Miniman76 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/42653-miniman76s-4age-mini-racer/So besides my green road car I ended up with another shell a few years back. Originally this was ment to be a road car, but the body turned out to be too bad so it was put aside and, what is now the green car, was purchased. Anyway, after the green car was terrorising the streets we came back to this car.During my wintec motorsport course that I did, I was able to install a roll cage in the car... well, it escalated past the 'club car' idea. So in the beginning the car was stripped and media blasted which uncovered rust, everywhere-ish, but mainly in the roof.The rust was cut out and patched before the cage went in.The earliest photo I have is this, which is when the inner guards were cut out and front was cut off The tunnel was also modified around this time to move the drivers seat closer to the centre of the car. The steering column set up was welded in, followed by an OMP wheel and Sparco quick release boss. Theres also an OMP 6 point harness thrown in at this point. About now the initial budget had been blown haha.Originally the car was going to remain mini powered, but we changed our mind as it wasn't very cost effective to go fast. therefore the best decision yet was made and a donor car was purchased. Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/42653-miniman76s-4age-mini-racer/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 So the Ae82 gave up its engine and box, I was able to sell of bits of the left over car and scrap the shell so the engine/box didnt cost me anything. One 16v bluetop 4AGE. how this was made to fit is a bit of a laugh. One of our goals was not to lengthen the front of the Mini and utilize the factory suspension geometry to retain mini handling. So we took the original front subframe and tacked it to a table and went to town with a grinder. then started piecing together bits of oval tube to make a frame to hold the engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 It fits!... sort of. For it to fit under a standard length front the distributor and the exhaust manifold had to go. The front end is fibreglass to save weight and ease of modifying. For fueling the 4AGE we decided on Yamaha R1 Carbs which ment a custom inlet manifold had to be made. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 With the addition of bike carbs the standard pedal box master cylinders and pedal box had to go in the bin. These were replaced with a set of Wilwood reverse mount master cylinders on a balance bar pedal box With all of this going on we had to think of a way to mount a radiator in/on/around the thing. After talking with a few friends that run sprint cars we heard that there are 2 styles of radiators that they use; traditional vertical ones or laid over horizontal ones. After a few pictures were drawn with some rough measurements we sent it off to A1 Radiators who came back with this, as we designed. As you see it sits on top of the gearbox with air drawn through the bottom and up through the radiator, at this point we hadn't quite twigged as to where the air was going to go once it had been through the radiator...ha. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 While all the above was going on the engine out of the AE82 was out at the engine builders (the engine pics in the mini above are of a dummy block that had thrown a rod). The block went to Waikato engine reconditioners with a set of slightly oversize Woosner (from memory) 11.8:1 high compression pistons, the block was bored to suit these but before assembling it we decided to get a redtop block due to wanting a 7 rib block with a bigger crank rather than the 3 rib bluetop block. The redtop block was then bored to suit the pistons, and along with forged rods and with the use of lots of ARP bolts the whole lot was put together. The engine was/is balanced with a 3.5kg Aluminium flywheel with steel inserts with an exedy clutch attached. The head was sent up to Franklin cams where it was ported and converted to under bucket shims with a 320 inlet cam and 294 exhaust. The head was then sent to Waikato Engine Reconditioners for them to cc the cylinders and stick on the block. A massive thanks to Wayne at Waikato Engine Reconditioners for the work that him and the boys did. After this other bits, including the shell, were getting prepped for paint, but I will post more on that this weekend 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 8, 2014 Author Share Posted March 8, 2014 so with the space issue we have we sat down and came up with some headers that will work dad sat down for about to day nutting them out and building the with making them so close to block ment oil filter had to go so a pick up was required the first attempt didnt go to plan and could not get the hoses out at a angle that would work so round 2 came up and a pick up was built to get the oil lines to the oil cooler Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 I've added some more pics to the first post that I found yesterday. After the engine was painted the shell got some paint. Both the front and rear subframes were also powdercoated blue and assembled. The rear end is standard mini parts, just with upgraded components. The front brakes are mini spares 4 pot calipers with 7.5 inch vented discs and carbon metallic pads. The camber and caster arms are fully adjustable. There's also adjustable cone trumpets on it too. Now the Engine and Box were dropped into the car. The headers and exhaust were HPC'd and installed, and teh sump/ cam cover was powder coated Now a test fit of the front end with the carbs installed was done 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 Because of the lack of space behind the front end we had to make a custom remote oil filter set up. So a custom pick up thingy sent oil to the filter which is now on the other side of the car, along with the oil cooler. Inside the car, brakes and clutch stuff was plumbed, and MSD wasted spark ignition set up was wired in along with VDO gauges and the rest of the electrics. Poly carb windows were also made/installed apart from the windscreen which is still glass. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 Heres a few more engine pics taken just before it was finished. At this point the car was running. It was about now that we had to modify the bonnet to let the hot air out of the radiator and also make a scoop/cover for the carbs. The wheels are JBW 10x6 sourced from Midland wheels with Dunlop slicks and Yokahama AO32R wets. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 I took the car to Taupo and did a couple of test days. The first test day resulted in a broken gearbox and cam timing issues, so the night it came home it looked like this For the second test day we had fitted a new C56 gearbox out of a levin and fixed the cam timing issues. The day went really well until the right front corner of the subframe gave way coming into turn 1 braking point shooting the car off to the right but thankfully not touching the wall. So now with the subframe fixed it was off to the Dyno! We put it on Speedwells dyno in Hamilton, originally the bonnet worked like shit and wasn't letting enough air in making it run too rich so we had to take it off. This was all done a week before the opening round of the super mini challenge series which this car was entered for. It made 175hp at the wheels at 7900rpm (from memory) After this we modified the bonnet after this to allow more airflow into the carbs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 Our first race was back in October at Taupo. We found the diff ratio was to low so we made do at the Taupo and Pukekohe rounds before changing to a Quaife LSD diff and a 3.7 diff ratio (from a 4.3) this made a gain of 4 seconds a lap around taupo but still wasn't right, its slightly too tall now. Heres a couple of vids from the season so far At New years we decided to put some graphics on the car so this is what it looks like now. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 We are currently leading the open fleet in the super mini challenge and are 2nd overall. With Hampton downs coming up on the 22nd/23rd of March we decided to change the diff ratio to a 3.9 out of a Toyota matrix C59 gearbox. Parts were ex Japan and when they arrived we found that the crown wheel had a different size inside diameter to the other C series crown wheels we have been using. stuff had to be 'tweaked' and an adapter made to get the crown wheel to fit with the correct spacing. So we will see how that works in a couple of weeks time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 well tonight i put the driveshafts and hubs back in and tested to make sure whe have gears so now the cars down on the scales ready awaiting wheel allignmet tomorrow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 16, 2014 Author Share Posted March 16, 2014 so wheel alignments been done and we are trying a coulpe of different things alignement was so far out to start with have widened the rear track by another 40mm (20mm per side) to try settle the rear down while cornering so with that done the rear wheels almost pop out of flares suits the car so much better the damage of curbs as shown below the first muffler section has taking a beating at manfeild and broke the headers thats all fixed now but we hav decided to remove the front muffler just to try things so got some flanges and made a new one up with new flexi and got it hpc coated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 17, 2014 Author Share Posted March 17, 2014 well decided to change the gear knob after i broke the factory one at manfeild last round found some Teflon at work that they make bushes out of so cut some to length drilled and taped hole at 12mm then cut a 12mm bolt down as i dont have a lathe it was in the drill press it goes its not perfect but will cut the mustard haah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 31, 2014 Author Share Posted March 31, 2014 sorry for the delay had beach hop etc on so have been away well hampton downs didnt go to plan on the saturday getting smacked in the rear after avoiding oil slick but thats racing thanks to the boys we had a semi straightish car for sunday so on sunday mangaed to get car home in 2nd place which we were stoked and with a correct tire choice of slicks in the 3rd race we mangaed to come home 1st big credit to everyone who helpd out over the weekend now for a quick patch job to get it ready for taupo fit a bumber quick paint and some more duct tap and a tail light wont be the flashist but will do and willcut the rear outa the car in th off season Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted March 31, 2014 Author Share Posted March 31, 2014 so grabed another bumber to fit on to help semi hide the damage and semi played with a tail light assembly so a lense could fit shell do the job for taupo at easter until new panels are fitted and we have time more updates of the damage to come Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted April 8, 2014 Author Share Posted April 8, 2014 so over the weekend the pannels turned up from aussi and we began to cut the car up new panel ready to go on new boot floor section in and now the rear 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted April 8, 2014 Author Share Posted April 8, 2014 got the panel work as close as i culd for a mechanic hahabut is close enough and then had a friend paint the car so now we wait for paint to dry and can begin to put all the fuel cell etc back in 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniman76 Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 since i have a few moments spare here is what the car sounds like inside around hampton downs with the right diff ratio ahha started 60 seconds behind first car https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qzJWoDGphKE 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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