I love that magenta style, dude. Both those civics looks sweet. It's funny how you sometimes find a certain car and for whatever reason you just can't shake it. Something about it just grips you. You may go through ups and downs with the car but you keep coming back. I've thought about selling my MINI many times but whenever I got close to sunsetting it, something pulled me back in. Here we are now. Feel free to interject with anything you got, man. More the merrier.

 

I'll just leave this here. I would ALWAYS recommend you clean, paint, or replace everything you can on a project like this. Cleaning and painting is fairly inexpensive but makes a HUGE difference in how an engine bay looks. This was a budget build 95 5.0 mustang that made enough power to eventually split the block in half.

 

Do yourself a favor and buy a handheld steamer to make that sludge removal easier. Less than $40 most places.

 

It just so happens I have one. I might try it out on that grime. Thanks for the suggestion.

On another note I can confirm that base model Acura RSX axles fit the MINIs front hubs. They are both 26 spline and they fit like a glove.

I will need to put the engine wherever the axles are most comfy. Even on the stock engine the axle clearance is pretty snug between the control arm, sway bar, subframe and all.



The passenger side axles are nearly identical in length. Only major difference is where the the half shaft mounts to the block.

 

very cool stuff. I'm following

 

Interesting note on those axels. How do the drivers side lengths line up? I would think the RSX has a wider front track, so some modification is going to be needed.

 

I could easily see needing to modify it somehow to make the axles fit, however I'm not sure on the RSX drivers axle length compared to the MINIs axle. I will compare when I get home today. Another point that might need to be taken into consideration is how wide the transaxle is on the Accord transmission vs the Mini transmission. If they are too dissimilar it won't matter if the axles are the same length because where they connect into the transmission would either make them too short or too long. I will also confirm this when I get home. Thanks for the comment. It's good to keep these things in mind.

 

This build might help you out if you haven't already seen it.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-into-r53.html

 

Oh yeah. His build was what inspired me to do my own.

On the axle note from above;

It's hard to tell from the pictures I will be showing here but the drivers side RSX axle is just ever so slightly longer than the MINIs drivers axle. Same story on the passenger side axles and half shaft.

What's interesting is that the Accord transaxle is sightly shorter than the MINIs transaxle. This is just a rough eye ball measurement since my caliper don't have long enough jaws so I think it really will come down to fitting the engine and seeing where everything lines up.

 

On today's episode of FrankenMINI, we mate the transmission to the engine and test fit the shiny K series into the MINIs dank and dirty engine bay. Starting with the rear main seal.

Part number 91214-RNB-A01
After a bit of fussing with the rear main seal I finally got that all sorted. Just take your time and don't ding the crank or aluminum block and you're golden.


Next up, the flywheel. I got this OEM style flywheel from action clutch just so I can keep the cost down. Again, I'm not going crazy with this build.
Flywheel Bolts are Honda OEM Part number - 90011-PNA-B00
Pressure plate bolts part number -
90034-p10-A01

76ft lbs for the flywheel bolts
19ft lbs for the clutch bolts


OEM style Clutch replacement from Exedy. Nothing crazy.

Now that's exciting! But before you get all worked up, it DOES NOT FIT!!

Reasons being multiple...



1. The water pump pulley will hit the passenger side frame rail.

2. The transmission case can't move any further to the drivers side otherwise it will touch the subframe. Ideally I would love to move it to the passenger side a bit to make some room for the transmission but I might run into the other side with the pulleys.

3. Same issue with the top of the transmission. The clearance is just too tight.


4. Because of the water pump running into the frame rail, I can't actually get the engine straight in the engine bay.

So those are all the problems so far. The question is what to do about it.

As far as I can see, the name of the game when it comes to fitting this engine is
"AXLE FITMENT"

I need to mount the engine where the axles will be the happiest. Right now I can't fit them into position at all with the engine all sideways so first order of business is to get the engine straightened out. That's where the grinder comes in.


This is the peice in question. It will be removed at the earliest convenience allowing realignment of the transplant heart. Will the MINI ever come out of its coma. Tune in next time.

 

This is a really interesting project which I'm following with great interest.

Is that a motorcycle lift/stand you are using to move the engine around?

 

Good eye, Sir. That it is. That's an old trick I got from my dad. He used them all the time. It makes it a bit easier in my opinion to get the engine in the right place. Compared to a engine hoist it doesn't swing or twist and it's under the car and doesn't have a boom that will run into the hood. Highly recommend using an ATV jack if your planing on moving an engine around.

Small update from last night...

I busted out the Dremel and the peice is gone! And would you look at that clearance.

We're not out of the woods yet however because the engine still isn't quite as straight as it needs to be.

Hard to tell but the engine needs to go about an inch back on the passenger side.

Also quite hard to tell from pictures but the pulleys are once again running into the frame rail. Only one answer makes sense, it will need to be chopped.


More soon. Bye for now.

 

Small update but I've been working out how the shifting will happen with this car and there are a couple of routes you can go.


This here is the OEM MINI shift box. I think the design is very smart since the actual shifting is done on the underside of the car which keeps the top side skinny enough to fit under all the interior parts around it. Only issue is that the lateral movement on the MINI shift box is different what the Accord 5speed needs.

​​​​​​ Hybrid Racing makes a great option for this with their no cut shift box for K24s but at the moment are backordered for eternity and also about $500. This is a budget build and I've already gone over what I wanted to spend so.... I'll have to go another route.

I picked up a shift box from an accord (54100-SDA-A01) But as it goes with this build, there are FITMENT issues.

Compared to each other the length and height are about the same, but on the Accord box the entire thing will mount inside the cabin rather than mounting from the bottom. This means there are some major clearance issues when it comes to fitting all the OEM center console pieces in their proper place.


Another reason I can't use the MINI shift box is that the lateral movement motion is reversed from what I need. In this picture both shift levers are pulled to the left like you would if you wanted to go into 1st gear. It might be heard to tell from the pictures but the MINI box would pull the cable where as the Accord box would push. If I tried to use the MINI box and tried to go into 1st it would actually out it into 5th or reverse. Hard to tell right now with everything apart. 😂

Just a small update in the meantime. Bye for now.

 

The engine is in place. Leveled and straight.


The hood even closes as it sits. It doesn't have the belt tensioner or power steering pump in it so that might be an issue but I'll take a win when I can get it.

Base model hood too. This is shorter than the S hoods.

Here is the clearance between the transaxle and the steering rack. I don't have a picture of it but the axles do fit. Everything should come together.

To get the engine in this position I needed to do a bunch more cutting with even more cutting to come. I repeat the engine does not fit. Once I get it all cut I'll make a real account of what needs to be done to fit this engine.

 

Big Update. The wiring and shifter are done.

Sadly my phone kicked the bucket recently so I lost a bunch of the photos I had pertaining to the work I had done on the mini. Thankfully most of the pictures I lost had to do with just the shifter and shifter cables and not much else. I can cover all of this at a later date or if any of you have any questions on it.

In other news, the wiring is done. And it’s actually not as bad as I had made it out to be in my head. Let’s go through it.

I’m using a Hybrid racing universal swap harness. On this harness there are 5 wires needed to get the engine to run so those are the ones I’ll focus on here.

I’ve mounted the swap harness on the bar just under the steering column. If you want to keep the OEM MINI look in the interior of the car this will achieve that. You will have to trim the plastic panels but I will cover that later on. Out of all the places under the dash, mounting everything to this plastic bar seemed like the easiest and least cluttered way to do it.

On the swap harness there will be a blue wire. This is responsible for the fuel pump power. This may come easy to some but for me it was hard to wrap my mind around it but what this swap harness is doing is essentially bypassing the MINIs factory fuel pump relay. What then has to be done is the fuel pump power wire (blue) has to be connected to the power wire of the MINI fuel pump. The easiest way to do this is to jump it off the passenger fuse box on the drivers side kick panel.

Auto wire strippers are a great tool to have. Definitely recommend gifting yourself one for Christmas.

Strip off maybe a half inch off the fuel pump wire. No need to shorten or extend this wire. It’s about the perfect length as it comes.

Get a pin connector the same size as the MINI fuel pump relay. And crimp it to the now stripped fuel wire.

Just like this.

Now run the pinned wire over the top of the kick panel just above the MINIs old OBD2 port.


Then connect that wire to the far right pin (pin 87). It should look like this when you’re done. Then just put the cover back in place and secure the wire under the dash so it all neat and tidy.

Now onto the engine side of things.



There are 4 wires from the swap harness in the cabin that need to be passed through the firewall and connected to the old MINI engine harness. These wires are.

- Constant 12v power (RED)
- Switch 12v Power (ORANGE)
- Oil pressure warning (PURPLE)
- Starter Signal (Large gauge BLACK)

Also in that picture are descriptions for each wire on the swap harness. You should get one of these in the box if you purchase it but I figure it’s good to post here just in case.




First and easiest part is to crimp an eyelet terminal to the constant 12v power wire. (RED) This will be bolted down to the back of the engine fuse box like this




For the next part you’ll need your wire strippers, a heat gun and some way to attach the wires securely. You could do this with a soldering iron, crimp butt connectors or a blend of the two, crumples butt connectors, which is what I went with. These are made of heat shrink material and have solder that melts into the wires when heated as well as glue to seal both ends.

I have labeled the wires that need to be connected
- Switch 12v (ORANGE) to (GREEN w/ white tracer
- Oil pressure warning (PURPLE) to (BLUE)
- Starter wire (LRG BLACK) to (BLACK w/ yellow tracer

That’s about all there is to the wiring. Now these are just the wires necessary to get the engine to run so I will still need to wire in a tachometer signal and radiator fan but I can cover those later. I hope all of that made sense but if not I’ll try to answer any questions you have.

More soon. Bye for now.

 

Happy new years everyone! I took a break for Christmas but I’m back working on the MINI. It seems like everyone on the internet that has done this swap does it slightly differently. This is how much frame I’ve had to cut out of the passenger side rail.

Frame rail is roughly half the thickness it used to be.

It may not be necessary but I figured with the frame rail being half the thickness it once was it would be good to brace it internally as well. I put a thin plate of 3/16 steel in so the rail would resist bending outward.

Remember kids, CAD stands for Cardboard Aided Design. I cut some shapes out of cardboard that fit the frame and then cut those same shapes out of 3/16 steel plate.

Then I tacked up the plates in place. Numbered from front to back

And welded them in place. Not pretty by any standards but it’s not going to fall apart. That’s really all that matters. I thinks once it comes time to paint it all I might sand down the welds a bit so it looks nicer underneath the velvet red paint but for now it will do.




That’s all for now. As a late Christmas present please accept this picture of my parent’s dog wearing my hat.


By for now.

 

I like it. Flux core wire welder? I've got one of those. Ugly welds but never had an issue with strength from it. I mig, tig, and stick weld at work. They all look better but for something like this, flux core is fine. Might could turn your heat up a little but then you run a fine line burning holes in the stamped sheet the car is made of. For clean up try a flap disc. They work GREAT at removing all the spatter and smoothing the beads out without removing too much material. Leaves a really smooth finish.

Something like this. $6 - $10 at Northern Tool. Harbor Freight, Ace, Lowes etc. all sell them too





Great job so far though! Keep at it brother.

 

Thanks, man. I’m trying my best. And yes I’m just using flux core at the moment. Seems to do the job fine and I don’t mind chipping off slag. It’s easy enough. I just have to remember to get it all before I paint it. I’d love to eventually learn how to Tig weld. That would open the doors to so many fabrication options. Thank you for the recommendation, I’ll probably go get one of those flap discs. Right now I’m also in the process of welding up the engine mounts so more posts will be coming soon. Thanks JerBear.

 

I built bumpers for my wife's old Land Rover. I used the little HF flux core welder for the rear bumper because the metal is a bit thinner than the front. I used flap discs to smooth the welds when I was done. You couldn't even tell it was a welded seam when done. I covered it in spray on bed liner so getting it that smooth probably wasn't necessary but it shows the result.

 

Oh wow! You really can’t tell. That finish looks amazing. Good work on that. Being a seasoned welder yourself you can probably tell but truth be told I just started welding myself. I picked up a 140 Mig a couple months back and have been practicing on little things here and there. Welding the minis frame is definitely the biggest job I’ve ever done. Definitely blew a couple holes in the sheet metal that I had to fill but the heat transfer marks made on the 3/16 plate gives me good reason to believe that everything will be solid. If you don't mind me asking what do you do for work and how long have you been welding?

 

I've been welding on and off for about 15 years or so. I'm a Journeyman Millwright by trade and welding is required but isn't my specialty lol. I consider myself competent but compared to a couple guys I work with I suck lol. I'm pretty good with stick and can torch weld better than most people I know but not great at tig, I actually just started learning tig this year.

This is a tig weld a coworker did


And this is a dumpster repair I stick welded.


So not Journeyman welder level 😂

 

Really cool. My friend used to work with mills down in Oregon a few years back mainly doing whatever steel needs they had. (Welding, fabricating, crane maintenance) those are some good looking welds, dumpster or not. I’m 25 right now so I’ll keep at it and hopefully mine will look that good some day.

Side note, my dad used to oxyacetylene weld on high pressure gas line for a living. That always blew my mind.

 

cool project man, looking forward to seeing it go

 

Thanks, man. Hopefully it’ll be moving soon. Engine mounts are this weekend. More to come very soon.

 

Just my 2¢, but you've followed a really good path with your welding.
An inexpensive machine with flux core is not only economically a great place to find out if you're interested in going further with welding and fab work, but if you can get good with flux core, gas shielded solid wire will be a breeze. Not only with application, but the need to finish and dress your welds as well.

as @JerBear pointed out, some grinding and a little fill work (don't forget your respirator) and those welds can disappear and look as if they're not even there.
You'll be surprised at the satisfaction you'll get once it's done, even if no one else ever see's it.
A wise man once said " A Grinder and Paint makes me look like the welder I ain't"

Keep up all the good work and sharing with your project.

​​​​​​