251 replies to this topic

[chairchild]

Hey peeps, been making designs and collecting parts for this for a while, so I thought it was time to collate them into a thread, rather than hijacking other peoples threads!

This is the little beast (Jobe) as he stands now


it's a 1992 SPI cooper, but all of the running gear is now in the mary Quant, it only has the injection subframe and rear subframe left on it - the bodywork is totally shot. Tom (advantage998) is going to be doing the bodywork and spraying for me, as bodywork is something I simply cant do nicely enough for me to bear to have it on Jobe





And here is the picture which makes me smile every time, the very first pic I ever saw of it when I bought it about 3 years ago



As you can see, it's a mere shadow of it's former self, but my aim is to 100% reverse the toll of time (and living by the bloody sea!) and to improve the power a considerable amount





Now, over the past year, I've had plans come and go for various A series engines, ranging from turbo 1293's, supercharged 850's, and even a turbo "square" 850, with a silly amount of mods to improve reliability+power. The only downside was, it was going to cost an insane amount for th machining work, for an engine which in the end, would still only give about 150Bhp before it started to need a rebuild every 2000 miles!

Then a man came into my workplace, and we started chatting, and it turns out that he has 2 Rover 3.5L V8 engines sat round a friends, where they've been for the past couple of years. So I went to have a look at them about a month later, and he was true to his word






So after a few measurements, I started putting even more thought into it, and finalising all the details that I would need to think about, and what could really be done to improve the fitment.

The engine itself is around 30" long, including the pulleys, but the main block of the engine, is only around 18" long - the rest of it is made up by those bloody MASSIVE pulleys, water pump, and the timing case, which also holds the oil pump, pressure regulator, and filter.


(an example of how big that front section is)

The real downside is, the minis' engine bay, from crossmember to slam panel, is only around 15" long - so some serious body AND engine mods are going to have to be made!

Firstly, I might go for a clubman front, as they're obviously longer. But does anyone know just HOW much longer a clubman front is? And the front will open in a fashion similar to this one:



(credit will be given to whoever made this, but I can't remember who you are!)

Secondly, the whole timing cover is going to be removed, and replaced with a small steel cover for the timing chain. The water pump will be an electric affair, ignition will be dealt with by megajolt, and the oil duties can all be nicely dealt with by an old fiesta pump, as it has the pump, filter AND pressure regulator built into one small unit! This will be chain-driven from the timing chain - quite a tidy solution I thought

The engine will sit in a modified front subframe, with a LHD steering rack, flipped over, and located in front of the engine, and the steering arms on the hubs swapped round to accomidate the rack. I'll cut + strengthen 2 holes in the lower front section of the front subframe to locate the 'rack, where the cutout of the sump will avoid any moving parts. The input for the 'rack will be extended to somewhere close to the original location, supported by a bush, and then a universal joint fitted to a standard steering rack - I was tempted by fitting an electric power steering rack from a corsa, but second realising how much power it would sap, and ultimately how pointless it would be, laid rest to that idea.

the whole rear section of the front subby will be removed, and instead the strength and rigitity will be restored by using an undercar "cradle", which will also have a propshaft hoop in it for safety - it will also support the gearbox




The rear suspension will be made up of (if I win the auction that is) the whole suspension setup from a sierra - which is around 52" wide (calculated from the picture, knowing that the diff is around 8" wide)



Having this setup means that not only does it already have the diff, suspension, hubs AND brakes already in place, it also means the mini should end up being a good 8" wider overall I dont mind this, as I was going to try for this effect anyway by spacing out a previous idea for a rear subframe - but the less said about that one the better to be honest




Now then, with the rear suspension sorted, the majority of the engine sorted, and the front suspension sorted (std mini bits!) the only real bugger for me to try and sort out................ is the gearbox



The main real problem is, if I use the normal land rover gearbox, I'd have to have someone on the back seat change gears for me, and there's be enough footroom for possibly one foot....either side. Supra gearboxes are heralded for being close to unbreakable, but they would also give a similar amount of footspace. The only "normal" gearbox I've found which may be upto the job, is from an old LDV van



It has the benifits of being quite small and compact, but it's still pretty big compared to the width of the mini.




so, in search of the smallest gearbox which will last daily driving of a V8 (for strip use, I'll have to find something a TAD more gutsy) is a motorbike gearbox of some sort. The one I've currently got in my possesion, is from a kawasaki 400 - hardly known for it's skyline-killing performance, but this one was free, so it'll do for experimentation purposes (no pics unfortunatly) My reasoning for trying motorbike gearbox, is simply because theyre VERY small, and there are alot of drag bikes, using almost standard gearboxes, which lay down 500Bhp+ so should be more than capable of running a 150~Bhp V8

The Kawasaki KZ400 gearbox is shared with the main crank, and balance weights - I have already removed these, and I can easily chop the engine casing in half, and seal it off with a plate of some sorts. The input shaft will need to have an oil seal fitted, and either fitted to an ordinary style clutch, or if I want to be fancy, I could extend the motorbike clutch a few times, and have a hand-operated clutch on the gearchange lever! This of course - would be bloody weird

The output sprocket would be connected to an ordinary style universal joint, which would then fit upto the propshaft.




The clever bit, is the gearchange.....

This is on the same side as the output, so makes fitting it relatively straightforwards. I would fit a universal joint to the output of the 'box, and extend it by whatever length is needed, to make it sit under the standard gearchange hole in the floorpan. I would then fit another UJ (no point in doing half a job!) then fit that onto a crownwheel, so the angle of turn would be rotated 90 degrees. Onto this, I would fit the standard mini gearstick, so it still looked nice and standard internally

Hopefully, that would give me a gearbox which would be less than 1 foot square, and would be a 6-speed sequential gearbox to boot! Reverse would be dealt with via an electric motor, Z-car styleee






oh yeah, and a little mockup pic I made a while ago, of how it should hopefully look

10" dunlops on the front, 13" dunlops on the rear (with bigger tyres) 2.5" exaust either side, one from each bank, and a bit of pinstriping in front of the rear arches (which will obviously be massively extended to cover the wheels)

The date on the bottom-right of the pic, is the date I took it off the road






well then, after that biblical post - anyone have any pointers or tips they could throw my way?

[Retro_10s]

is it done yet?

[Mephiston]

WOW thats pretty indepth - but by the looks of things you have most of the complicated stuff coverd all i was gona add is maybe uprating the suspension to coilovers as you said you would keep standard mini stuff - im not sure if it will handle the weight of the rover v8

[chairchild]

Well, weirdly enough, the Rover V8 only weighs 145Kg - a fully built A series weighs around 150Kg. So the extra weight of the gearbox/etc, is similar to what some people would with a full rollcage, and a mate in the passenger seat!

That added to the fact I'm lopping off a fair chunk of the engine, means it aint really gonna weigh all that much




lol, and I really do wish it was done now - I'd be able to drive it for the first time in almost 2 years!

[Mephiston]

fair enough, but either way, you may want to beef the suspension a bit or at least make it adjustable so that you can get the handling spot on so you can put the power down where you want and need it ---- and while on the subject of cages - 150hp - possibly more in a mini - i'd sugest putting a cage in - and im hoping your gona beef up the front brakes too - other than that, the project looks to be mint !

[chairchild]

yups, the front suspension will be fully adjustable, with vented discs on 4 pots (alloy of course, as I still want 10" wheels) The whole seirra setup will have poly bushes to stiffen it up a bit. And whilst I'm not going to have a full rollcage, I'm going to have a rear rollcage, and a semi-cage fitted to the A-pillars, and the front+rear cages joined to the underbody cradle (hopefully)

but that's something which isn't too desperate, and depends a lot of the design of the cradle, which can only be done when I've found a suitable gearbox!

[chairchild]

oh yeah, and the timescale I'm looking at, is at LEAST a year and a half - at least then I'm not kidding myself!

[Bungle]

will it work ?

[Dom]

oh yeah, and a little mockup pic I made a while ago, of how it should hopefully look

10" dunlops on the front, 13" dunlops on the rear (with bigger tyres) 2.5" exaust either side

after that biblical post - anyone have any pointers or tips they could throw my way?

Careful not to burn yourself or your passengers each time you get out

As for pointers have a read through here

[chairchild]

hehe, spags website was the one which got me started on a V8 mini in the first place about 5 years ago when I was in college! The pics he put on there were my first points of reference for most of my ideas, as I was originally going FWD as well - but I couldn't find a suitable gearbox

The exhaust will more than likely have sort of heat-shield over it, but that was only a very quick photoshop

[Mephiston]

Your gona put 10's on it - even on the rear - the best be pretty wide if you wana get the power down - the cradle/cage sounds good if your able to pull it off - and i'd give you self at least a year for this

[chairchild]

As said before (but it is a rather large post, so I'll forgive you for missing it )

10s on the front (which I already have)




and 13s on the back (I missed this set on ebay by about one hour!)




The real bonus of using the sierra rear end, is that I'll then have the oppurtunity to fit a wider selection of wheels, rather than the 5-ish types of wheel used with minis

I'm also very tempted to send one of the rear wheels to force racing (fastcarl), as he said if he's given one to chop up, he can see if it'll be possible to convert them into split-rims! now how tasty would that be?

[Ade]

The main thing that leaps out at me is the gearbox. I'm not sure the bike gearbox will cope with the amount of torque the V8 will be producing. Having known sierra diffs being ripped in half by even a midly tuned V8 I'd be very carefull before fully relying on one.

Don't get me wrong though, it looks awesome! I'd love to see it all done and working!

[Mini Mad Rich]

I like how this guy is doing this, he's rally thinking about this which is good, I know that sounds stupid but hes really putting the time and effort in to make sure it goes in first time or near enough. I'l be keeping my eye on this and seeinghow it goes as I inteed to do something like this just alot bigger lol.

Hope it works out well for you

Rich

[chairchild]

Ade, you're not the only one concerned about using a motorbike gearbox - I dont REALLY want to use one, but it's the only thing I can think of which is small enough to not require widening the mini by several feet so I can still have access to all 3 pedals! (and I've NEVER liked automatics!)


and thanks for the compliment Rich - it's always nice when you put up your ideas, and not have them shot down in flames