is the red one your future track car?

 

Getting parted out.

 

ahh so you got it for the engine/trans/lsd? is it a hardtop?

 

Yah. If ypu mean does it have a sunroof the answer is yes. If i didn't then i would considered keeping it, but not a fan of red.

 

ohh too bad, the hardtops are hard to find, I had to search quite a while for mine

 

I'm just going through this whole build thread and holy karp, man. You're doing a hell of a job and I hope everything goes as smoothly as possible (yeah, I know they never do but a guy can hope, right?) I have sent you a PM as I may be interested in the wheels off that JCW

 

Tank - what are your plans for the engine?

 

I'm going to pull and see where it at. I was thinking of building it and have it as a spare or wait until the current one goes swap this in and build that one if at all possible. Having a spare engine/ Transmission will tell the gods to stay away from engine failure in my current car lol. I was thinking about swapping transmission have been looking around to educate myself in differences between the years and gear ratios and LSD ect. As far as i know JCW have LSD but haven't found someone that can say yes with certainty and the VIN decoder site i use doesn't seem to work anymore.

Really just want to build something strong. More then likely i will only do Piston/rods/bearing/bolts and head gasket and leave the head alone besides cleaning it.

This would be the second engine i build and the other still alive and kicking.

 

OK so I'm keep the wheels. After swapping wheels out and weight this wheels are light.

15" with 195-55-15 tires


About 34lbs


17" 215-45-17 Track car wheels and tires


about 39lbs


17" 215-45-17 BBS


About 35lbs


Unless i get a crazy offer this are staying with me. Too bad they are not black but Powder coating can also cure that or plastic dip.

Back to do research on building this motor lol.

 

Wheel are no longer for sale.

 

Since i have that JCW catback I'm going to try a combination of stock Exhaust manifold or car back and see which one will help reduce the noise or maybe ill just keep the alta and the JCW catback.

 

There are a number of engine build threads on NAM. Most have to do with boosting power. But, a lot of them also start with how they built up the bottom end for strength. It seems there are some pretty knowledgeable people out there on how to do this, what parts to get and who's parts are the best for this. I may have subscribed to a few; I'll see if I can dig any up.

As for the LSD, I find that if I jack up one front wheel and try to rotate it with the transmission in gear, it is really hard to do. I seem to remember that it was pretty easy to rotate the wheel before I put the Quaife in.

You and I talked about Ackerman steering. The start of this video shows what an F1's front wheels look like when they are turned. This illustrates nicely what it is. You can see how different the steering angle is for the inside wheel vs the outside. Sorry to say that there is nothing you can change on the MINI with respect to this, but you can see how this plays into front toe-in and how you probably want to keep a bit of toe-in for the track.

 

If you are not looking to make a lot of power, I would just put in the JCW cat-back. They sound good without being loud.

 

My idea was to Install the Exhaust Manifold since it has a Cat it should act like a silencer and i can keep my Cat back or Simply add the JCW Catback and do the same.

I should be fine with the JCW CatBack since it has two mufflers it shouldn't restrict too much and should equal the Alta CB in size.


JCW Catback I would need to mod the Hanger


Alta Catback
the previous owner painted black

 

Here is an engine build thread that may help with ideas for add strength
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad-400whp.html

Also try searching on "Sprintex". That's a aftermarket supercharger for the gen I MINIs, but the people who were putting them in also strengthened their engines.

Maybe these will give you some ideas.

 

OK so i thought what the hell let me see where my car is at currently. Took it to DRT to get some Dyno pulls and i was surprised.

Check out the motor no movement and I haven't even installed the transmission insert yet.

Let talk number. Based on the number I'm more or less doing the JCW numbers at the Flywheel unless someone has the math of drivetrain lost. Normally people do it at 15% and 12% unless there is a special math for Minis.

Average Wheel HP/TQ
181whp and 148wtq
+15% Lost thru drivetrain
Flywheel HP
208hp and 170tq

If we do it by
+12% Lost thru drivetrain
Flywheel HP
202hp and 165tq

 

Wow, nicely done
I would say that this engine has a pretty flat torque curve and it is nice that the HP is still climbing at red line. That should make for a nice relaxed drive around the track. Good power from 3500 on up. Generally people talk about 10 to 15% losses. The MINIs seem to be underrated. That is a JCW at 208 hp factory are coming off dyno runs at about 195 (if I remember right). So you are in the ball park. Did that capture any fuel air mixture readings with these pulls? It would be good to know to see if a tune would be worth it.

 

The guy at DRT Told me that the car was running rich and i had some room to make more power. I personally will stay where I'm at lol. I'm ok with the power I'm putting down and the car is running fine. cross fingers.

I think my o2's may have taken a dump today lol got P0030 (HO2S Heater Control Circuit (Bank 1 Sensor 1) and P2270 (02 Sensor Signal Stuck Lean bank 1 Sensor 2). I will be clearing the code tomorrow and driving the car and see if it comes back if it does ill be replacing it.

 

Rich is better than lean.

I'm headed to WGI a week from now. New rotors and pads. This will be a real test of the deflector brake ducts I made. Hoping for a good couple of days. I will also get a chance to see my cousin's new M2.

 

Enjoy. Take videos Would love to see your lap times.

 

Well done. Pretty flat and straight gains.

 

why would you keep toe in at the track?!?!?

also what about more caster, that adds dynamic camber which we desperately need at the track, stupid McPherson struts

 

I'll take video; getting it off the camera may be another issue. Still haven't figured out the computer issues.

But will be happy to report back.

 

There are a lot options for a car setup for the track and almost nothing I have done follows conventional wisdom for setting up MINIs.

That said, Watkins Glen is not your conventional track. One turn in particular is a sharp, steep, uphill corkscrew. Even in-spec toe-in might not be enough toe-in. In this turn the steering angle created by the Ackerman steering for the inside tire is enough to chew up the inside of that tire in this turn.

Toe-in also creates stability. On the track stability is not a bad idea, especially for a street car. An autocross car is a different story. A bit of unstableness makes the car quicker in the quick, tight turns of an autocross course. But the track is a different case. Try hitting antifreeze on the track at the apex of T3, in the esses at WGI, doing 105 mph. Stability is a good thing. Ask me how I know.

I have set my MINI to be a very responsive and fun track car. If I was at the level of Louis Hamilton, maybe I would do the setup differently. But, I'm not. A lot of people out on the track also are not. For anyone who is learning, I would recommend a car that is setup to be stable. Especially if they are planning to drive the car home. I have seen more than one BRZ totaled at an event because they are designed to be more on the edge (i.e.: unstable) and that can be a problem in inexperienced hands.

This is not to say that the car has to have boring and aggravating understeer. This can be dialed out with larger front and rear sway bars and better shocks, for example. These increases the roll stiffness of the car which will help maintain camber up front in a turn when the car wants to rollover but it doesn't. As you said, this is problem with the strut suspension. My car is quite neutral, has good turn-in but will push a bit at the limits. It can, however, be made to rotate. However, if I need to lift in the middle of a turn, it won't swap ends on me. All of this with stock toe-in and added rear camber.

You ask about caster. Caster is a good thing. But caster is to compensate for the loss of camber as steering angle increases. So if steering angles don't change much (like on the track), the effect from added caster is minimal. Hence, I suspect, is the reason that there are not a lot of options to add it to a MINI. You get a lot of bang from your buck by just adding camber. If you do autocross then added caster will have much more of an impact. So, the priority of doing is going to be dependent on what you are doing. I would also not expect added caster to remove stability and it should enhance drivability. For me, it is not high in my list of things to do to my car because of the effort to add some. Would I like to add some? Yes.

Hope this helps to explain my suggestion.

 

I run as much camber as my plates allow and zero toe and still destroy my outside front edge on the tires, understeer is still an issue unless off the gas

Can't say I notice stability issues on the straights except hard braking with the stock crap bushings