16v K1380 mini, I just couldn't resist ripping it apart again.

[jayme]

Spent this week refinishing the itbs. I had approached at power to see if they would re anodise them for me but they wouldn’t entertain it. I also had a look about having them ceraokoted but that was also a no go as we couldn’t be sure the blasting wouldn’t damage the spindles, the design of these has either an extremely tight fitting or an interference fit bush pressed in to hold the butterfly’s into the spindles. I wasn’t confident I could get it out without damage so next option was many many hours of prep , mask and paint them.

I got a chance to build them up yesterday afternoon, I recon it was well worth the effort.

May even need a wee carbon air filter tray!

 

[EF Ian]

They look great.

 

[jayme]

It’s been a busy few weeks pushing to get this back together for a trip to Rollhard at Bicester Heritage. It came down to the last 20mins before we had to get on the road for us to get the car finished.

After a few hours travelling down on Saturday we arrived and were able to drop the car of ahead of the show on Sunday.

Have to say was an awesome event. The venue and how the cars park up leave for a pretty special event. The variety that it brings out leaves for hours of wandering through all the wee corners and parking spots across the site. Here’s some of my pics from the day.

And potentially my favourite , I kept coming back to this through the day. It had what looked to be a mx5 engine swapped into it and a really lovely red interior. Throw in some drops it looked like a really simple build however I’ve a feeling there was much more to it than that.

Next up for the mini is a map as it will not run right with the bigger throttles. I’m hoping it may make its way onto the road towards the end of august and hopefully get some use of it into September if we get some nice weather.

Cheers for looking

Jayme

 

[big_pete]

I would absolutely love a run in this. Keep pricing up engines for mine but it’s so much money to spend lol

It looks awesome

 

[jayme]

Got some photos passed on to me during the week which I thought would be nice to share on here.

Love this shot of the bay, I really worked at the overall finish of it this time to try de culture some of the wiring, fuel lines and silicone hoses. I managed to tuck the harness for the injectors behind the fuel rail, this really cleaned up the throttle area, at the same time I was able to branch out the water temp sensor branch and the crank sensor and sneak them under the itbs. Other wee details are the hardlines to feed the fuel rail which I blacked. The new breather setup allowed for me to clean up the hose’s coming out the end of the head. Next up I need to sort a filter, I want to move to a carbon tray and low profile filter like I already have, the filter supplied with the throttles is a tad chunky for my liking. Other than that I really would love a guchi manifold that is a feature out the back of the bay, who knows what winter will bring.

Despite being featured on speed hunters last year it still blows me away seeing the car appear in their coverage. I spent hours on that website in my college and school days, the idea that both myself and @cauld1 have both featured having built the cars alongside each other is a pretty amazing feeling.

 

[EF Ian]

Bay and engine look fantastic. I love a clean and clutter free bay.

 

[jayme]

Been a while since I’ve updated on here, truth be told I really had my fill of the car last summer on the build up to Rollhard.

One area I wanted to have a check over was the rear end and with having a weekend out at Dubshed planned in true fashion I started into it the week before, when I built it before everything was new or refurbished however I had noticed when I was setting up the brakes that there was perished hand brake seals on the back plates and for the sake of a few quid I wanted to replace them…… what I ended up finding however was dry rotten subframe bushed, radius arm seals and what really worried me was loose bolts on the brake backplates. Needless to say my entire week was now accounted for and so it began

Out of 4 seals only 1 was still in any decent condition. The others had split which ment that any grease would have just purged out the arms and not done much.

I also replaced the bushes with some swiftune nylon solid items, fitting them alone was 2 days considering you have to drop the frame to get the old mounts out. Couple that with actually getting the bushes pressed into the mounts and the frame refitted and square which turned out to have potentially been the most difficult thing I’ve had to do alone on the car, lots of backing bolts in and out to get the frame to line up with the holes in the floor, with them not being soft there is no tolerance to flex them to get bolts in.

In the end I fitted some new alloy drums to save myself painting up the old items. These would have been a popular upgrade back in the day.


And a few from the show

Was nice to come away with a top 40 after taking runner up in 2022. The guys put a lot of effort into their trophies so I’m going to have to find a space to display them when I kit out the garage in the coming months.

After the weekend I’ve had some motivation to get it back on the road. I’ve a few more snags to tick off the list to leave it perfect in my mind, one of them is fresh plugs, coil and fuel filters. Hopefully that will sort the issue I was having with it refusing to start randomly.

In other motoring updates and In keeping with the daily drivers don’t need a thread mentality….. I picked up a replacement for the A7, the wife has been very kind and offered to drive this for me so il be sticking to my rav for another while #ravlife.

As much as I love my old motors, I also really enjoy having something I can hop in and drive long journeys in, we spend a lot of time driving the north coast and touring around Donegal and being perfectly honest the mini isn’t enjoyable for any longer than 30minutes. In recent years I’ve found a love for Audis on big rims and what better to fill the void than a Q7 50 TDI

Hopefully my next update will contain a video of the mini on the Dyno again and possibility some in at footage.

Cheers for looking

Jayme

 

[EF Ian]

Looks fantastic - Well worth your hard work.

 

[Todd]

The Mini looked great at Dubshed. Everywhere you look there's another detail that catches your eye!

The daily Q7 is class too!!