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Looks fookin amazin

love the cold air feed

I'd say keep the alloys how they are

**Update - I havent updated in a long while, quite abit has been achieved, but its a matter of 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Here goes...

Well as you know, I have purchased a stage 1 kit bit by bit and, have swapped the head for an unleaded one. When removing the old head, it was all coked up and the bypass hose was completely blocked - nothing was getting through. The water pump had really worn away and was only sealed by a small eroded shoulder against the gasket. So I purchased a new water pump also!

With the head removed, the bores looked 'clean', but it looks as if cylinder number one, was wearing away the bore wall to one side, almost as if it wasnt firing down straight! I cleaned it all up, did'nt see anything really major, so just went ahead and fitted a new gasket and unleaded head, cooper freeflow and inlet manifold.





With everything built up:



She still is'nt quite there yet! My order arrived today - AAE needle, distributor vacuum unit - as mine doesnt seem to be working. So hopefully that should help. She needs a rolling road really, but its effort - never mind cost!

Will update again soon when I have fitted the other parts.

Then this was the next problem/obstacle to overcome:

The problems were (and currently still are) to do with my Minilites that I have on the car. As one of the tyres had a bulge in the sidewall, I bought a new tyre from Minispares and took it to my local tyre fitters to get the tyre put on the rim ready for my 3-day road trip through Wales. However, the local tyre fitters had serious problems getting the tyre off of the alloy. So I took it to ATS, ATS also had problems getting the tyre off. The tyre fitter described that the well was centred and therefore the tyre wouldnt go on at the right angle. He managed to ge the old tyre off but couldnt get the new one on without breaking the beading. On the morning of the road trip I took it to a local motorbike specialist, who managed to get the tyre on the alloy by heating the tyre to get it on. The tyre eventually went on. It got me to Caernarfon Wales and part way back. I pulled into the service station on the A55 (ass road) and noticed the tyre looked deflated. So I got the footpump out and started to pump it up. It had about 8Psi in. I pumped it up to 24psi, and heard a psssstttt, put my hand round the back of the tyre and felt a huge bulge! I pressed it in with my fingers and the tyre just let go, scary moment! it just dropped onto the floor, so whipped out the original 29 year old scissor jack and put the also 29yr old spare on! India GT tyre!

Anyway, I'm after a new set of wheels still 10's of course, due to the fact that these are cheap and crap design by Midland Wheel Spares.The centre well, needs to be offset to get the tyre on without damaging the tyre. So my new £30 tyre was ruined in a moment.

Heres the damage:

Old Tyre Before:





This was done at manufacture ^ ^

New tyre that still let go:





Not a happy bunny.

I'm still after new boots and shoes, I seriously do not trust these. I rang up Huddersfield Mini Spares about there ultralites and they claim to have no problem fitting tyres. He knew exactly what I was talking about, about the MWS wheels - and MWS are aware of the problem (apparently).

The new rubber I am after are: Yoko A032-R's - Quite an aggressive tread pattern, soft compound, but are road legal. For the amount of miles I do in the Mini they should last for a reasonable amount of time.

Huddersfield Ultralite on A032-R:



What do you think?

Tom

They would look really good on the car, I think deffo go for them.

The toyos will be a very good choice as well, very grippy even in wet. Closest legal tyre you can get to slicks

Scary bout the bulge in your tyre though, lucky it didnt go whilst you were driving.

Your airhose btw, it doesnt get too hot by the engine does it??

They look really good go for it

The airhose is now removed, it was too restrictive, I happened to notice whilst trying to overtake someone at 60, she kept bogging down! And I know for a fact shes good for 70 - pushing it abit. She was bogging down at 60mph, which was a scary experience whilst trying to overtake. Im now after some aluminium ducting as my freeflow manifold becomes extremely hot, the previous air feed was too small in diameter.

Im after 50mm aluminium ducting, anyone know where I can get this cheap?

Thanks for the feedback. I will be purchasing the alloy and tyre combination as pictured.

What next?

Tom

doin a great job on that keep it up!

Why not put a l'il vent on the bonnet. Getting louvres on mine soon, the heat is unbelievable!

If I was going down that route, I'd tilt the bonnet, raises the bonnet near to windscreen, when moving the air is sucked into the back of the engine, exactly where the filter and exhaust manifold is. People with Turbo'd minis usually do this for extra cooling and for the denser cold air feed.

Just my "ten cents worth", have you thought about stripping the mini out, and having a full Rollcage, not the crappy show cages that kill you in a crash, but a full one???

I think that could possibly finish the car off, unless you wanted to carry on doing other things like??

Louvres (or stamped cut outs) I think looks a bit more subtle. Just depends on what the object of your car is.

My friend has a full cage he said I could have, but to be honest it would be too much weight, even stripping it out wouldnt gain much as the backseats weigh virtually nil. And adding a rollcage at this current time, would be drastic on my insurance!



I'm liking the ideas keep them coming. I would toy with the idea of a half cage, simply for the fact of having somewhere to bolt my fire extinguisher. I guess Im going for a classic look, with colour themes and simplicity in mind. Shes going to be a right sleeper one day!

id say tilt the bonnet keep it lookin as standard as poss mate! lovin the "city" decals btw

The rollcage would make the body stiffer overall tho...

Depends what sort of thing your after, as you say yourself, depends on Insurance. Are you wanting more performance based modifications, or Looks??