Another MCS. The track day toy.

[Sir_Dave]

So the mini hasn't really moved since the Bedford track day at the end of Feb due to this:

The outer CV boot had torn completely on the drivers side, dumping grease quite literally everywhere, over the wheel, brakes, etc. Such a flipping mess!! I had been in two minds what to do for a while, hence the delays, seems that in order to replace the outer boot, you need to remove the driveshaft and split it down, meaning that id have to buy a new outer boot/grease, new inner boot/grease and get mess everywhere. With both sides having done 100k miles and quite a few track days now, imho it made more sense to get new ones ... Mini wanted £770 after discount, so i went with GKN from ECP instead (£300 for both). After all, they are more than likely the OEM supplier anyways!

Only fitted the drivers side so far, along with a new ARB drop link as the passenger side is still mostly in one piece, but will get that done as well after the car is MOT'd on Saturday.

My Safety Devices rollcage has also been delivered to Millsy's Autos now, so i need to get up there at some point & get it all installed. Have also decided that i need to get some more cold air to my front brakes, so will be removing the fog lights and hacking away at the wheel arch liners at some point.

 

[MarkCup]

Is your axle stand made of cheese?

 

[Budgie]

Is your axle stand made of cheese?

LOL.

SRS belt and braces, Captain Safety.

 

[Sir_Dave]

Is your axle stand made of cheese?

LOL.
SRS belt and braces, Captain Safety.

lol, as Mike knows, i am Mr Health & Safety 😂
In effect though, as its so low, i need the red low entry jack to get the car up in the air, but it doesn't rise very high, so then use the yellow one to get the car up a little higher to get the axle stand under the car. Even then, as neither jack goes up that high, & the car is so low, when i crawl under, my face is effectively on the subframe, so if it moved even slightly, id get stuck/squashed, so use pretty much everything i have to keep the car in one place!!
Ideally id have gone to Basingstoke and used my larger jack/Sarah's dads 3 tonners, but its got no MOT and couldnt really be driven due to the cv boot - although thats what i tend to do for anything that involves getting under the car :up:

 

[Scrooge]

Flol, two jacks, an axle stand and a wheel!!! f**king hell Dave, you could have a walk about under a mini!

 

[Jamie86]

Only need a stand when it's up for a few weeks iirc

 

[Djw John]

Sorry how much for shafts from BMW?!

Lol at the many many jacks. Still see my old one every day at work, still don't regret selling it!

 

[TimR26]

What are "axel stands"? Never heard of those before, sounds a bit high tech for my mechanic skills.

 

[Sir_Dave]

So after my pondering re: blue smoke on startup here: http://www.cliosport.net/threads/decisions-re-track-car-the-mini.793728/
I bought a solution the other day off bidsy26 on Minitorque:

The head needed to come off to change the valve stem seals, so it made perfect sense to upgrade everything at the same time. Man Maths.
Its a Lohen Ported Head with enlarged Schrick inlet & exhaust valves. Got some ARP head head studs as well.
When mapped up, it should give me another 20-25WHP at a guess?

 

[alistairolsen]

When I saw the update I assumed you had it fitted already! Finger out 😂

 

[Sir_Dave]

When I saw the update I assumed you had it fitted already! Finger out 😂

lol, i only picked it up last night!!! 😂
The chap had a 1320 turbo converted R53. Dear god it was epic.
Looks standardish:

But 360 bhp at the wheels :laughing:
With launch control.

 

[Brookie.]

Good work Dave :up: definitely the right decision.

I love Bidsy's car also.

 

[Djw John]

I can't remember/be bothered scrolling back through pics. Have you dewipered the rear? If not do you want the sticker for it? I'm clearly not going to need it!

 

[Sir_Dave]

Good work Dave :up: definitely the right decision.
I love Bidsy's car also.

Yeah, it was mint as well, made me feel a little bad for mine tbh, definitely needs a little love from a bodywork perspective!!

I can't remember/be bothered scrolling back through pics. Have you dewipered the rear? If not do you want the sticker for it? I'm clearly not going to need it!

I have done it, just not documented on here, thanks for the offer off the sticker though :up:

to

Looks alot better imho, & as the rear wiper didnt work anyways, no worse visibility wise lol.

 

[Cub.]

Good work Captain! X

 

[Sir_Dave]

So as with most things, this is potentially spiraling again 😂

A BVH obviously has much bigger exhaust ports, so if i don't fit a better manifold (Janspeed 4-1), i will have a bottleneck. I need to keep the cat to keep noise down, but the Janspeed Sportscat is only rated for standard power (lol), so i need my cat modified to fit the new manifold. Then if ive got bigger inlet ports on my head, i might as well put the higher lift Catcam in there to make the most of it. Following that, as ive previously had issues with fueling etc, i want bigger injectors, purely as everyone else with a tuned mini runs the 550's these days, not the 450's (what i have), as the spray pattern is better and they are apparently easier to map.

To be brutally honest, i'm not sure i really need circa 230 bhp at the wheels (an extra 35 over what i have at the moment), but it would be silly not to spend the extra £600 on manifold/cam before getting it all mapped up again surely? My "cheap" track car has turned into some kind of quest for moar power. The trouble with boost i guess?

 

[Panda.]

Do it, do it....

 

[182jwilliams]

Nice thread.

Think I remember seeing this at Bedford back in February, looked like it was going well

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[Waitey]

So as with most things, this is potentially spiraling again 😂

A BVH obviously has much bigger exhaust ports, so if i don't fit a better manifold (Janspeed 4-1), i will have a bottleneck. I need to keep the cat to keep noise down, but the Janspeed Sportscat is only rated for standard power (lol), so i need my cat modified to fit the new manifold. Then if ive got bigger inlet ports on my head, i might as well put the higher lift Catcam in there to make the most of it. Following that, as ive previously had issues with fueling etc, i want bigger injectors, purely as everyone else with a tuned mini runs the 550's these days, not the 450's (what i have), as the spray pattern is better and they are apparently easier to map.

To be brutally honest, i'm not sure i really need circa 230 bhp at the wheels (an extra 35 over what i have at the moment), but it would be silly not to spend the extra £600 on manifold/cam before getting it all mapped up again surely? My "cheap" track car has turned into some kind of quest for moar power. The trouble with boost i guess?

In the USA people used the standard mani and cat up to 270bhp.

I'd deffo go for 550's though. 450's will be running fairly high duty cycles.

 

[alistairolsen]

Sell BVH, source replacement standard head, stop letting the scope creep.

 

[Sir_Dave]

Sell BVH, source replacement standard head, stop letting the scope creep.

I tend to agree tbh.
With that in mind, the R53 is going to come off the road long-term, for me to rebuild the existing head (new valve stem seals etc) - i've always wanted to pull an engine apart, so now is the ideal opportunity. Furthermore, i simply don't want to spend £2.5k building the top end to an epic spec, for the 100k mile bottom end to then give up the ghost. Luckily a lot of parts that are currently fitted to the R53, will also fit an R56, so happy days

 

[alistairolsen]

I tend to agree tbh.
With that in mind, the R53 is going to come off the road long-term, for me to rebuild the existing head (new valve stem seals etc) - i've always wanted to pull an engine apart, so now is the ideal opportunity. Furthermore, i simply don't want to spend £2.5k building the top end to an epic spec, for the 100k mile bottom end to then give up the ghost. Luckily a lot of parts that are currently fitted to the R53, will also fit an R56, so happy days

I've never done a mini, but on any other car, I'd be happy to pull the head, replace the stem seals, lap the valves and refit it with a new cambelt in a weekend with decent beer/tea breaks. Perhaps over two weekends if its and MLS gasket and you want to skim it to clean the surface, or have it pressure tested. It's really not that big a job if you have the manual and bits and follow the instructions methodically so no need to go pulling it off the road IMHO.

In my experience once you do that, you wind up in endless internet based scope creep whilst the head lies in bits on the bench and the car isnt used before eventually either finishing it to find it wasnt what you wanted, or posting a 'breaking' thread full of brand new parts you never fitted.

Get it sorted and get some trackdays booked, life is too short.

 

[Sir_Dave]

Nice to know that it still starts first time:

Naturally after not moving for 9 months, the battery needed a charge, but other than that ...
Have a track day in the R56 on Saturday, so i guess ill be deciding what to do with the old timer soon afterwards

 

[TimR26]

Nice to know that it still starts first time:

Naturally after not moving for 9 months, the battery needed a charge, but other than that ...
Have a track day in the R56 on Saturday, so i guess ill be deciding what to do with the old timer soon afterwards

There's a meet at Surrey Rolling Road on Saturday 4th March in case you haven't seen.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Chap next door has put a JCW exhaust that's de-resonated on his boggo Cooper S. Have to say, the pops and crackles are epic

 

[bill]

Just read this again! Love it, shame about the issues but looks very good on track, think I'll be purchasing one[emoji106]

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[Sir_Dave]

So with a deposit now placed on the R56, i swopped the Turinis/AD08R's back onto the R53 yesterday afternoon.
With it being nice & sunny, i also decided to fit the Aero front bumper that's also been clogging up the shed for aaaaaages ....
Before:

After:

Now, here is the slightly off-kilter part, with me being an utter gypsy when it comes to paying others to do things, i think i'm going to leave it as it is and not bother painting it. As it happens, i also have a set of aero side skirts (as below) in the same colour, so im thinking about going for an Indi Blue up top/Astro Black down below theme - just need to get hold of some 3M gloss black wrap to get rid of the hideous white roof then.

Have a track day at Goodwood on the 1st May, so think i have my hands full getting it running ok before then!!

 

[Sir_Dave]

I'll just leave this here :blush::hearteyes:

 

[Brookie.]

Yes! Great to see it getting some more love Dave. Are you planning on getting the aero bits painted or just leaving them as they are?

Also - I spy Clubsports :up:

 

[Scrooge]

That looks proper with the aero bits

 

[JamesBryan]

Why is the kit a different colour?

 

[Daz...]

Good to see you've kept this. Although the roof is still white.

 

[Sir_Dave]

Yes! Great to see it getting some more love Dave. Also - I spy Clubsports :up:

Thanks! Yes, it had been off the road since last May, so when i took a deposit on the R56, i knew that this needed to get back on the road asap!
Ive got 1 x Corbeau Clubsport & 1 x Corbeau Sprint, not intentional to get different ones, but just what popped up on MT at the time :laughing:

That looks proper with the aero bits

Cheers, i was unsure when i bought them, but i think it goes well with the overall ethos of the car, i.e. its a surprisingly quick shed 😂

Why is the kit a different colour?

Mainly because im a gypsy that wont pay £300 to get some parts sprayed (they were, like 99% of things on this car, 2nd hand)... but also because i think it looks kinda cool. Will be 100% better once ive wrapped the roof gloss black!!

 

[_Tom]

Only once it has a black roof will that be acceptable. Then I think I'll kinda like it 😌

 

[Sir_Dave]

So Monday saw the R53's first trackday since Feb 16, bit random, but as Sarah's dad has an XKR, it was at Goodwood, with the Jag E-Type owners club. Which naturally, as you can imagine, saw an excellent selection of machinery!

The XKR, a last of the line Dynamique with a fresh set of PS4S':

Other finery:

First few laps went ok, having never driven Goodwood, i was taking it a little easy, but well, still seemed rather a lot quicker than most other things there lol.

@MarkCup then turned up hoping to get some passenger laps, which i would have happily obliged to, if the mini hadnt then decided to sh1t itself 😂 Mark said it sounded like a tractor, so i checked the oil & it was a bit low. Which in turn meant that the cam chain tensioner (which is operated by oil pressure) hadnt extended, so the cam chain was rattling around. Being that the Mini always has a habit of breaking down on trackdays, i rather embarrassingly lost the plot, slammed the boot shut and kicked the rear bumper so hard that i broke a mount and well, i think a part of my foot :blush: Mark then legged it, probably thinking that i was a mentalist ...

Cue 1.5 hours of pondering, followed by me removing the tensioner, pulling it apart with mole grips, wiggling it around in some oil and putting it back in again. Hey presto, fixed, so i could get back out on track in the afternoon :up:

Unfortunately, being that i am slightly tech useless, ive deleted the Harry's Laptimer info for the afternoon, so just videos on now on.
First few laps out where wet and a GTR had appeared for some trackday fun. It had 600bhp, but i did have a slight inkling that having experienced such cars on track before, it might be a case of blooming fast in a straight line, not quite so much talent in the corners, they do appear to be a great car for wealthier chaps that want a "beginners" trackday car ....

After that, he simply asked WTF i had done to it and whether i was related to Nick Swift, ie the epic Mini racing hero chap 😂

Some more dryish laps in the afternoon.

Naturally i wasnt timing anything, but Harry's suggested a 1:39 in the afternoons semi-damp with a passenger. I was also using Lavant straight as a cool down, so i reckon a 1:37 is easily achievable. Not bad for a half-f*cked R53.

Unfortunately, with it being the R53 of doom, i got a PO301 Cylinder 1 misfire 30 mins or so before the end of the day, so went back to the pits, assuming it had probably done its usual trick of melting a spark plug. Unfortunately, having replaced all 4, the misfire stayed, so i had to drive the 45 miles home to Weybridge on 3.5 cylinders. It sounds very much like a lawnmower. Hopefully its nothing terminal (maybe coil pack), but ill comp test it over the weekend to find out. The valve stem seals still need doing anyway, so it is definitely due some love!!! Considering it literally sat at 7k rpm all day, hadnt moved for 12 months and has only really been used for trackday for the past 3 years, i think its done ok

 

[imprezaworks]

Me not being a fan of minis the car looks and sounds spot on.

 

[Daz...]

Good effort getting it back out after the initial problems.

Have you still got the BVH waiting to go on?

 

[Christopher]

Love this thing. It almost makes up for the RS3. xo

 

[mr bognor]

First few laps went ok, having never driven Goodwood, i was taking it a little easy, but well, still seemed rather a lot quicker than most other things there lol.

@MarkCup then turned up hoping to get some passenger laps, which i would have happily obliged to, if the mini hadnt then decided to sh1t itself 😂 Mark said it sounded like a tractor, so i checked the oil & it was a bit low. Which in turn meant that the cam chain tensioner (which is operated by oil pressure) hadnt extended, so the cam chain was rattling around. Being that the Mini always has a habit of breaking down on trackdays, i rather embarrassingly lost the plot, slammed the boot shut and kicked the rear bumper so hard that i broke a mount and well, i think a part of my foot :blush: Mark then legged it, probably thinking that i was a mentalist ...

Did it go something like this

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...l_yxUc&usg=AFQjCNGcf1aYTudxEmm6me5LIE87fgsL9g

 

[Waitey]

Get new injectors and a better map on it!

Also I thought the head was fucked.