879 replies to this topic

[jagman.2003]

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.

 

 Thanks for the trackace link. That looks like a good bit of kit for the price. I will need castor as well as I have the adjustable rods. I have the poly bushes on the end. What problems have you experienced with them? I'll admit I have had them split in the past. Hopefully the rear camber brackets should be ok as they are fixed not adjustable. Will consider trackace for future adjustments though.

[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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 Thanks Mr.Pipper .....& Slippers. It does seem to boast some good pedigree there. Definitely worth considering. The kit is a good idea & not a bad price. It does remind me that if I'm pulling the engine out it won't be just a cam change. But oil pump, followers, cam chain, check bearings, check anything else. Not just a weekend job. Shame the cam is such a pain to change. Might be changing next year or over the winter. But don't want to have the car off the road for long as I just want to enjoy it now.

[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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 Thanks Mr.Pipper .....& Slippers. It does seem to boast some good pedigree there. Definitely worth considering. The kit is a good idea & not a bad price. It does remind me that if I'm pulling the engine out it won't be just a cam change. But oil pump, followers, cam chain, check bearings, check anything else. Not just a weekend job. Shame the cam is such a pain to change. Might be changing next year or over the winter. But don't want to have the car off the road for long as I just want to enjoy it now.

 

 

I suppose my initial thinking is to stick with this setup for now. It's certainly not slow. Then build my next mini 'project Bob' & take the white mini off the road for an engine revamp. I can take my time & do all the stuff that's either out of date or never got done the first time.

[Yoda]

The poly bushed tend to crush and wear fast and allow movement, something you dont want! i dont recommend them for engine steadies for the same reason.

[jagman.2003]

The poly bushed tend to crush and wear fast and allow movement, something you dont want! i dont recommend them for engine steadies for the same reason.

 

Thanks, I will watch these for now & replace in the near future.

[okc78]

Hi Jagman

Glad you got ok at spamspeed, I've never been there myself despite it being right on my doorstep coming from Stroud. Apparently he knows his stuff, I heard a few bad things that put me off but having had no experience of him myself I didn't want to start spouting s**t and it seems its unfounded so just as well.

If you were looking for somewhere to take your mini near Stonehouse.... I used to like taking my minis down the Ebley bypass on a sunday afternoon many years ago to take on the baseball cap brigade in their XR2's and Nova SRI's, great times.It was like a short drag strip, they even put in traffic lights for us. hahaha

This is of course a long time ago and I have since grown up a bit and am a more responsible road user.

[jagman.2003]

Hi Jagman

Glad you got ok at spamspeed, I've never been there myself despite it being right on my doorstep coming from Stroud. Apparently he knows his stuff, I heard a few bad things that put me off but having had no experience of him myself I didn't want to start spouting s**t and it seems its unfounded so just as well.

If you were looking for somewhere to take your mini near Stonehouse.... I used to like taking my minis down the Ebley bypass on a sunday afternoon many years ago to take on the baseball cap brigade in their XR2's and Nova SRI's, great times.It was like a short drag strip, they even put in traffic lights for us. hahaha

This is of course a long time ago and I have since grown up a bit and am a more responsible road user.

 

Hello OKC, funnily enough I took the mini down the Ebley bypass twice during the rolling road session. Somethings don't show up on the rollers. Something no other rolling road has suggested. Sadly it was rush hour & I got held up by plumbers vans & school runners. They all pull into the fast lane & then drive like a granny.

 

 Do you ever drive road the Oldends estate? I seen a black clubman driving round occasionally.

[okc78]

Not me I'm afraid, I wish I had a mini to drive at the moment. I just own a collection of parts and a load of rust. 

The clubman in my sig pic is my old  1972 1275GT in the super rare black tulip and red colour scheme, I restored it when I was younger, the car I should never have sold. It went to America about 14 or 15 years ago.

 

Re cams, I don't know a lot about engine building being rather a novice but my MED 1380 has the H/T (high torque) cam in it, I guess its very similar to a swiftune SW5  and it goes like a rocket. A lot more useable than any of the lumpy cams I had before. No exaggeration it was a match for my friends mkII 16V golf off the lights, probably a shade faster if you could stop the wheels spinning. It made it into a genuine hot hatch beating machine. I guess things like the nice expensive ported head and CR box helped too.

After 16K miles it was still putting out 94bhp @ flywheel on mech repairs @5300rpm (stopped due to valve spring crash) and their rolling road is not known to be high reading. The operators were very impressed.  At the time the best mini they had on there was Mike Parry's 1380 @128BHP so mine was doing pretty well considering it even has a smooth idle. 

Also it could return very good fuel consumption figures if I drove it like a ....Granny

 

Ollie

[jagman.2003]

Had the tracking & suspension setup last Friday. I tried a different garage for a change. They came recommended. Worked out very well as the operator was a member of the local mini club & knew what he was looking at from experience. All adjusted nicely. Only thing was to check out the n/s rear toe-in was a tad too much. Will look at options to adjust. It handles pretty well now. I haven't pushed it too hard yet as I'm still getting the feel for car. Plenty of people don't seem to like the 13" wheel setup. So I'm toying with it gently to find out if this has any validity for me. It does track a bit on uneven surfaces but I'm used to this from other classics. The engine is certainly running well. I need to get the seat position right as I find the cobra buckets lean back too far for me. I've missed the odd gear change as I'm stretching a little for 3rd. But all minor tweaks to the setup. I drove it on the motorway for the first time too. Quite well behaved. Not too noisy if I keep off the loud pedal. I sat around 65-70mph. It then still had plenty left to blip around the traffic. Starting to enjoy the car now. Gets plenty of attention, even got a thumbs up from an Audi A3..!

Edited by jagman.2003, 24 September 2013 - 08:53 AM.

[minimuk]

Had the tracking & suspension setup last Friday. I tried a different garage for a change. They came recommended. Worked out very well as the operator was a member of the local mini club & knew what he was looking at from experience. All adjusted nicely. Only thing was to check out the n/s rear toe-in was a tad too much. Will look at options to adjust. It handles pretty well now. I haven't pushed it too hard yet as I'm still getting the feel for car. Plenty of people don't seem to like the 13" wheel setup. So I'm toying with it gently to find out if this has any validity for me. It does track a bit on uneven surfaces but I'm used to this from other classics. The engine is certainly running well. I need to get the seat position right as I find the cobra buckets lean back too far for me. I've missed the odd gear change as I'm stretching a little for 3rd. But all minor tweaks to the setup. I drove it on the motorway for the first time too. Quite well behaved. Not too noisy if I keep off the loud pedal. I sat around 65-70mph. It then still had plenty left to blip around the traffic. Starting to enjoy the car now. Gets plenty of attention, even got a thumbs up from an Audi A3..!

 

yep it is a great feeling, glad you enjoy driving him, but then that was your choice to start with........feel proud in it

[mattiek]

OMG - This has been one epic build! Absolutely stunning, attention to detail.....determination.....vision. Definitely an inspiration!

 

Could I (we) ask one small favour though......PLEASE put a "before" and "after" photo together for pure comparison!

 

Stunning.....

[BusheyTrader]

Just revisited the forum after some time away.  Good to see you're tested and on the road,  inspirational stuff!

 

Adam

[jagman.2003]

 

Had the tracking & suspension setup last Friday. I tried a different garage for a change. They came recommended. Worked out very well as the operator was a member of the local mini club & knew what he was looking at from experience. All adjusted nicely. Only thing was to check out the n/s rear toe-in was a tad too much. Will look at options to adjust. It handles pretty well now. I haven't pushed it too hard yet as I'm still getting the feel for car. Plenty of people don't seem to like the 13" wheel setup. So I'm toying with it gently to find out if this has any validity for me. It does track a bit on uneven surfaces but I'm used to this from other classics. The engine is certainly running well. I need to get the seat position right as I find the cobra buckets lean back too far for me. I've missed the odd gear change as I'm stretching a little for 3rd. But all minor tweaks to the setup. I drove it on the motorway for the first time too. Quite well behaved. Not too noisy if I keep off the loud pedal. I sat around 65-70mph. It then still had plenty left to blip around the traffic. Starting to enjoy the car now. Gets plenty of attention, even got a thumbs up from an Audi A3..!

 

yep it is a great feeling, glad you enjoy driving him, but then that was your choice to start with........feel proud in it

 

Thanks Minimuk, great to know it's worth all the effort.

[jagman.2003]

OMG - This has been one epic build! Absolutely stunning, attention to detail.....determination.....vision. Definitely an inspiration!

 

Could I (we) ask one small favour though......PLEASE put a "before" and "after" photo together for pure comparison!

 

Stunning.....

Thanks, I will see what I can rustle up, there are some pics I haven't posted yet.

[jagman.2003]

Just revisited the forum after some time away.  Good to see you're tested and on the road,  inspirational stuff!

 

Adam

Thanks Adam, I was determined to get it on the road. Glad it's of use to others.