19 replies to this topic

[baker_boy]

Been reading this months miniworld and seen in the anoraks corner on page 10 there was a company ( the above one ) that adapted a mini gearbox to fit a ford kent crossflow engine, and wondered if the company or Bill Quinne are still around as i need some info on how they adapted this mini gearbox, anybody got any info on any of this?

If you dont know what i mean read anoraks corner on page 10 ( im sure you all have by now )

many thanks

dave

[alexcrosse]

yer, there was one in ebay being sold from france not long ago... sorry thats all i got stopped doing it because you cant get thaaaat much power from a kent engine belive it or not... for the money anyway. Good noise tho Vtec's and k's took over.

Edited by alexcrosse, 18 March 2008 - 10:32 PM.

[baker_boy]

thanks for the reply, oooh rite didnt know that, wernt they used in kit cars? how much power we talkin?

[alexcrosse]

i was under the same impression as you a while ago, that you could get silly power from a crossflow, but your struggling to get over 200bhp after throwing alot of money at it from what i have researched. Looking at full spec rally escorts.

max power of the twincam was 106bhp... not really comparable to a vtec eh!

anyone feel free to correct me! but im sure if your looking to get 200bhp out of a xflow it aint gonna be fittin in a mini after... not in the front anyway.

Edited by alexcrosse, 18 March 2008 - 10:44 PM.

[baker_boy]

iv got a complete crossflow engine, all in its boxes, pistons, rods etc. basically a whole engine and i want to fit my mini gearbox to it and wondered how i could exactly and seeing that its been done before i thought that it cant be that hard.

i paid £50 for the whole lot!! of a mate who was i need of extra money! so now you can see why i want to do it. if i got 120bhp out of it id be happy. from what iv heard these engines, because of the block being quite small will happily rev round to 8000 all day everyday

thought itd make a nice change from all these k-series, vtechs and turbo'd engines out there aswell.

Edited by baker_boy, 18 March 2008 - 11:34 PM.

[alexcrosse]

pretty sure the were only ever done to clubbys. £50 is bloody good if its a 1600! Nout to do with the block size (the revs). Its due to the 5 bearing crank mainly. Would be really nice to do, but... alot of effort for not much performance imo.

[baker_boy]

thats why i want to see if i can put the crossflow block on my mini gearbox as i wont have to do loads of work then, just stick the engine and gearbox in and plum the engine in. jobs a good one. how come they were only done to the clubbys then?

Edited by baker_boy, 18 March 2008 - 11:50 PM.

[alexcrosse]

space i belive, you will have to do alot of work to get it in for one, which will cost alot of money, and 1600 crossflows as standard will only give 70bhp at flywheel, which is the same as an MG metro...

[s_robinson91]

Bill gwynne??? (or something like that)

I know these do rallying and still do alot focus's scoobies etc. they also have a rally school/ rally stages down in wales.

Dont know if that helps because i might be going off in a totally different direction.

[GraemeC]

No, Bill Quinne as he said. I think he is still around but not sure if he is still trading.

These kits weren't mass produced and I think they fell by the way side because of how time consuming they were to make and hence how expensive they were. There were two different 'specs', one with an adapter to fit a tapered Mini type crank tail to the Ford crank and one with a billet crank produced with the correct tail. The first wasn't really successful and the second was very exensive!

Certainly at the time the Ford engine was seen as having much more tuning potential than the A-series, especially if you used the Lotus twin cam unit. This then hit the problem of the Mini gearbox not being designed for the power of the Ford engine. Of course times move on and the gearbox can now be made stronger but then the A-series can also be made more powerful so this is another nail in the coffin for the conversion.

Modern engine transplants are far better than this conversion as the engines are better and they have the gearboxes to go with them.

[Jammy]

Send a PM to The Stig, he had two of the adaptor plates that are used to mate the Xflow engine to the Mini gearbox, although I know sold one, and was selling the other last year.

[Wessie28]

there are different crossflow engines about depending on application (FWD fiesta etc) or RWD (escort etc) theres plenty of performance upgrades available nowadays (full steel bottom ends etc) and respectable power is easily achieved from the (up to around 160bhp for a 1700) !

[mini_kel]

There are some details of the conversion in How to Modifiy Your Mini by david vizard. You can get some nice power and torque out of a 1700 crossfow i Had one in a MK1 cortina out of a hot rod starlet produced 165 bhp at the wheels was awesome

[Rosslin Racing]

In the days when japs made craaap the BDA was king followed by lotus twincam and the good old ford kent which made more power than the mini
so I think it was Mr longman made a special gearbox to take the BDA it was and still is a monster.
Here is a picture of the said gearbox which I got from Stig a fine gent that he is.

its the Manx version.

Edited by Rosslin Racing, 19 March 2008 - 12:08 PM.

[baker_boy]

thanks for all the replies its a great help. sounds like its unfortunately not gonna be worth it, but i bought this engine for £50 so i thought i was half way home buut, ill speak to the stig to see what he has to say. some very good points have been raised, so what dya reckon, is it worth carrying out?

RR - i cant see the pic?

Edited by baker_boy, 19 March 2008 - 06:49 PM.