4 replies to this topic

[jackgreen91]

Hey guys,
I bought my Cooper a couple of weeks back with its engine being separate from the car.
So, firstly, I've got nearly no idea what goes where being a first mini owner but I have gathered bits and bobs from similar engine bay photos and common sense.

Although I'm not at the refitting stage yet, I just wondered if someone could give a brief explanation about what goes where, whether its worth removing the complicated wiring loom out for an engine bay respray or save the hassle of installing it again. And I'm not sure what the vacuum does or where the pipes go.

Distributor: The guy I bought the min-bin from gave me a DIS module I believe, but there is half (no rotor or cap) a standard distributor in the engine still. What is this set-up? My ideas in question - Is the DIS from a later model? Is it a half complete uprated dizzy conversion? Has he given it by mistake? or is it standard on the engine to have these two?

Thanks in advance for your help, complete novice
Cheers, Jack

[RayBoogs]

My best advice, a haynes manual

[Trick77]

Thats a lot of questions.
Vacuum lines.
The vacuum comes from the inlet manifold (when the throttle is closed the engine will suck from the manifold causing a depression). The first line from behind the throttle body goes to a small plastic vapour trap before plugging into the ecu map sensor. The second from the back goes to the air filter box where it operates the thermac valve. (This is a mechanical sensor which, when the air in the filter box is cold, allows the vacuum to switch air intake from the front of the car to drawing from under the exhaust heat shield.) The vacuum lines from the front of the throttle body operate on the breathers and charcoal cannister via a purge valve. These help draw the nasty stuff from the clutch and timing housing as well as recycling the evaporated fuel from the fuel tank via the charcoal cannister.

The dizzy sounds normal. I would replace the cap and rotor arm on a service anyway so that may be why there isnt one. Hard to say without seeing it.

[jackgreen91]

Ohh, I'm with you. Thanks for your help. And with the K&N filters, I would assume that this cancels out the thermac valve forcing cold air induction?

I'll have to upload some photos onto my project thread when I'm back from university. Can't wait to get cracking at easter properly. Very slow project at the moment.

Jack

[Trick77]

Yeah, i got a pipercross kit and fitted it a few weeks ago. I just got one of those red rubber pellets from a spud gun plugging up the spare vacuum line at the moment lol. Its all i could find at the time.