Nice Vtech Classic , one of the guys here also has one.

 

28 Feb 2016

One thing I noticed while alpine climbing is that when you are on a mountain doing something crazy and you think you are really hanging out there, there is always some other guy out there doing something even crazier (i.e. free soloing).

Well on Sunday that guy was Terry in his flying Tomato. He has taken an original Mini cooper and dropped a Honda Vtec type R engine making 185hp into a race-prepped chassis weighing in at 1450lbs. He was at GranSport Speedway doing its first shakedown. The car was certainly plagued with some early teething issues, but if his team is able to sort the car out and get a bit more rubber on there the car will be a huge weapon.

I had a great day at GSS putting my car thru its paces in the CCW configuration including infield. I was able to run a laptimer for my first time ever and managed a best of 1:07:84 which looks fairly respectable from what I could find on the interwebs.

I was also able to hang with a S2000 with some no nonsense-looking aero and a track-member driver who can show up whenever to run....at least until my tires got greasy. He always got away from me, but I think this will be a new benchmark car for me to catch. My friend Bryan with his BMW M235i showed up. From what I've heard he has been busy doing his homework, doing essentially every track day in the state of Texas for the past couple months. He was hard to catch but I think we are running roughly the same lap times with similar consistency.

I spent the bulk of the day working on using trail braking to cut my breaking zones down more and more slowly inching it later and later and also using the same zone but less braking pressure but 'dragging' the break in to the apex. Dragging kind of became my trigger word for each session and each turn. Keeping the brakes on allowed the car to take a set nicely and really helped my lap times.

I had two spins - both in the same corner - both for the same reason. Dropped my right rear tire in the grass right at the point i dove in for the apex of tight left-hander. Car spun like a top and now I need to get all of the grass out of my nice new race seat! I was able to recover the spin and get back on track losing only 10-15 sec each time (spin recovery is an over-looked skill...maybe I can get a le mans drive?)

Pics above showing Terry and his AARP pit crew hard at work on the Flying Tomato.

My new Sparco Evo race seat with Brey Krause brackets and Schroth quickfit pro harness

And my tired and heat-cycled Nitto NT01s.... how many more track days can they take ?

 

Oh one final note: The car has been leaking some oil for a while now. Its toward the back side of the engine on the passenger side (oil filter housing area). I am going to bring it to my shop because I just do not have the time to mess with it. I am just praying the issue is nothing terminal. Very scared its a main seal or worse. There is too much oil there to mess with it. I am going to have it professionally fixed and then install the oil cooler. That way I know that if oil continues to leak its probably my fault

 

Hmmmm,
I may be a little off with this guess, but I don't think that is the stock Mini engine...

No?

 

I don't know... It might be!

 

Both the valve cover and oil pan are known to leak. Either of those would not be too bad to deal with.

Let us know what the shop finds out.

 

Do you a little turn right to turn left and vice versa?

I had a ride in a friend's MINI with well worn Nittos. He wondered why it was understeering really badly...when he came in he found that he had corded both fronts
and there are guardrails that are close by on that track...

By my friend's way of thinking, you probably have 5 or 6 days left

 

Its def not valve cover. I did that gasket in July and it has been holding up just fine.

I think its something to do with the oil housing. I did one of the gaskets but not both back in July/Aug.

Anyways I dropped the car off yesterday. I believe it is in very good hands and I am very happy to work with this guy.

 

Come to think of it I may have been doing a small bit of steering to make sure I was as far right as I could be before I tipped it in. This was very subtle steering tho... no Richard burns Scandinavian flick!

Either way I think the very clear reason for the spins is the dropped rear right tire in the grass. I don't think the car was unsettled but you could be on to something. It's my home track so plenty of more times to fawk it up!

Thank you for the color on the Nittos! But be careful. I am a very thrifty guy. I will wear these to the cords if I hear that is ok to do

 

A small update: I purchased some race control arm bushings and front sway bar bushings for the car when she gets out of the hospital :D .... only problem is ... I need to get access to a bushing press now

 

Hey, while the car is in the shop, have them add some more rear camber. The rear camber is adjustable and that may help to tame some of the spinning that you are doing.

We can't do that (spinning, that is) at the NE tracks I visit; the guardrails are very near by...I saw 2 BRZs totaled in one day because of spins, not unlike yours.

 

I dont go 10/10ths near immovable objects I would like to keep this car in halfway decent condition as long as I can.

Cant afford to total this

 

 

Hi everyone - quick update - Good news, it was just a couple of small gaskets in the oil filter housing causing the mess and I had the guy go ahead and install the oil cooler while he was in tinkering bc work has been so busy I can barely breathe. Car should be sewn up and ready by Saturday at the latest.

Goodies on their way at the moment: BSH catch can, race front control arm bushings, race front sway bar bushings, might have got drunk and ordered something else idk.

Still to be installed: Adjustable rear control arms, yellow headlight tint along with a full restoration of my weathered headlights.

Need to see how bad the damage to my credit card will be after paying the mechanic. If not too bad then I will order the Vorshlag camber plates.

In the meantime, I have been researching and thinking about the best way to supply cool air to the mini cooper intake. Looking at the cowl scoops (probably does more harm in drag than good is what I am thinking there).

Also the OEM intake snorkel/resonator doesn't really provide a smooth flow from the front airdam. I was thinking about somehow building a custom pipe that smooths it out and doesn't have that weird blocky part on the right side and then the huge resonator boner on the bottom. Do you think this would be too risky to run in rain conditions? If you think its a good idea, should i go with silicone hosing, brake ducting type material might be easiest to work with, or custom metal pipe. Then do I wrap with gold foil tape for max JDM cred? I am planning on ultimately pairing this with a DDMwerks intake.

At the moment I am running a K&N typhoon which has this scoop that basically thrusts cool air toward an open element filter. It is not a closed in system like stock or DDM. So I am not running the stock snorkel/resonator and I may have thrown it out.

Curious to hear feedback on this or open up a discussion. It is important to me because I want to keep the engine very close to stock for as long as possible so intake is something I can tackle and try to perfect.

 

There is a great aftermarket CAI that works through the cowl for the R53. Now I just need to find it.

 

Ahhh....this didn't take long:
http://altaperformance.com/i-1400715...pd-manual.html

there are other versions of this out there.

 

I do know that some performance shops will press them in for you if you bring them to them. We had people do this and even with wheel bearings at the performance shop I worked at. We just charged them a small fee for the labor.

 

Yeah thats the plan just need to find the right one.

 

 

Just got these pics from my mechanic. We are going with lower mount for the oil cooler. Don't get to show off the cool cooler but I believe it is much easier to route the hosing this way.

Last pic shows what a mess the oil leak was making in the area around the filter housing!

Anyways I have been trying to figure out how to do the best intake system for the R53 mini cooper that doesn't involve running no headlight/turn signals and mounting the intake up front.

Let me know what you guys think about this:

1. Get the DDM air box - indisputably the best Wrap the airbox in gold reflective tape
2. Get the Madness mini cooper filter http://www.madnessmotorworks.com/mad...ld-air-intake/ - This air filter has a filtered top which I like since we are pulling air directly from the cowl.
3. Seal off the bottom portion of the airbox where the stock intake snorkel/resonator was drawing air from the front of the car - Ensures a full closed system.
4. Use ducting or hosing and route this from the front air dam toward the back of the engine bay and get it so it points at the headers and basically blasts the heat away from the air box (basically guards the airbox from heat).
5. Remove cowl cover and run without it or buy an early model cowl cover....My cowl cover is very restrictive. Will have to post a pic to show you what I mean. But I have seen the cowl covers on earlier model mini coopers and it is a very wide and open honeycomb mesh.

How is my driveway engineering?

 

Just cutting your costs:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ai-intake.html

 

" Last pic shows what a mess the oil leak was making in the area around the filter housing! "

Yea thats next on my list for the gasket on my R52 , little bit of a mess to the lower engine mount and P/S line.

 

Have you seen this thread yet HERE? 2nd gen MINI though, but linked to asking him about his GT wing set up. Figured you could talk to him about it and maybe some other aero items.

 

I have been told that super pro bushings are harder than powerflex black/race bushings by a vendor who only sells super pro bushings lol.... Anyone know the right answer to this?