15 replies to this topic

[davididen]

hi all, im looking at lightening my mini, so far i have removed the rear seats and belts, rear carpets are gone as is the sound deadening/underseal on the floor, but i dont think ive really taken a lot of weight out. i do now also have a fibreglass bonnet coming in the post. so what are the next steps? and if you have pictures of things that you have lightened on your mini please post them up. much appreciated

[Big_Adam]

I'd suggest taking a cue from the old shcool.

I'm assuming you don't want to spend loads, so flashy alloy/carbon parts are out for the most part. So to be cheap you're next best bets are going to be polycarbonate windows. This will shed a fair bit of weight. Part that its going to be putting holes in stuff (like the strutting for the boot lid) but really, mini don't weight that much to start with.

Only way to lose weight past removing stuff is throwing money to change it to "light weight" parts.

[samsfern]

standard bootlid can be lightened with a hole cutter, doors have quite a bit of material that can be ditched, headlining can go, heavy speakers if any, spare wheel can go and be replaced with a can of tyre weld.
Glass is amazingly heavy and can be replaced with polycarb or perspex, and then its down to lightening things like brackets, steering collums, gear change mechanism, pedals, etc, or reproducing things in lighter materials
im in the process of lightening some bits at the moment so ill get a few pics up when ive finished.

[Bungle]

skip lunch

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

big adam is right, just chuck money at it lol theres loadsa stuff you can get in fibreglass and carbon fibre and aluminium parts aswell or as has been said just drill holes in bits that arent neccessary to the structure

[samsfern]

not little holes either, get a hole cutter set.

[mini_mad69]

I've also removed everything I don't need.

[samsfern]

a holy crank pulley of mine, and a gearbox bracket, im still in the process of doing, unless youve seen one of these before you wont realise how much materials already been removed, still loads more to remove, the bitwith the holes in will be completely gone eventually. Next will be the engine mount bracket.

[benpopham]

[/quote]


[quote name='samsfern' post='1970035' date='Nov 7 2010, 01:57 PM']a holy crank pulley of mine, and a gearbox bracket, im still in the process of doing, unless youve seen one of these before you wont realise how much materials already been removed, still loads more to remove, the bitwith the holes in will be completely gone eventually. Next will be the engine mount bracket.[/quote]


CRANK DAMPER???!!! please tell me that isnt going on your engine?

[mini_mad69]

CRANK DAMPER???!!! please tell me that isnt going on your engine?

I was thinking that.

[samsfern]

CRANK DAMPER???!!! please tell me that isnt going on your engine?

I was thinking that.

going on? It is already on, i know, i had similar thoughts, but still stuck it on. Been fine for a year and still going. It replaced another crank pulley that came apart at the rubber bit. Some a series engines never had dampers fitted anyway, they just had solid pulleys.

Edited by samsfern, 07 November 2010 - 12:57 PM.

[mini13]

the mass of the outer part of the crank damper directly affects the rpm that the crank damper works at.

[Cooperman]

The biggest weight loss is from changing to perspex or polycarbonate windows. I believe aluminium door skins ae now available again and fibreglass boot lids save a bit. The big webs which make up each side of the front sub-frame are also over-engineered and will stand some lightening holes, although the MoT inspector could find these 'iffy'. You could, if really serious, fit a composite roof panel by cutting the old roof off and leaving about 2" all round to bond and rivet the fcomposite ont to. A roll cage could be a wise thing to add, but presumably you are lightening it for a competition use, so you'll have a full FIA cage anyway. You can get lightweight competition batteries as well.
The rear seat back could be replaced by a sheet of aluminium and the rear shelf can be cut out and an aluminium plate rivetted in to replace it, all suitable fire-proofed, of course.
The window winding mechanism is very heavy, an if you fit perspex, you can have a sliding panel in it with a little perspex window, the remainder being fixed in place. Then almost the entire inner door skin can be removed.
Keep on thinking about it and more savings can be made.

[BenCoul]

head lining gone aswell i presume ?
Why do you want it lighter? If ya mini's just for track days, then why not rip out the stereo and heater matrix?
also, there's the fibre glass wings and boot to go with your bonnet
and a smaller petrol tank

[HARBER07]

Lots of lightening bits in my project thread