9 replies to this topic

[mambaman]

I bought this cooper way way way back in november 2002 where i kept it pretty much standard :smartass: untill the following summer. In the attempt of collecting parts for an engine rebuild, the original engine decided to throw a fit and whilst going round the M25 lost oil pressure. I managed to creep home, but non the less it was very dodgy.

This development forced me to take the car off the road, where i rebuilt a donor 1275MG engine with a 276 cam and 1.3:1 rockers. I didnt rebore it or regrind the crank, instead i chose to re-ring the pistons and reshell the crank.

At the same time i fitted uprated shocks to the car and some negative camber arms and new adjustable tie bars. A polybush kit was also added to the front subframe and the car was converted from injection to Carb.

Pic below shows the engine build in summer 2003

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[mambaman]

The engine also got a minisport 1300/MG type rebuilt gearbox, what a mistake that was , and a few other new bits including a duplex chain and cone filter. This was married to a cheapo sportex exhaust system

As a note, the gearbox failed after 2,000 miles in that the synchro on 3rd had completely stopped working, still it did do another 20,000 miles after that. I dont think i'll be re-using that 3rd gear if i choose to rebuild the gearbox myself :fear:

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[m3ntalist]

did you have any trouble at MOT time after going over to carbs?

[mambaman]

During running in the car was sent off to be freshened up, a new wing, rear valance, new outer sills and inner sills along with a boot patch and scuttle repair were done at minibitz in northampton for a total cost of around £825. The whole car was given a blow over at the same time and some 13*7 ultralights were fitted under some sportspack arches.

Soon followed a RR visit to minisport (was returning an exchange gearbox so it seemed to suit) where a modified needle was fitted and gave me 74bhp at the flywheel. The final RR had to be aborted due to some poor valvesprings, minispares rising rate ones were fitted at a later date to solve this.

Car looked like this in October 2003

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[mambaman]

did you have any trouble at MOT time after going over to carbs?

i kept the logbook from the MG metro donor car and produced it at the test, in the 2 following tests it never had any problems.

[mambaman]

Over the next year or two, things got more and more advanced. The interior was fitted with a full facia dash and matching magnolia dials. The engine was sent back to a rolling road down in bristol, spamspeed, where it was tuned to 82bhp with the above spec being used. I was quiet pleased with this, although do think that the rollers over-read as 82bhp at the crank is very high for an engine without a modified head :nugget:

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[mambaman]

After the Rolling road i decided to turn my attention to the suspension, i had fitted gmax uprated shocks which were a bit naff. I changed them to lowred gaz dampers and fitted rear tracking/camber brakets and adjustable bottom arms. With the addition of some red dot cones up front and some inno spec cones on the rear the car was gonne be spot on handling wise.

The car was then setup by a local chap, he did the camber.castor and tracking on the front and the camber and tracking on the back. I was very pleased with the results and many fun miles followed.

Back in April 2005 the car was laid up with a broken engine, the fudged engine build back in 2003 cought up with me and i ended up with an engine which wasnt running on all 4 cylinders, had massive compresison problems and used oil more than it did petrol (both were pretty heavey).

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[benfredjosh]

i love it thats what i want mine 2 look like i love those wheels!!!!! that what i want 2 do 2 my spi!

[mambaman]

This is what the car looks like now, its in the middle of having a revamp including new engine, wiring and removable front. I'll update on this later in the week.

Any thoughts

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[mambaman]

i love it thats what i want mine 2 look like i love those wheels!!!!! that what i want 2 do 2 my spi!

the wheels are up for grabs if you want them