You dont need to pull the motor, but it does make it eaiser if your doing it yourself to seperate the tranny and put it back together....

I have pix in my photobucket link of all that jazz.....

 

Yeah I've seen your photobucket photos Trickle X!

I figured it would be easier for me to remove the engine/trans to do this work(no need to drop the front subframe too)!

Any other suggestions for the engine/trans removal? The Bentley manual seems straight forward....but I know there's always hiccups along the way.

Jeremy

 

I have a luk clutch and i love it, great price and bites good. I used to have a fx300 but it didnt last very long. You are gonna love the lw Flywheel, the way it pulls is rediculous.

Jack

 

Yeah I asked earlier in this thread about Luk clutch kits to no avail.

What happened to your FX300 Jack? You're running the LUK kit with the aluminium flywheel now?

Jeremy

 

What happened to your FX300? I had one in my turbo-R53 and it performed flawlessly and was a perfect match for the amount of torque I had.

 

After running 600 to the wheels it tore it up. J/k. after about 15,000 miles it just started to show a good bit of wear. I loved it though. The luk kit feels about where a stage 2 should feel IMO.


Jack

 

Its pretty straight forward, I didnt use the manual for it, you will need to unbolt your top struts and pull them out to let the axels drop all the way down so you can slide the axels out from the gear box. Thats the hardest part of the job. Drain the gear box fluid before you pull everything as well or you will have a rite mess on your hands. Make sure you have a good idea where all your wireharness plugs go so when you go and put it back you dont have to scratch your head like I did, but that's mostly because I didnt put half the stuff back in, lol.

 

Oh so you didn't pull out your half shafts? You just dropped the struts and pryed out the inner CV's to gain you enough clearance to pull the motor? Nice!

I'm going to add new O-rings for my fuel injectors, AC connections, and new outer CV nuts to the parts list....I still can't believe a thermostat(with gasket) is $49!

Jeremy

 

I was bored today and decided to bathroom scale some of these parts waiting to go in my MINI. I weighed myself in at a hair under 150lbs(I opted not to bulk up over the winter-haha) and picked up an item and did the math.

The CM flywheel was 11lbs and 11.5-12lbs with the eight bolts and plate washer. The CM pressure plate(LUK made) was 8lbs and around 11.5 with the FX200 sprung clutch disc. The OBX ATB diff without ring gear(still in my car) was about 13lbs. Just by placing the flywheel(on edge), diff, and pressure plate(on edge) on the scale I was very close to my subtraction math.

Jeremy

 

Jeremy,
LOL, oops I pulled the "Enter" trigger way too fast! Please read below

 

Jeremy,
If you get a chance please weigh your stock diff! I forgot to weigh my stock and Quaife Rev2 and it's driving me up the wall! I know K-huevo weighed both Quaife's at one point and the Rev2 was 2 lbs 6 ounces less; your OBX should weigh similar to the Quaife Rev1 I'd imagine since it's a copy of it.
We use the same weighing method (me+parts and then parts alone to verify] My scale came up with 12 pounds for the CM flywheel and 26 for the stock dual-mass flywheel. I remember the CM FX200 being 1 pound heavier than the stock clutch/flywheel.
Are you pulling the whole powertrain or just the tranny? I can't decide which is harder, both methods suck!

 

Well I spoke to MINI Yaletown's Manager/Mechanic and he figured it would be easier to to the flywheel, clutch, diff just by keeping the motor and trans in situ. With the motor a bit loose I should be able to get at the timing chain tensioner bolt too(for my camshaft swap). So with that I bought a few more powerflex bushings to stiffen things up(front control arms, steering rack, and sway bar). Mossmini has very good pricing by the way. Besides I shouldn't have to crack the AC or the cooling systems now. My coolant's not even 18 months old yet. We'll see how it goes.

I'll weigh the stock diff for sure with and without the crown wheel gear. Maybe with a phantom grip kit installed too. haha Having that phantom grip kit on my parts shelf started all of this drivetrain parts buying.

Jeremy

 

If you're going to do the suspension bushings then taking down the subframe and then pulling the transmission out of the driver side wheelwell is the easier method. That's what I did this time around to get to the clutch/flywheel/diff. I also needed to make a bumpsteer change by raising my steering rack, so it was good to have the subframe off the car.

Since you are going to be supporting the engine with only the passenger side mount and a jack, set up a jackstand under the oil pan for safety. You'll be able to lower the subframe by only removing the shocks from the suspension. You can keep the axles in the hubs to keep the subframe assembly as one unit.

 

Ok thanks for the tip Ryan. I've got a couple of floor jacks here and an assortment of jack stands/wood blocks so I should be good to go.

What's causing your bumpsteer probs? Too low?

Jeremy

 

My bumpsteer was because I had moved my control arm pivots a total of 0.7" [to improve the roll center at my very low ride height] but only moved the steering rack up 0.25". I found out I can raise the steering rack 9/16" and still stuff it in the car, though the power steering line bracket had to be tweaked to not rub on the oil cooler line. Nevertheless, I now reduced the amount of bumpsteer I've introduced in the car, so it should steer more stock [which is good]!

 

Did you go for an offset bushing or the ALTA PSRS Ryan?

My castor is just over 3 degrees with ALTA springs. It still handles great though, except for the 1 wheel peel.

Jeremy

 

What's the procedure for breaking/running in a new camshaft for our MINIs. I'll be out in the shop dropping in the new cam(check for exhaust lobe clearance) and reassembling tonight or in the AM. I'll post more pics later on. I'm thinking fire it up and then run at 2K---2.5K rpm for 20 minutes and then shut down. Thoughts?

Jeremy

 

The Ultrik camshaft has been installed, run in, and test driven! It does feel a tad weaker at part cruising throttle(to be expected sort of), but I'm sure I'll gain gobs more power once I clean my air filter. hehe I'll wind her up later this week and see how it works above 4500 rpm.

My stock cam had zero wear and the end float was peachy between .0025" and .0030". The Ultrik's end float was taught @ .0020". I did notice a little wear on the sides of the cam bearing caps from rocker side loading. The followers looked and rolled great. The rocker tips had some minor blemishing of the case hardening, but the valve stem tops were AOK! Oh well all I can do is change the oil every 5000 miles(which I did yesterday).

Stock cam total lobe diams were:
Intake: 35.25mm
Exhaust: 35.62mm

Ultrik cam total lobe diams were:
Intake: 35.82mm
Exhaust: 36.25mm

The exhaust lobes were brushing the spark plug tubes so I did have to ball pean them to gain clearance. So far so good!

Jeremy

 

Here's some pics of the camshaft swap.

Quick question: What's with all the sealant in my valve cover? haha

Jeremy

 

I'm on holidays now, so things are happening! I'll try to get the gearbox dropped today before I spend some time with my fiance(cheesie term).

Jeremy

Subframe dropped.

Subframe on shop floor(view from driver's side).

Subframe slid out from under MINI.

There's the cross pin for the stock OPEN DIFF(view from driver's side).

Driver's side pot joint/CV looking good!

Driver's side knuckle, half shaft, strut etc yanked.

 

Another plug for the FX300. I've got the FX400 and it's great (Little extreme for most people on the street though).

OBX > Phantom Grip. The OBX is a complete copy of the Quaife (Side by side we couldn't tell the difference). I've seen the Phantom Grip's fail before, it sucks...

 

We ran the engine up to 3k RPM's until the oil was about 175-180 degrees (From ambient ~70 degrees). Took about 7-8 minutes. If you want to see just how much power your AC takes try holding the car at 3k rpm's then switch on the AC. Drops 300+ rpm's!

Sealant in the valve cover is normal. I dunno why, they all have that little goopy pastey mess in there.

 

I'm glad to know I'm not the only guy with snot in my valve cover Nick!

Today, I lowered out the trans and got my CM flywheel and clutch kit installed. The stock flywheel/pressure plate/disc looked awesome with just under 50K miles. The stock pressure plate has 2 drive straps and the FX200 has 3 drive straps for added pleasure! hehe

The only mishap was when I had cracked all but three of the t-40 torx bolts(to pop off the flywheel cover) and my bit snapped. Off to the store I went and I made sure I bought 2 solid t-40 bits. The last 3(plastic shift cable housing) came off with more force than the approximate 27 ft-lbs of the other 15+ T-40 bolts.

Tonight I'll get the crown wheel gear off the stock diff and fire it onto the OBX. Then I'll have to bake my new diff bearings and try to drop them on my OBX diff.

Here's some pics of today in the shop.

Jeremy

Gearbox/Diff gently removed.

Stock Flywheel

Stock stuff.

Rear main seal in great shape so I'm not replacing it!

CM Flywheel: note the Mini 1275cc A+ con rod bearing shell to hold the flywheel. It only worked for the pressure plate tourque up so I used a pry bar for the crank bolts.

CM FX200 pressure plate and the clutch disc is all aligned!

There's the trans and open differential.

 

Dude, Danny was running Jan's old Phantom grip for a long time. Between the power Jan put through it with his old twin charge car and beating Danny put it through I would give it big for reliability. Yes, Danny finally killed it but that thing lasted a hell of a long time.

I have 10k miles on my OBX and love it. Didn't do anything other then drop it in. So far so good .

Longboard

 

Jeremy,

I give you huge props for doing all this work yourself. Way to go man . Your going to dig it.

Longboard