!OMG!

This is like car racing was before safety became prominent in the mid-60s. A crash and likely you were dead. No fast response bikes back then.

Sorry to see the good Dr died. YouTube will keep him alive forever...

PS - I never got the bug for anything motor powered and only on 2 wheels. This just reminded me why...

 

It's so easy to get carried away and caught up in the ROAR! more power!!! game, but ultimately, in my opinion, chasing more power becomes a quixotic windmill tilt which ends up as a huge financial investment plus assorted headaches due to reliability issues...

...as much as I think it's pretty cool to see turbo'd R53's getting like 385bhp on a dyno, it just ain't for me personally and perhaps I could be labell'd a purist similar to how an original Mini enthusiast may groan at the thought of a VTEC Mini, because I think the supercharger is integral to the R53 experience and I love that aspect.

The R53 is Retro Done Right © much like how Renault got it proper with their recent incarnation of the legendary A110, where the more important characteristics got priority over raw number bragging rights...

 

What a cool doctor. I know few in the medical profession would ever get this man's passion and how he lived for his love. I learnt so much about emergency medicine on motorcycle road racing. He died doing what he loves. He lived his life so fast and shone so bright, and his intelligence, professional competency, and humor is intoxicating. I got so choked up at the end of the video. RIP, my hero Dr. Hinds.

On open road motorcycle racing there is none other than the Dunlop family.

 

What he said...
When I got into going to the track, I wanted more power so I could go faster. Funny thing is, that kept being put on the back burner and now I am faster...

Love the MINI, much like a 911. It is a car that is designed “wrong” much like the 911. But there is a certain amount of pride to be had when it is driven right and is made to do things it should not be capable of.

Enjoy the ride...

PS: I now have a rubber mallet to check my car before heading out to the track. Thanks for that idea...

 

Desire is a hottie! 🤗

 

For now I am quite content of the power my Mini has, and I am glad that I didn't go do the costly engine mods. I know some point down the road I may, starting with a tune. I like having the nearly stock engine as a constant baseline while I improve my driving. I am pleasantly surprise Desire can put up a good fight against the Red Baron that has circa the cost of a Cayman into it. My track buddy remarks that Desire is the fastest street Mini that he has ever run with. I want a reliable drivetrain and that is utmost important.

I have observed someone with a monster Mini and he had nothing but troubles most of time he took it out. In fact I have never seen him run a full session, let alone the whole day event. If you only know the numbers and all the expensive goodies you would be very impressed. However he traded in reliability and that for me is most important.

Of all the engines I know Alan's build is the best. Some day I may want an engine like his should I want to turn Desire into a track car. I planned to get my ByteTronik tune with just the 550cc injectors as the first step.

The Renault A110 is a great car that emphasis in uncompromising handling and kept very light. It looks gorgeous in person and I was surprise how small it is - which is great. If I am not mistaken it is not imported into this soil like all Renaults.

 

I've seen all too often on track days many are fast simply because of their high power cars, and that includes many instructors. Some can't even heel and toe. Many of these modern high performance cars can be driven very faster in all automatic by lessor drivers. I was very surprised that so many with pedal shifts the driver just leave it to the computer to do the shifting.

 

I was out once in a group that included a guy in a GTR. I talked with him for a bit and remarked at how well he was doing (he was an intermediate driver and I was assigned to his run group because I signed up late). He said he had almost nothing to do with it; it was all the car’s doing. It seems like it would be boring with nothing to do while running laps.

 

GTR is one of those car that is not too drivable if they remove all the computers. I have talked to owners of AMG GT4 hot in the middle twin turbo V8, A Porsche Carrara S, and a Camaro ZL1, all with pedal shifts and they told me they just let the car do the shifting. I wonder if there is a market for self-driving track cars.

I can see and would love a Porsche Club Sport of GT4, or GT3 but I won't let it do the shifting for me. I sure damn well be doing a lot of left foot braking or breaking though or else the left foot goes asleep.

I got a long way to go with the stick though:

 

OK, I squandered a nice cool morning to work I could had used to work on the rear bakes, so guess what I do to kill some time? Read up one different automatic and manual gearbox. I'd always dream of a Mog. I went and look at a new one at Freightliner a few years back and thought how cool it would be driving a vehicle with portal axles. Way cooler than G-Wagon.

"Power is sent to all four wheels via an 8-speed automated pre-selector manual transmission, a two-speed transfer case, and portal axles. The truck has a 3,000:1 crawl ratio, permitting it to crawl at 0.09 mph at approximately 2,000 rpm."


that is a gorgeous color even 3 year old boys/girls would love


Some can crawl sideways like a crab. I just need an acreage to park this baby.

 

Toothpicks & twin sticks,
all about the sugar foot.

Amazing these things are still out there riding around!

 

this is the reason that I procrastinated and squandered the morning, and there are very good reasons. it is more than PITA to service the rear calipers


first the communists made rear brake retracting tool needs more production line fine tuning to fit



there is very good reason this dust boot comes with a new piston seal; I bought these rebuild kits from Rockbottom Auto and they look OEM



the old dust boot just crumbled and self-destructed; Bentley "shop manual" once again proves to be less worthy than a roll of toilet paper

My challenge is to figure how to avoid wasting too much of the expensive Motul 600 fluid and get the pistons out to change the seal. Unlike the front caliper the rear seal is on the piston rather than in the caliper's piston bore.

At least I can take comfort that here in PNW Desire does not have a diet of road salt so everything is rust free.



OK, enough screwing around, back to work.

 

I dived in to get the job done.



this is the rebuilding kit



consists of three things



the slider pins are in excellent shape and so are the rubber bushings

I actually bought a set of replacement rubber bushings but seeing the OE ones are in good shape I didn't bother to change them.



the dust boots are the only thing that became brittle and dried






hanging the caliper making it easier to work on it



I used the hydraulic pressure to force out the piston



surprising you lose very little fluid



this piston has rubber residue that needs to be cleaned



third foot braking



the piston seal is in the cylinder bore


this piston has rubber residue that needed removing


I used this cleaning wax to remove the rubber residue; this only good for jobs like this



nice and clean and no rust


interesting there is a spring in the back side of the piston





extracted the old piston seal; the new one is more supple and slightly larger






the just boot seats on the inner groove


I had a hard time seating the boot on this first side



this is the right way; fold the boot back until you retract the piston all the way before seating the big end



I was still trying to figure out the most expedient way of getting the piston back on as well as the new dust boot


a lot of struggle I finally able to retract the piston; BTW, you want to open the bleed nipple so the air can escape as you retract it


this is the right way of doing it; fold the boot forward until you retract the piston home







new Raybestos rotor and the price is right



Desire needs no racy slotted or drilled rotors


by the time I got to the left side I was very proficient so this side took very little time



I installed a set of new Ferodo racing pads and proceeded to bleed the hydraulics

In addition to bleeding the hydraulic line I yank the parking brake 10 to 15 times to take up the slack. I also checked for excessive drag on both wheels.


love this Schwaben pressure bleeder



I used it as low pressure compressed air source



got it all done before the moon came out



the right side pads took the most beating

Servicing the rear stock brake is quite a chore because of the parking brake mechanisms. The floating calipers are also much harder to work on than fixed calipers like the Wilwood. Thankfully I only need to do this every couple of years. The brake pedal is a little spongy and I think is because the pads have not have a chance to seat into place, partly due to crapy floating caliper design. I also don't believe installing the bronze slider bushing would improve the parallelism of the pads. The rear brakes wear quite evenly anyway as they don't work that hard.

 

Would be fun to drive that once. Soon the world would be drabber with mostly electric cars.

 

Yep,
I would love to try and drive one of those.

Those old truckers really had to work at it and I think perhaps it made them more attentive in the long run, but now most of those are automatic too.

I wonder if they still have to know gearshifting to get a CDL?

A boring old video:


RE:
rear brakes

I have yet to have to do my rear brakes, but I did break down and order the special tool from England to make it smooth butter when it does come the time.

My old Saab had extremely outdated archaic Girling front calipers that also required a similar thing,
and for some reason they put the handbrake on the front...

...another very boring video,
but shows well the piston-turning process involved as well as the ancient calipers
LOL

 

Thanks for the rear brake caliper rebuild. I have never done that.

Your piston is different from the R56 and the R56 doesn’t have the double groove on the end. The dust boot comes right up the end fo the piston.

Pardon my ignorance, but what does the broom handle do for you?

I do love the Wilwoods for rebuilding.

 

I cannot tell you what I set the rear cambers to. My driveway is less than flat so I just eyeballed and called it a day. I didn't think anyone can tell me what best to set them to for my car setup so I didn't bother asking. What better way to find out myself the hard way? Trial and error by reading the tire wear and pyrometer to take the temperatures.

these are the two rear tires from the most recent track event; they were on the front the first day; much improved compare all the tires increasing the negativeness (people always tell me I am so negative )



So like mending the fence after the horses escape I decided to invest in an inclinometer to find out the cambers to 0.1 degree accuracy . Soon I would be in Nik Blackhurst's big boy league.

and it beeps at 0 and 90 degrees

 

I took pyrometer readings three times this past 2 day track event at ORP. All were taken after one cool down lap. Most of these session are between 25 - 30 min long. While the tire surface temperature cools down significantly especially on a very windy day, the core tend to retain the heat a bit better. Still I estimate a few tens of degrees likely had been lost due to the cool down lap. Still the reading gives me some hint as how the alignment, car setup, and my driving are doing.

this were the condition of the tires on the right side in the second day when I swapped them front/back that morning






The numbers that stand out are the LF outer temperature in the second day (the bottom two sets). They are not lower than the center and inside, and the last session actually higher. I didn't take tire pressure readings. Since the numbers look odd I just went out and check the pressure and the front are both 32 psi cold, which is what I tend to set them at pre-track.

It must be something about driving CW at ORP the outside shoulder of the LF tends to work harder.

 

I took these two photos to show the potential effectiveness of the cabrio braces for the strut tower is more than another "upgrade" placebo.


ff you tell you brain to concentrate the white painted sheet metal structure and ignore the black that are plastic (structural thin air) you can see the weakness a the front




You can see how the braces tie the front of the strut towers to the forward going box beams below.

Before the R53 Mini I had a gen 1 Miata which included a factory hard top. The hard top is never intended to be structural but a nice to have removable top for a convertible. It is secured to the car with two flimsy latches to the top of the windscreen. I was very shocked to experience first hand the huge difference of how the car rode with and without the hard top on. And don't forget unlike most convertible which are the cut off roof version of the car as designed. Miatas are designed as convertible from the outset.

Speaking of Miata, I can see myself returning to a new Miata someday soon. It is such a great track focus platform, that I only wish the company will make a coupe version but that would likely never happen. Without the folks wanting a convertible Miata will never be able to sustain market viability. That car already exists, and it is the Subaru BRZ, but the BRZ still suffering the shortcoming of the earlier generations of Miata that it can benefit from a little more power and flatter torque curve.

Oh, Desire needs not worry to be replaced by a Miata or BRZ, as to me it is such fun to drive a good fun wheel drive that is the R53. I want to be be fast on a FWD, RWD, and may be a AWD some day.

 

I have the JCW strut bar. Not sure whether it particularly changed the handling of the car, but I did find that it eliminated the cowling shake the car had. I have kept it on as it seems to make sense to transfer load from one side to the other when cornering hard and cut down on on and metal fatigue.

It is interesting that my F56 MINI is solid metal from one strut tower to the other...

 

I didn’t realize that you were referring to the fore-aft bars in your picture. Being in black they blended in. Then I saw this post;
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4476837

Much easier to see in RED...

 

funny you mention the BRZ as I just picked up a 86 TRD edition a couple weeks ago, the car is a ton of fun! We cross shopped the miata and mustang but solid roof and light weight won me over.

 

Congrats on your BRZ. Do show us some photos. Running with two very well sorted turbo and SC Miatas I begin to get the Miata itch. Would be very interesting that Subaru and Mazda view each other as competitions.

 

No red or neon color go fast bits here.

BTW, I looked up the engine bay photos of the F56 and I see the strut towers are set farther back but can just be how it is set up. I see people still add a strut brace to it. that has to negotiate the rubber seals.

Some newer cars like Miata has provision for a triangular strut brace. I think BRZ is like that too. Much stronger.

 

It's my wife's car a few years until the warranty expires then it's getting a supercharger and some fat tires, these things can fit 255's easily. We finished break in on the way to tail of the dragon, did another mountain run last weekend. Wife wants to drive but she gets scared easy and jumps back in the passenger seat.