305 replies to this topic

[felixy69]

It turned into a full race car lol

[felixy69]

It turned into a full race car lol

[Joe250]

Nice work! I'm so happy to see the project is nearing completion. I feared it had fallen completely by the wayside. Clearly not.

 

by the way, I pass right by your neighborhood during my commute.  Shout if you ever need a hand with anything.

 

Joe

[BigRed8]

But this "full race car" will be fully registered, licensed, and street legal! 

[BigRed8]

Joe250,

 

I'm just pleased to see that anyone is still following this build. Thanks for your offer but the car is being finished by Dave's Garage, a custom car builder in Simi Valley.  Chris and I did the first 80% but with him living down in LA it was never going to be finished without some outside help.  We hope to have it done in a couple of months and you would be welcome to stop by and look it over.  I'm sure we're going to be working out some bugs for a while and your experience would be very helpful.

 

Thanks,  John

[MINI MAD RKH]

Brilliant, thanks for the update John

 

Nice work! I'm so happy to see the project is nearing completion. I feared it had fallen completely by the wayside. Clearly not.

 

by the way, I pass right by your neighborhood during my commute.  Shout if you ever need a hand with anything.

 

Joe

 

Indeed, just need an update from you now Joe, it's been a while with your thread too :)

[BigRed8]

<p>I thought it might be helpful to comment specificly on a couple of the photos I posted last week.</p>
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<p></p>
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<p></p>
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<p>I found this &quot;mini diamond&quot; pattern 1/8 inch aluminum plate at McMaster-Carr and liked it so much I ended up replacing all the dash panels with it. &nbsp;I also added floor panels as well to clean up look of the lumpy floor sheet metal.</p>
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Edited by BigRed8, 08 October 2013 - 02:15 PM.

[BigRed8]

We have a small issue with the seats.  The Corbeau seats we bought six years are fine if you are shaped like Jensen Button (or Christopher).  But for those of who have put on a few extra pounds over the years the current seats are just too narrow.  What

Edited by BigRed8, 12 October 2013 - 04:14 PM.

[clovus]

Hi,

I think you will find there are a lot more people following this epic build then you think. It's just that a lot of us won't post any comments.
Good luck with the final shakedown and please keep posting.

Thanks

[BigRed8]

Thanks Mini Mad, It is always a little strange posting to a forum like this.  You send your thoughts out into the great WWW with no idea who's listening. A couple of significant updates to give you with pictures and maybe video to follow later.  

 

1)   She Runs!  ,You've got to love Hondas.  After being rudely extracted from a used civic with a pair of bolt cutters somewhere in Japan 6 years ago,  sitting around my garage gathering dust for 5 + years, being fitted with a manifold that is bent into a near circle, it fires up immediately once we got the plug wires connected to the right cylinders  Appears to run fine with the exception the idle being set a little high.  It sounds surprisingly throaty and not that loud, at least until you rev it!  Christopher's adaptation of the  R1 Sport bike muffler is looking brilliant at this point  We expect to bleed the clutch line shortly and find out if the drive train works as well.

 

2) The interior should be finished within a week, the Dynomat sound suppression material is almost completely installed.  Dave (of Dave's Garage) came up with a brilliant idea to use very dense but thin carpet to cover most of the interior that  is not sheet aluminum and to  use snaps to hold it in place.  Easier to show than explain.  Photos to follow!

 

John

Edited by BigRed8, 14 November 2013 - 12:34 AM.

[shivi_d92]

great news!!!! more pics and maybe some videos!!! 

[Rosco5000]

This is an awesome build.  Is it moving under its own power yet?  By the looks of last post you were figuring out the clutch.

[BigRed8]

This is an awesome build.  Is it moving under its own power yet?  By the looks of last post you were figuring out the clutch.

Edited by BigRed8, 03 May 2014 - 05:27 PM.

[BigRed8]

My apologies for another long delay between updates. 

 

The Mini has been running since January but we've been struggling with some severe front brake problems.  We are using a disk brake conversion kit bought 7 years ago that was designed for 10 inch wheels (7.5 inch disks).  I think I got the wrong calipers with the kit because they did not fit well, requiring a lot of shimming and some machining of the caliper housing to fit them and get them aligned with the rotors.  For reasons I still don't fully understand the brake calipers heat up and begin to bind on the disks after only a few miles of driving and very light use of the brakes.  I've decided to bite the bullet and replace my front brakes with a more tried and true disk conversion kit from Mini Tec which utilizes 9.5 inch vented and drilled rotors.  It's an unexpected cost very late in the project but after experiencing wheat 120 bhp in a mini actually feels like I'm not going to be satisfied with less than excellent brakes!  

 

I did drive it enough to make it to the local recycling center that has a vehicle scale and it weighed in at 1,470 lb. with half a tank of gas.  Our goal was to get under 1,500 lb. and with all the roll cage and chassis reinforcing we did I was thinking we might not make it. 

 

Speaking of what it actually feels like to drive I have a couple of observations from the initial (brief) outings.

 

1)  A very short wheel base light weight front wheel drive car requires your full attention when driven hard.  The combination of torque steer and/or wheel-spin when you get on the gas makes for some exciting directional changes if you are not on top of it!  We clearly  have some further alignment refinements to make to tame this little beast.

 

2)  Even with all the Dynamat and carpet we installed the interior noise level is still pretty high.  I was not expecting a Lexus or anything but earplugs might be a good idea if i take it for an extended drive or to a track.

 

3)  The efforts we made to reinforce the chassis have really paid off.  This thing corners like nothing I've ever driven.  It will pull the wax out of your ears on almost any corner over 30 mph!

 

More to come.  John

[Rosco5000]

Could the front brakes be hanging up because you are using a drum brake master cylinder?  Drum brake masters are designed to hold some pressure in the system so the springs on the shoes don't pull the wheel cylinders back and cause a low pedal.  

Edited by Rosco5000, 05 May 2014 - 12:55 AM.