Roof chopped BMW mini cooper S

[rkde]

Hi again, I have been gone a while - I have been so busy with projects and other work I have not really been doing any updates that said I have not been doing much on the car either... I have been doing so work though;

Firstly the car went off for some tuning

Then during the tuning the prototype head gasket died so it was time for a change

After fixing the head gasket and a few other items I had to take some time to build this;

Then the car went off to the body shop as the roof needed painting;

Going to collect the car in a week and take it home to make some changes to the engine then back down the tuners

 

[the snooper]

you haven't had much time, looking at the garage windows you've had far too much

 

[brightspark]

what head gasket u putting on a fel-pro

 

[tomsutton529]

So pleased this project is back on.

 

[Coo]

Great windows!

Also glad to see work again!

 

[jpmillermatic]

Hey, not to bust chops at all, but at least you got the garage door on before it rained!....

seriously, great job on the garage and the stained glass windows....very nicely done. the car roof came out great....what kind of tuning are you planning for the motor?

JP

 

[andy_v]

enjoyed reading this, excellent build

 

[rkde]

Collection day

How else to tow your mini home? well use the other mini and wow it does tow well, then again its not a small car

Got it home

 

[rkde]

Hey, not to bust chops at all, but at least you got the garage door on before it rained!....

seriously, great job on the garage and the stained glass windows....very nicely done. the car roof came out great....what kind of tuning are you planning for the motor?

JP

As for tuning, well the engine has had a lot of work and I have a Vipec ECU on which does need the tuning finishing as it is very rich right now

 

[rkde]

A few of you may know after getting the car built up I decided to take it apart and fix all the little issues which did not work out as well as I would have liked...

roof lining; When I made the first lining I made it out of a couple of roof linings. The problem with this was over the last couple of years the joins were showing though the lining and you could feel them. (The lining was trimmed after it was joined)

OK so this is a bit mad. I took the lining out, covered it in duct tape and release wax. The middle I did in carbon to give it a little more strength and the rest was done in a layer of 650 fibre glass

The broke it out the old lining which was much easier than I expected it to be, I then trimmed the grp to the correct size and cut all the holes in. Before trimming the lining I gave it a sand to remove all the rippes

The back was a little rippled but one I sanded the front down all that went down easily ~ the duct tape work very well but the middle had a plastic membrane on hence the ripples so if I had to do something similar I would just go with duct tape

Lastly with the lining all trimmed I fitted in back in the car and fitted it up. Got to say its perfect now and also a lot lighter than the original

I then went and did the pillar trims too so with that all done I am happy with the turn out and now on to fixing all the little snags on the list. I'd rather it be right

 

[eSCHEn]

Nice job

 

[Parm]

I like your project and attention to detail, rather cool

 

[Wedg1e]

Tidy; I use brown parcel tape over things I'm taking a mould from... leaves faint join lines but you can get it as smooth as you like.

 

[tomsutton529]

Smashing job.. Are you ever get the car on the road and stop messing with it?

 

[rkde]

^^^^ nope, I like messing with it. I will get it on the road but who knows when? I am also building a 1972 beetle and a classic mini

At the start of this month I drew up the inlet for the blower, at the moment I have a casting which I have cut and carved to make fit the car for trials, so this was the CAD for those who did not see it;

(Inlet)

20 odd days past and I now have the machined component, got to say I am really pleased with the quality of this block and hope that all the other parts I have drawn up soon start arriving, I have the outlet of the blower too being made

Once all the parts arrive I plan to get the them fitted and get the engine ready for another tune - hoping that all the niggles have gone! Also really thinking about drawing a new inlet manifold as I would love that to be all custom

 

[rkde]

All the machined components are now ready for install and hopefully an easy install

Was painting some of my F54 parts and had some paint left over so decided to paint my 530 throttle, then installed it on the new manifold and it all looks like a nice job

Decided to go back to the butterfly valve for the bypass and made this adaptor to accept the R53 valve. Should work a little better than the piston type re-circulation valve I had before which was starving the engine on idle

Next I have decided to remove the cooper water pump with the mindset that I am going electric, I have seen some tat about and also read a lot of stories about pumps so I went with this piersburg BMW A48 water pump which is a PWM controlled pump which I plan to drive from the Vipec. Its nice and compact and I think it is going to be an alternative very good solution. I have already ran the pump and it appears to be good. Decided to start with a used unit first which only cost £40 delivered, I then sand blasted it to clean it up. We will see how it goes but it looks like its go potential.
It could be driven by putting 12v on the pwm line but that will not give full speed but the default fail recovers which is 80% speed. I want to have the full control over the pump so will wire it up correctly

 

[rkde]

I've been busy - really busy and have not updated any of my project threads so I will try and update this as best I can.

I finished building the supercharged setup and it went well making 275WHP on the dyno

I wanted to add some cooling vents to the bonnet, so I used some Jag rip off ebay vents but rather than stick them on the top of the bonnet I would do it correctly and play along to the devil and his details, I decided to recess the vents to keep that factory feel going on

I have remade the front bumper and also added some fancy LEDs for DRL into the original headlights, added a spoiler

I then decided I could get a lot more power from the engine and decided after all that work to get the supercharger working I would pull it off and change it for a turbo, so this meant a whole lot of work to happen, firstly the 2.5" exhaust was removed and I made a 3" Cat and system back with v-band and 200 cell cat. I don't ever wish to build another exhaust laying on my back with the car 1ft in the air

I then spent some time changing the radiator and all the coolant system including re-re-locating the battery back to the boot and making a lot of space for the side winder turbo

Turbo kit installed, clearly there was a lot more than it just happening and I still need to make the intercooler pipework and add an oil drain to the sump but I am almost there

OK for now that is an update to what has happened - I am guessing there is a lot missing as I have done many other mods to the interior and body work

 

[zx9]

I am pleased to see the update, only a couple of days ago I was sat behind a mini in traffic and thought 'I wonder what happened to the mini thread on the Mig welding forum?'

 

[lazybones51]

Good to see this is still going.

 

[rkde]

I am pleased to see the update, only a couple of days ago I was sat behind a mini in traffic and thought 'I wonder what happened to the mini thread on the Mig welding forum?'

I've been keeping busy with lots of things, I need to learn to pay people to do jobs so I can free myself back up to do what I want to do - Today I had to weld an extension to my trailer and my MIG decided I could have all the wire speed but no power, think the transformer has died so I decided it wasn't a TIG job so broke out my arc, turned out the whole job consumed about 50 4mm ESAB rods

First pile of them for the one side of the trailer - I did prep the metal but only to back where I needed no further, the paint did burn but its just an angle section down the length to help guide a car on