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Introducing myself and this Mini which is actually a company car for the place I work at. The owner is a gear head so nothing gets left stock for long. It was a run of the mill blue and white mini but it was in need of some attention, the CV boots were torn and the supercharger was making the wrong kind of noise, the clutch was dead and the rest of the front suspension needed a refresh.
I'll start with the parts list:
Alta intake
Alta 17% pulley
Alta 2% crank pulley
Alta adjustable tensioner stop
MSD coil & Magnecor wires
NGK BKR7EIX
New gates belt
Mahle top end rebuild gasket kit
RMW oil pan baffle
ARP head bolts
DRC 264/272 cam
Mildly ported head
Modded bypass valve (shimmed and stretched current spring)
Alta intercooler diverter
AEM water injection kit
Vibratechnics street engine/transmission mounts
Byteronik FA53 reflash kit
Innovate Boost/afr gauge
2016 Mustang Bosch EV14 440cc injectors
Autoxcooper rebuild M45
OBX header
Custom 2.5" exhaust
Moog ball joints
Superpro steering rack bushing
Alta PSRS
Alta endlinks front and rear
Eibach sways front and rear
Alta rear control arms
Clutch masters FX400 clutch and flywheel
Minisport short ratio final drive
Wavetrac lsd
Cravenspeed short shifter
Needless to say I have my work cut out for me but it's almost the home stretch. I am waiting on the clutch & flywheel to arrive monday as well as the reflash kit.
Service mode engaged and the subframe removed. I am used to working on American or Japanese cars (have a 370z myself) and never in my life have I seen a car that you have to remove the front bumper to change the lower control arm bushings (i know you can cut them out but lets face it a press is easier).
The Alta pulleys
Before
After
The DRC cam specs
Cleaned up the intake bowls only, didn't touch the rest of the port.
The exhaust side hump right before the valve guide
Shot from the port side
Port matched the exhaust side as they were comically small
Long block reassembled and the block painted black
Comparing the injectors. I had to add a 6mm spacer to raise the fuel rail up a tad. We got the injector wiring adapters from wiringspecialties.com
Moving onto the transmission. The throwout bearing was beginning to fail
The mini sport short ratio final drive, wavetrack in it's new home
That's it for now. I should have some more pics next week when I can get the drive train back in the car
Are you doing all that and not changing the bearings?
I have the FD, it trashes 1st and 2nd on the road really (better suited to pre facelift probably), well definitely 1st haha, the whine is significant but great, others will think your box is broken haha, my car just accelerated straight to the rev limiter in top, which was ~144, but gave some big toys a surprising run for their money that's for sure ;O)
Now I have the full dog box, even lower top end but it's fantastically ridiculous haha. Very noisy, quite impractical, and had to work on the engine to raise the ceiling a little, still will be going a little more, then it goes in my other car.
Great effort, but how come you get to do the work on the company's car? Is it like a punishment for being late or something haha ;O)
Are you doing all that and not changing the bearings?
I have the FD, it trashes 1st and 2nd on the road really (better suited to pre facelift probably), well definitely 1st haha, the whine is significant but great, others will think your box is broken haha, my car just accelerated straight to the rev limiter in top, which was ~144, but gave some big toys a surprising run for their money that's for sure ;O)
Now I have the full dog box, even lower top end but it's fantastically ridiculous haha. Very noisy, quite impractical, and had to work on the engine to raise the ceiling a little, still will be going a little more, then it goes in my other car.
Great effort, but how come you get to do the work on the company's car? Is it like a punishment for being late or something haha ;O)
Thanks for the info on the final drive! It's been difficult for me to find many reviews online. The dog box must be a chore to drive on the street. This car is basically our fall back car if one of our (management) personal cars break.
I'm working on the company car in exchange for parts to turbo my personal 370z (R35 GTR stock turbo conversion) not for being late LOL
Man that sound sweet. Should be pretty annoying to drive every day LOL. That looked like alot of fun chasing the lotus. My coworker has an S1 with a K24 swap that I need to make headers for after this job.
Some progress on the weekend.
All of the accessories are back on and the belt installed
Replaced the steering rack bushing and of course that stud broke. I have another bolt to tack weld in its place.
The clutch and flywheel finally arrived. Ready for thursday's install
yes it is a bit mental, although I quite like the noise, well, noise's' really haha. There were several Lotus's there, I guess a club maybe, this was the quickest and the only one anywhere near my Mini, perhaps it was one of the supercharged ones I don't know, it pulled quite hard on the straight initially, it was fun ;O) The Marshalls liked it, I got a handshake as they were going home, and he said my Mini was the car of the day for him, and the others said it was ace watching the two of us on track at the end, I guess you had to be there but the little car did really well. I did get one black flag for an aggressive overtake up that hill haha. The Marshall waving me in came over and said he'd have left me out there.
got to tell you I think the wrong belt's on there. The +2 crank pulley doesn't help, maybe get one two steps down and use the tensioner strap hole as a guide, you want the first hole well clear of the top of the tensioner ideally. That's the wear marker.
yes it is a bit mental, although I quite like the noise, well, noise's' really haha. There were several Lotus's there, I guess a club maybe, this was the quickest and the only one anywhere near my Mini, perhaps it was one of the supercharged ones I don't know, it pulled quite hard on the straight initially, it was fun ;O) The Marshalls liked it, I got a handshake as they were going home, and he said my Mini was the car of the day for him, and the others said it was ace watching the two of us on track at the end, I guess you had to be there but the little car did really well. I did get one black flag for an aggressive overtake up that hill haha. The Marshall waving me in came over and said he'd have left me out there.
got to tell you I think the wrong belt's on there. The +2 crank pulley doesn't help, maybe get one two steps down and use the tensioner strap hole as a guide, you want the first hole well clear of the top of the tensioner ideally. That's the wear marker.
The belt is what ALTA shipped us. I could see about swapping it for a shorter one, we were running this combination of pulleys/belt before the tear down. The mangled belt tensioner is me trying to adjust it in place.
I got the flywheel/clutch installed and put the engine/transmission back in the car last night only to discover we also got the wrong engine mount for our year car. We have an early 03 and got the later 03 engine mount from vibratechnics. Due to the logistics of where we are I am going to have some spacers machined tomorrow and longer bolts used to drop the engine to the correct height.
Nice pics, great work, this might be what my next phase of Mini mods looks like, so I'll be watching and learning
exactly. I've only had this R53 for two weeks and I really like it. When the drive terrain goes, I'm just going to upgrade what ever needs to be changed. Motor, trainny, what ever, as long as the body is still good. It's just too fun no to keep at any expense.
Well no pics to update. But everything is back together except for the axles, a coworker was doing the CV boots and hasn't finished yet.
If anyone was wondering the stock ecu will run the S550 mustang 34lb injectors without any help. I was under the impression they were 440cc but they aren't. We will probably have to upgrade to the 550's shortly.
The DRC cam has no lope, was hoping for a little to satisfy the ricer in me. Can't wait to take it for a drive!
Cliff notes : do not buy anything from mishimoto. How can you possibly **** up radiator hoses?
Last edited by sirnixalot; 10-07-2018 at 04:16 PM.
These are the shifter base bushings I had the machine shop whip up. If you do a short shifter make sure its one that comes with these in the kit. The improvement is phenomenal, the shifter doesn't have any extra movement or ambiguity.
This is the new engine mount bracket in it's not fully welded stage. I had to ditch the cross bar as it fouled on the Vibratechnics mount. We have an OEM bracket on the way.
Also this is one of the many reasons I have no love for mishimoto, 90% marketing and 10% product
Both upper and lower hoses need an extra 90* to work. Who makes 90% of a hose?
Well...it was all going quite well till something let go in the gear box and locked it up. I'll have the gear box dropped again this coming weekend to figure out exactly what went wrong.
Well since i last updated this I have tried to find 3rd gear in the box to no avail. It's disappeared somewhere deep in there and I haven't fully disassembled it yet.
I finally received the 06 gear box though and transferred the wavetrac to it last night. I am getting some help to install the gear box tonight and should have everything buttoned back up over the weekend. The new 630cc injectors are in and waiting on me to finish putting the car back together.
Car is back up and running perfectly. Decided this ecu is too complicated for me to tune with all the tq limiter tables and what not so I have paid for a ByteTronik remote tune and sent off the initial logs.
Hopefully we can get something done before New years but we will see.
Got the log manifold completed and the turbo situated. I removed the plastic shields on the firewall for some more space for the downpipe. I will have pictures of the O2 housing section later today.
I couldn't find the actuator for the RVR turbo so I got one off an R33 and welded a mount on the compressor housing for it.
I drilled a 7/16" hole where the factory top mount bracket went on the intake manifold so I could mount the MAP sensor directly to it.
Cold side piping mock up is complete. The intercooler and radiator should be here friday so I can complete the piping on the weekend.
NIce! Love the DIY builds! What are you doing for the water pump? How do you like the Bytetronik tuning so far? I am on the fence between them and RMW.
Mike and George at Bytetronik have been great and patient with me, definitely recommend them. I don't want to get involved in that pissing contest though.
Test fit the O2 housing/turbo elbow. It's 2" SCH40 for the turbine wheel port and 1.5" SCH40 for the wastegate port. I have the wastegate merging at a 45* angle right before a 2.5" Vband clamp. I didn't see a need to go larger on the turbine port side since I'm not chasing big power and will be running a 2.5" exhaust.
I didn't get the manifold or O2 housing back from the machine shop today so hopefully monday.
I did however get a lot of **** done today
Cold side piping done (some of the welds are quite shitty looking, the powder coated piping was giving me a warm time). The intercooler and radiator mounted
I left a 1" gap between them to fit a small universal AC condenser pictured below.
I have the water pump positioned where i want it and i dont think the radiator hoses will give me too much trouble. Will finish that and relocate the power steering reservoir tomorrow
Power steering reservoir relocated. I used some 1" angle iron and use some existing M6 holes to mount to the car. The reservoir bracket was flipped upside down and then bolted to the angle iron. I had to replace the return line with some 5/8" hose, the feed line I just bent to get it to reach.
Took some trimming and removing the grill but the intercooler and piping all fit behind the cover. If I were to do this again I would have used 2" intercooler piping across the bumper beam.
Pretty sure I'm going to end up welding the block water adapter to the pump.
Hot side intercooler piping pops up right next to the throttle body. I have a 30* elbow that will point it right where I need it to go to meet up with the turbo. My only concern is the intake after this, gotta somehow fit that between the hot side piping and the power steering reservoir.
09-26-2018, 10:11 AM
