879 replies to this topic

[charie t]

An XJS, a austin 7(?) and what? 

a mini

[jagman.2003]

 

An XJS, a austin 7(?) and what? 

a mini

 

 

Well spotted..!

[jagman.2003]

 I have driven the mini on the road a few times now. Certainly showing potential. Need to get the tracking sorted as it's only roughly set. The engine was running fine before I transplanted it. But I have changed the exhaust & ignition system. So can't expect it to be a perfect transition. It is stuttering on partial throttle. Fine when you boot it. But that doesn't suit all driving conditions. I thought it might just be a bit of dirt floating about the carb. But having done a little research on the internet suggests slightly larger idle jets might help. The present ones don't deliver enough fuel. Going lean causes the stutter. When I open the throttle more the vacuum pulls more fuel through. So I have ordered some slightly larger jets today. Hopefully get them in get them in for the weekend. I will be visiting a rolling road in the near future but don't want to waste RR time on simple fixes I could do before. At the moment I am looking at maybe getting a basic sanity check at a local RR & then visit maybe SRE next spring when the car has had a good shake down. Otherwise this week I have been balancing the suspension heights & have almost finished fitting the glove box. Looking forward to getting some miles on the clock to get used to the car soon.

Edited by jagman.2003, 11 September 2013 - 07:41 AM.

[okc78]

Hi Jagman, I see your in Gloucestershire. A few years ago I took my 1380 to mech repairs rolling road in Cheltenham and they were pretty good. I've had a few of my minis there over the years.  They struggled with SU spares, not that that will affect you but seemed to know there stuff and were careful with my car, stopped the run at 5300rpm as my valve springs weren't up to it.

They know minis as they have had Mike Parrys mini's there. He built the winning mini miglia engine last year and is a mate of David VIzards.

This is going back a fair few years but it might be worth checking if there still about.

Ollie

[jagman.2003]

Thanks Oiil

 

Hi Jagman, I see your in Gloucestershire. A few years ago I took my 1380 to mech repairs rolling road in Cheltenham and they were pretty good. I've had a few of my minis there over the years.  They struggled with SU spares, not that that will affect you but seemed to know there stuff and were careful with my car, stopped the run at 5300rpm as my valve springs weren't up to it.

They know minis as they have had Mike Parrys mini's there. He built the winning mini miglia engine last year and is a mate of David VIzards.

This is going back a fair few years but it might be worth checking if there still about.

Ollie

 

Thanks Ollie, I actually went there in the 90's with this engine. I may have been unlucky but mech repairs made a right mess of it. What should have been a couple of hours just getting emissions right turned into 2 day farce. I decided I wouldn't be going back there. I will have a look at Spamspeed in Stonehouse though. They were just featured in a mini magazine with a local group.

Edited by jagman.2003, 13 September 2013 - 07:36 AM.

[jagman.2003]

Last week I was mainly tweeking the car & writing lists for tweeking. As the engine has developed a stutter & was fairly hard to drive as a consequence I was keen to get it sorted. Either by my own fiddling around or by rolling road. As it happens a local rolling road to me came up. Not one I had heard of before. But did some asking about & then booked a session with SpamSpeed in Stonehouse. It's a one man outfit. He seems to know alot about the A-Series engine. Also does head & engine work onsite. I didn't get alot more power out of the engine but cured the stutter & generally got alot more smoother power with much improved torque. It was lean at the bottom end & rich at the top. As this engine has been running on this carb for some years now in another car I'm intrigued as to what had changed it's running so dramatically. The main components I have changed were ignition & exhaust (including manifold). My main thoughts are with the exhaust. Has this freed up some flow or restricted it? It now has a maniflow manifold with RC40 double box system. So possible future changes are: Larger bore exhaust & also he recommended I change the camshaft. When I built this engine 20-ish years ago the Magnum 285/2 was supposed to be a good cam. But Mr.Spam wasn't that keen on it. Having experience of using it racing in the past. He suggested a 276 or similar. I did ask about modern scatter cams etc. But was advised they were not very good for the road. It was a good rolling road session. Mr.Spam gave some tips to me on the engine in general & helped me out with the newly fitted clutch that wasn't working quite right. He extended the clutch arm slave cylinder rod with a female brake fitting. Worked a treat. The lack of a normal timing mark also wasn't a problem as he was able to work through the flywheel housing. Also supplied copius amounts of tea. I will be visiting again if I feel there is any more fettling to be done on this setup. Watching my mini doing 120mph at 7200rpm isn't something I will be forgetting in a hurry, nor will my ears! We both agreed it sounded very good. Really started howling after 5000rpm. The drive home was considerably smoother & more enjoyable.

Edited by jagman.2003, 18 September 2013 - 10:00 AM.

[Yoda]

Nice one. Bet you didn't drive home at 120 mph though LOL

[jagman.2003]

Nice one. Bet you didn't drive home at 120 mph though LOL

 

No sadly, it was rush hour & couldn't get quarter mile straight empty road . Also it had been raining alot. Bit more skitish in the wet now.

[Yoda]

Skittish in the rain?

 

Try these

 

 

 

Yes, i am still bored, how did you guess?

[Yoda]

Hmmmmmmmm. I just had an idea for my next project. Hmmmmmmm?

[jagman.2003]

Skittish in the rain?

 

Try these

 

 

 

Yes, i am still bored, how did you guess?

 

You can get these in a kit for Quad bikes, similar wheel PCD, so why not? Yes I'm bored too.

[Yoda]

Hmmm, seen the price i have, not doing it now. Back to being bored i am.

[jagman.2003]

 

Nice one. Bet you didn't drive home at 120 mph though LOL

 

No sadly, it was rush hour & couldn't get quarter mile straight empty road . Also it had been raining alot. Bit more skitish in the wet now.

 

 

Ok, I did open it up on the last bit of main road, (well within speed & safe limits ofcourse). It was a bit of a handful both acceleration & braking. Visit to get tracking done this weekend. Also another brake bleeding session now it's settled as well.

[Yoda]

Bought one of these to keep in the van. Good bit of kit for mini's worth every penny.

 

http://www.trackace.co.uk/

 

When we built yoda, he too was skittish and i put it down to something moving at the front. Did tracking checked everything else, altered caster but still skittish. Turned out to be a hairline cracks in the adjustable rear camber/caster brackets allowing movement on the nearside Radius arm. A bit of weld and fabrication to make the brackets a bit stiffer and he now drives like on rails. Mind you, it took several weeks to find the problem!

 

Hopefully Yours is just tracking. but you may find a bit of playing with the caster angles will help. (cant remember if you fitted adjusters or not) hope you did not use poly bushes on your tie rods, because they can cause probs with this.

[PipeNslippers]

Last week I was mainly tweeking the car & writing lists for tweeking. As the engine has developed a stutter & was fairly hard to drive as a consequence I was keen to get it sorted. Either by my own fiddling around or by rolling road. As it happens a local rolling road to me came up. Not one I had heard of before. But did some asking about & then booked a session with SpamSpeed in Stonehouse. It's a one man outfit. He seems to know alot about the A-Series engine. Also does head & engine work onsite. I didn't get alot more power out of the engine but cured the stutter & generally got alot more smoother power with much improved torque. It was lean at the bottom end & rich at the top. As this engine has been running on this carb for some years now in another car I'm intrigued as to what had changed it's running so dramatically. The main components I have changed were ignition & exhaust (including manifold). My main thoughts are with the exhaust. Has this freed up some flow or restricted it? It now has a maniflow manifold with RC40 double box system. So possible future changes are: Larger bore exhaust & also he recommended I change the camshaft. When I built this engine 20-ish years ago the Magnum 285/2 was supposed to be a good cam. But Mr.Spam wasn't that keen on it. Having experience of using it racing in the past. He suggested a 276 or similar. I did ask about modern scatter cams etc. But was advised they were not very good for the road. It was a good rolling road session. Mr.Spam gave some tips to me on the engine in general & helped me out with the newly fitted clutch that wasn't working quite right. He extended the clutch arm slave cylinder rod with a female brake fitting. Worked a treat. The lack of a normal timing mark also wasn't a problem as he was able to work through the flywheel housing. Also supplied copius amounts of tea. I will be visiting again if I feel there is any more fettling to be done on this setup. Watching my mini doing 120mph at 7200rpm isn't something I will be forgetting in a hurry, nor will my ears! We both agreed it sounded very good. Really started howling after 5000rpm. The drive home was considerably smoother & more enjoyable.

 

 

From personal experience I would recommend one of the Swfttune cams. They have a great set up down here in kent (engine build room full of steel cranks and spotless engines) and have a dyno with a 'slave' 1380 motor that gets lots of abuse. The Swiftune SW5-07 Billet Camshaft (http://www.swiftune....ebuild-kit.aspx) gets good results on the road (they have just tested a 1380 with a MiniSpares stage 3 head at 120 hp) and it is a much nicer cam the the 286 I used to have in my 1098. Still very driveable and the cam timing is spot on with the standard duplex timing chain.