I would imagine BlwnAway is pretty close to the cost of all these goodies. I think Jan has a engine on his site that is "built" and it's around $8K but that doesn't include all the goodies this has. Plus all the Turbo goodies and everything else that get it north of 600hp.

 

That's what I was thinking......you have to be pretty passionate about your car to dump that much money into it, especially when you can go faster...for much cheaper. A Mini is an expensive car to make fast.

 

Yeah I should have went back and read from beginning lol. prob 15k for each stage or more I guess.

 

I've got $20k maybe more, into the current incarnation of my car, and I'll only be at 375-400 WHP with that money, when everything is all done.
I have no where near the amount of "special goodies" that the Bomber does.
Remember, once you're over 225-250 WHP, costs grow exponentially, so just imagine what happens over 450-500.

 

It will be interesting to hear how fast this car becomes. I can’t imagine the startled response from some of the high performance cars when running into this Mini. That plus the sheer fun of driving a Mini make the cost palatable.

 

Soo here's the thing.

And I admit this is peeing on the cornflakes. If I have an excuse it's just pure damned curiosity.

I'm running a puny little Dinan tuned Works car, and based on that dyno (255 hp, 286 tq) I applied the gear ratios to get the thrust chart, by rpm and gear, as follows.



That sorta confirmed what I was experiencing with the car, which was throttle induced wheelspin in the bottom two gears, even on a dry surface. On a wet surface 3rd gear also required caution.

So I converted the thrust chart to a G based chart - simple arithmetic, and got the same picture in different terms, as follows




Now with the minuscule power I can muster, I am praying that I can get 245mm of front tire, and obviously praying for traction.

With the Quaife, unless the car is pretty balanced it will absolutely crab sideways with any over-enthusiasm of throttle, and the world of fun suddenly revolves around smoothness.

So I am interested in the question of how much is more than can be used, and where diminishing return starts to apply.

Mind you, a drag car is not subject to these concerns, but I kinda thought the Mini was better in the corners by design, being FWD..

Cheers,

Charlie

 

That's the problem with front wheel drive cars.....unless you run slicks on them (and even then)....it's really hard to get them to hook up. The more power you have, and the harder you try to accelerate, the more they transfer weight to the rear of the car and away from the front. I bet in a drag race, a 400hp mustang with decent tires would blow the doors off of a 600hp mini, just because you can't get the power to the ground.

 

You might want to re-think that one:

 

Like I said......with slicks, on a "world record" car making who knows how much hp. Try that with a set of street tires.

You can't argue physics.....rwd is better than fwd at the drag strip. And the sad thing is that a Dodge demon with a set of slicks, right off the showroom floor will beat that at the drag strip.

 

From my perspective a 600 hp Mini being a daily driver and the fun you could have with the Porsche BMW etc crowd would be a lot more satisfying than trying to make a Mini into a competitive drag car. I know from my experience the surprise these folks have with my car and it is not even close to the OP’s car. Again, just my perspective.

 

Not sure that a 600+hp mini would be a true daily driver.....but maybe I'm wrong.

 

You have to remember, "is" a Daily Driver and "can be" a Daily Driver are 2 different things.

​​​​​​While high HP custom vehicles can be capable of being driven every day, many times you just don't want to, it takes a lot of time, money and effort to create a vehicle that reliably makes an actual 2-3 even 4 times the HP of factory, and quite often these cars lose many of their creature comforts, and require a much more diligent maintenance schedule. Which in turn means, the more you drive them, the more it costs, and effort it takes.

Sometimes you simply have to sit back and weigh your options, do you have the time and money to have the car ready for a weekend after driving it all week, many times with less creature comforts, or do you have a basic driver, knowing that the "Good" car is more easily prepped and ready, because you didn't drive it and put wear on the more expensive parts as much.

​​​​​​I know that the argument has been made that you can drive a 600 HP Mustang or Camaro or 700 HP Hellcat every day, try doubling or tripling that HP and see what happens.
it's all relative and needs to be thought of in the proper perspective.

And yes FWD has it's disadvantages in a Drag Strip, but it can still make a really fun street car, which more often than not doesn't require traction from a stop and helps with the "too much" HP for the vehicle issue. Not to mention the surprise aspect which can mean so much more in the street community than the track community.

 

So add 2 seconds (probably way too much) for street tires and you have a 12-second Mini that would still lose a 400hp Mustang. I'm all about staying in your lane but power/weight ratio is a real-world determinate.

 

I can't give you anything but speculation at this time, but what I'm experiencing with the factory LSD and a 215/45/17 tire, I'm figuring 3rd gear to spin significantly at 375-400 WHP. This guess is based on what I'm experiencing with my current 330 WHP.
Finding a set of streetable.drag radials that would fit would be a real plus, but of course you then have to start figuring axles and C/V's into the mix.
Maybe @llabmik2 can give you more insight as to what he's experiencing with his setup.

 

Sorry guys.I didn't see any new posts.

I could put 450whp down in 3rd gear on the pre-facelift box on the 24.5's with no heat in them. I could put 550-600 whp down in 3rd with the 26's with no heat in them. 1st gear was pointless on anything other than 8psi on the 225's second could take 15psi pretty easy....so like 350whp ish. The 26's though opened up the traction. It got even better when they got hot.

I did a burnout on the M&H 245's (26 inch tire) and dead hooked 1st gear at 8psi on a launch and it died instantly. Started it back up and put some retarded timing in it and gate and it launched on the street at 15psi with a little wheel slip. 2nd gear took 25psi. So 550whp or around there. 3rd gear I had 50psi in the map, and it destroyed that transmission in quick fashion when I shifted from 3rd to 4th. It took 50psi though in third like a champ. had about 8% wheel slip in the logs.

I never drove it on anything but drag radials on the street with anything more than gate in it. Well, I take that back, I did one time. I set all gears at 15psi and 1st and 2nd were useless and third broke the axle.

If you want a solid street tire and you have a LSD I would get a 888R the sidewalls were just to small and stiff for me. It liked to break my drivetrain.

 

I may have missed it, but what is the car's best ET/Trap?

 

Never took it down the 1/4 as I didn't build it to be a drag car. It had the pre-facelift box in it and a 26 inch tire. It was made to do long pulls. 4th gear would do 150mph on 26's and 9K rpm. It was a fast highway car. Fun street car. It was 100% faster than my Evo on the street though once it got traction in the higher gears and that **** trapped in the 150's mph but the evo was full boost from 1st gear to 4th.

 

What an absolute awesome build !

 

Thanks man

 

Shane anything new or going on? Hope Daughter is finally doing well.

 

Car is parted out. Took a different path in life to spend more time with the family. I miss the car, but my family comes first. So we are now traveling full time. I want to make sure that if something happens, my girls got to enjoy life to its fullest.

 

Glad to hear you are getting more time. would have loved a crack at some goodies to slap on my fmic tvs900 setup but no worries.

 

Good on ya, most important thing is to do what makes you happy.

People also tend to forget that most hobby projects actually do have a shelf life.

While I'm still working towards a goal with the Mini. Other things have definitely taken priority over the last 2 years, the focus on my recent projects have been more home and planning ahead toward retirement related, workshop/garage plus two other types of car builds.

I'm sure we'll hear from you if you get back into mini related things in the future.