I've been working on my plan for rewiring my Mini but in the process it has required some research. One of the topics I have been researching is coils. I was always confused because of the multitude of options. I had no idea what the ohms meant, what a sport coil was and why you need ballasted or non-ballasted. I've gone ahead and posted all the information I learned in the technical section, or just click here.
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Every time I drive the Mini, I notice it is always happier with the choke out. I believe this stems from a poor air/fuel mixture. My thought is that the choke richens the mixture and the car is happier. My goal today was to try and adjust the mixture and see if I could get it to run a bit happier without the choke on.
I had done a bit of reading and after I watched a couple YouTube videos, I felt I was armed and ready to tackle the job. I've put my findings in a new tutorial. The first step was to get the car warmed up. Obviously this meant taking the car out for a spin. I pulled the choke out and turned the key and it immediately fired up. I took this opportunity to check the charging system. I put my multimeter to the battery and lo and behold, over 14 volts. That was excellent news. This was my first 'up' of the day. I hoped into the driver's seat and took it for a ride around the block. I do always get a kick out of all the people pointing and smiling as I drive around. I was only out for about 10 minutes, but as usual, it ran a lot better with the choke out. I got back home after the car was nice and warm and pulled out the screw driver. I first confirmed that the mixture was a little lean. I went to adjust the mixture screw, and I couldn't turn it more than a a half turn in either direction. That's kind of a problem. Looks like it's time to refurb the carb and try again. So that was my 'down' moment of the day, but I was still able to squeeze in another 'up'. A couple days ago I picked up a different compression tester and decided to redo my previous efforts. Results were slightly different this time: Cylinder 1 (closest to Fan): 205 Cylinder 2: 190 Cylinder 3: 200 Cylinder 4: 210 These PSIs are all much higher than last time, but I believe a lot of this is because I could see the gauge this time so I knew when the pressure had stopped growing. Last time, I was only cranking 3 or 4 times, but this time it took more like 6-8 cranks to reach maximum pressure. It's also possible that the last gauge was broken from the getgo and was giving inaccurate readings. Either way, these are fantastic results. The general rule of thumb is that the compression should vary no more than 10% between cylinders and these numbers are all within that variance. I still think that the head gasket has a bit of a leak around cylinder 4, but it doesn't appear to be effecting the engine. Hopefully if I get the carb all tuned up, the Mini will actually run! I had one more item I wanted to investigate while the weather was still nice. I had bought the Sports pack arches in England, but I hadn't test fitted them yet. I decided to offer one up to the car and see how the fitment was. The spacing looks pretty good, but my side repeaters are not lining up. This means that either the arches are not factory, or that my side repeaters are in the wrong place. Either way, it's a dilemma for another day. A full body respray is nowhere in the near future, but I got to daydreaming about what color I could respray the Mini. I've decided to forego the usual Mini colors. Tahiti Blue has long been a favorite of mine and Old English White looks fantastic when paired with a black roof. For the purpose of this post, I'm going to look at some non-original colors that might look good on a Mini. Here are my votes for best colors across the spectrum. White: I never used to like white, but it's grown on me over the last few years. The new Matte White Mercedes has used on their AMG models is very unique. I decided that a pearl is the white of choice and to that end, I've settled on BMW Mineral White. It's a subtle pearl color that isn't too overbearing. Blue: As I said before, Tahiti Blue has long been my favorite Mini color, but there are some fantastic Blues out there. It was hard for me to pick one, so I didn't. Instead, here are my top picks. It was hard to rule out some great blue's like Ford's Sonic Blue, BMW's Laguna Seca Blue, Audi's Estoril Blue or Lamborghini's Monterrey Blue, but here is what I've gone with. First up is Audi's Nogaro Blue. This has a subtle color shift but its just a real lovely blue. Number two on the list is a classic: Subaru's World Rally Blue. This has been a staple on Subarus for years. It might be about time to give it a British twist. The final choice comes from this side of the pond, straight off the Mustang GT500. I know it's available on other Ford models, but I prefer to think of it as a Mustang color. It's a nice deep blue that compliments a silver accent nicely Black: While many might argue that black is black, there are certainly blacker blacks. I'm dipping back into Ford's bag of tricks for my black of choice. I'm picking Ford Tuxedo Black for a couple reasons. First, if you're going to pick a black color on a daily driver, it's gotta be a metallic. Non-metallic paints look like glass when they're new, but after time show every scratch and can look dull. Tuxedo Black is a gorgeous metallic paint that looks incredible in direct sunlight when you can see all the little colored flecks. Red: I don't have a specific red in mind, but I think I would be a nice deep Candy Red. I could be tempted by Mazda's Black Cherry, but a deep candy that looks like you could swim in it, is beautiful. Something like this Mini would be nice. Porsche's Arena Red is about the closest I can find in a factory color. Orange: Even if I wasn't thinking about painting a Mini, Volcano Orange would be high on my list of Oranges. I could also be tempted by Infiniti's Liquid Copper, but Dodge's Toxic Orange is going to make it on this list. Although...I may need to reconsider Volcano Orange Purple: There's only one choice here: Nissan's Midnight Purple. It's no contest, although I probably wouldn't choose to paint a relatively stock Mini this color. Silver/Grey: I struggled with this one for a long time. In my opinion, a great silver or grey has to be metallic or it just looks bland. I honestly struggled with this one because it's tough to pick out a really nice silver. Some are too light and others border on Grey. Some almost look white and others look gold. In the end, I couldn't find a silver that compelled me enough to list it specifically. The only silver that really stands out is BMW's Frozen Silver. Yes it's a matte finish which makes it difficult to care for, but boy does it look good. Misc: I don't think I would ever paint my Mini this color, but Mystichrome is worth mentioning because it's awesome. It's not as radical as BASF's Rainbow paint, but it has some very intense color shifting properties.
Today's post comes courtesy of Autoblog. They posted this pretty kickass video by Electric Federal which showcases the Mini and HeritageGarage.com. I'm just going to let the video speak for itself I've embarked on a new project that I've been wanting to do for a while. I have a large stack of Mini magazines, but I have no idea what is in each issue. I originally wanted to create a database, but that would have been a little more complicated and a lot more difficult to share with the world. Instead, I have decided to create a database on my website. I hope this helps all enthusiasts find an article they were looking for. Perhaps I will expand it in the future. You can check it out by going here.
I could really use help because I don't have all the magazines! If you have a magazine that I don't have, please go here and help me complete the database. After 86 days sitting next to the car, I finally put the compression test kit that I borrowed from AutoZone to good use. Maybe under compression would be a more accurate title, but that's too literal. Either way, I was able to finally find out what kind of shape my engine was in. Well that was the plan anyway. I was able to take the Mini out for a quick spin which was enjoyable. The only issue is it really needs a good tuneup because it just has no power in the higher RPM range.
I got back to the garage and started pulling spark plugs out. I was excited to get some decent readings on the first couple cylinders and then on cylinder number three, I heard a loud POP! 'This can't be good' is all I could think. Luckily, or unluckily, the pop was the rubber hose on the compression tester. For whatever reason, it ruptured near the spark plug. I was able to get the reading before the pressure escaped. The upside is that cylinder 3 had good pressure, the downside is that I wasn't able to get cylinder 4. Guess I will be trying again in another 3 months. Results: Cylinder 1 (closest to fan): 155 Cylinder 2: 168 Cylinder 3: 170 Cylinder 4: ??? |
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