Wow.!!! great build dude. Thats gonna run! The only problem is when you reach fourth gear, you'll wish you had a fifth. by the way. what viscosity oil are you gonna use? ans would it hamper the operation of the head or the gear box. A friend of mine had a toyota 4efe block and head on a mini gear box and boy was it scary! wheel spin on 1000rpm.! But the oil required by the engine was too thin for the gearbox so there was alot of gear noise. Hence the question.
very impressive build though.
Hi minidude1000,
I have put a lot of thought into the gearing for this engine. I did look into purchasing a 5 speed box but after reading lots of blogs, I decided that the 5 speed gearboxes available were not capable of handling the power that I was hoping of achieving. Plus replacement parts for certain manufacturers 5 speed boxes are difficult to source. I therefore decided to stick with the trusty 4 speed box and just replace the gears for SC ones to reduce the side loading effects of helical gears.
The design of the BMW K head with its aluminium cast body and dual overhead cam is capable of running at much higher RPM (up to 8500 RPM with SC cams) than the standard mini head. The choice of the final differential ratio was a bit of a compromise, as I wanted both acceleration and top end for economical use on the roads and power for the track. If I find that the 3.44FD crown wheel is not suitable, it is relatively simple to change this in the future.
I always run my pre 90’s minis on 20w/50 oil as specified in all the manuals. The correct choice of oil has been discussed plenty of times on this forum and everyone seems to have their own opinion. As the mini sump shares the same oil as the engine you must use oil that is not too thin like synthetic oils. These are too thin for the manufacturing tolerances used in the production of the engine components and the selection of materials used for making the oil seals. Otherwise you will eventually end up with lots of annoying oil leaks. The mini enthusiast nightmare! As 90% of the engine is original I will therefore be using 20w/50 in this engine and hopefully the head can cope with this thicker oil.