can.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

We have gears; Gonzo's bracket saved the day, all in place now and after some fiddling to find the best place for the forward-most cable brackets I'm happy to admit the gears feel far tighter and nicer than I was expecting! We had to add a dog leg to the gearbox end as the tab added by the previous owner/Zcars didn't line up with the cables at all.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

 

Getting these cables into place then set off a chain reaction of jobs. As we don't have the raised tunnel inside the car, the cables take up where the coolant pipes would normally sit up in the recess of the tunnel. Once we knew how low they'd have to be to avoid the gear selector we could come up with a way of holding them there. Nothing fancy but some flat bar is fine for now. In position they sit around the same height off the ground as the sump is.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

At the radiator end neither of us were happy with how the pipes were sitting. We've added a few studs to the fuel tank which allow us to use P clips to hold the pipes now. Much better fitment now.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

The fuel pump has also been fixed in the tunnel, it's the neatest place having looked at a few options. It's fed through an inline filter and the hoses will be clipped up into the tunnel in due course. Also fitted the Revotec fan using the existing holes in the radiator and one of their universal mounting brackets. In all honesty I know of a few K-swaps who have fitted fans but rarely if ever need them but better safe than sorry.

 

In the engine bay the FPR has been fitted (thank you cptkirk for the idea) but yet to be plumbed. The header tank has been mounted, also by nutsert to the cage and plumbed. Pressure testing the system beforehand gave good results but there is the tiniest of drips coming from the black blanked of heater pipe. The throttle cable was a 5m kit bought from eBay which has worked a treat. It's run through the tunnel with everything else, mounted onto the existing bracket at the throttle body and held by the fixings which came in the kit for going through the front bulkhead.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

The front subframe is now mounted to the floor, the spacers are made of plastic. More than strong enough and we happened to have the plastic already.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Battery is secured behind the passenger seat. Went with the Odyssey PC680, seems to be well reviewed and its absolutely tiny. I do plan on adding a quick charge point so its easy to put on trickle charge.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

The rear brakes have been a bit of a nightmare. Gonzo supplied me with the Citroen type rear set up - absolutely perfect service and parts but I had an issue with wheel fitment (again). So as the car needs to be mobile for now we've fitted the Wilwood 4-pot kit without a handbrake that came with the car. We have a hydraulic handbrake setup that can go in later, just not ideal/legal for road use. That issue can be solved later by sorting new wheels. Also fitted the exhaust and heat shields for the gear cables.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

 

So for now she's back on the ground and tomorrow we'll delivering her to PerformanceTek in Glasgow...

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

[KTS]

..that's starting to look quite exciting now !

[minibugga]

Looking good Mark, nice progress. 

 

As for the rear calipers you might need to take off some material from the external part of the caliper. Maybe someone has a picture around, otherwise I will make one for you this week. 

 

Best wishes, Gonzo 

[mmaci]

Looking good Mark, nice progress.

As for the rear calipers you might need to take off some material from the external part of the caliper. Maybe someone has a picture around, otherwise I will make one for you this week.

Best wishes, Gonzo

If you can that would be great for future reference. Thank you!

[mmaci]

A wee update..

 

So in April (what feels like quite some time ago!) we delivered the Mini to Gerry at PerformanceTek. Although we don't have the car back quite yet we have had some excellent updates. We deliberately didn't want to put a deadline on this because it's been a busy summer without having the Mini to work and it's given us a chance to freshen up the garage too. 

 

Before leaving..

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Some precarious loading..

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Gerry's cracking race trailer made unloading a lot easier.

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

And the garage has had a well needed spruce..

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

 

Now on to the wiring. RacingCircuits have done an incredible job of the loom. Although it's only pictures I've seen so far the workmanship and overall look of it is superb. 

 

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

And on her way back to PerformanceTek for the ECU fitting, FPR plumbing and mapping.

 

Thanks for reading folks,

 

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KTS]

..bet you had the van in gear, the handbrake on, and the wheels chocked when you loaded that one

 

if the quality of work continues at this level the finished product is going to be spectacular !

 

matching garage floor is a nice touch too 

[mmaci]

..bet you had the van in gear, the handbrake on, and the wheels chocked when you loaded that one

if the quality of work continues at this level the finished product is going to be spectacular !

matching garage floor is a nice touch too

You better believe that van wasn’t going anywhere!!

Thanks mate, I don’t think either of us realised how OCD we could be with things till this started but it’s paying off.

[mmaci]

And we have life...

 

Big day yesterday as she's finally running. Some initial teething problems where there was fuel, compression and spark but just no life. Turned out the injectors were signalling that they were opening but not actually opening. Thankfully Gerry at PerformanceTek had a spare set and stuck them in. This was a big relief for us because we ultimately know nothing about the engine's history prior to us getting it. It's been serviced, clearances checked etc but sometimes you just never know. All good in the end;

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Now happy idling at 900RPM. This is from the Hondata app which we'll be using as a dash for now. Bluetooth connection to the ECU and a Kindle Fire mounted infront of the driver. Hopefully not permanent but good enough until everything else is done. Hasn't been on to his Dyno yet but hopefully that's coming soon. A bit of an unknown over what power we'll have as its a K20Z4, which normally has drive by wire throttle body, using a K20A2 cable throttle body.

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

On a less exciting front I've been robbing our very sorry looking donor for more. We've had this L reg mini since I was 16 and although the shell is absolutely buggered now, it's proved very useful for simple stuff like wipers motor, linkages and handbrake bracket I've just removed. That'll go behind the one already in the Vtec to support the rear of the hydraulic handbrake. 

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

It's eventual home:

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

I've ordered Miglia arches from Carbon Weezel which I'm really looking forward to seeing but less so fitting them!

 

Thanks for looking. Hopefully the next update she'll be home in the garage ready for (hopefully) finishing in time for summer!

[72hump]

Awesome build mmaci, Ben and Nick from the Carbon Weezel do superb work, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

[mmaci]

I'm sure some of you have seen on Facebook already but that's the tuning sorted. Delighted with the results but you can listen for yourselves..

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Mark Maciver, on Flickr

 

 

-233 BHP

-202 at the wheels

-170 lbft Torque

 

Collecting her end of next week and then home for the rest of the build 

[KTS]

awesome.  no wonder you're smiling !!