I had always planned to do some paint in the engine bay. I wanted to sand it down and paint it black. I was also considering painting the bottom and arches with something like LineX or Raptor Liner so maybe this is the smart time to do that. Of course depending on how extensive the repairs required are, I might need a full resort which opens me up to new color choices. Either way, I think I’m going to start shopping around for a body shop. Shi…
I’ve been preparing myself to start removing parts and today I started to set up my garage so I could jack the Mini up. I bought a QuickJack recently because it was on sale for a low price and thought I might give it a shot (I’ll give more details on this once I’ve had an opportunity to use it more). But this required me to poke around under the car to find a solid lifting point. And this is where the trouble starts. Yes, that is a large rust hole. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a drain hole or something but it certainly is now. I always knew I had some rust on the doors but I was naively thinking I had a decent body. Unfortunately the more I poke around, the more I find. Now I wasn’t planning on doing major body repairs because A) I’m not a body man and B) that was going to require significantly more cast and time commitment. At this point however it seems foolish to proceed without addressing the body issues.
I had always planned to do some paint in the engine bay. I wanted to sand it down and paint it black. I was also considering painting the bottom and arches with something like LineX or Raptor Liner so maybe this is the smart time to do that. Of course depending on how extensive the repairs required are, I might need a full resort which opens me up to new color choices. Either way, I think I’m going to start shopping around for a body shop. Shi…
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More and more packages are starting to arrive including one of my more questionable choices: Now I say this is one of my more questionable purchases not because it’s not an excellent product; quite the opposite in fact. This may be one of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment ever to grace a 4 decade old vehicle. It’s questionable for exactly this reason. Likely the most common ECU for a Honda engine is the Hondata. Not only does it piggy back off the standard ECU so it’s pretty plug and play, but there is lots of support for it because it’s made for Honda engines. So why rock the boat?
Prices for the Hondata seemed to be in the $600+ range and what I would end up with is a 30 year old ECU. I came across this video which made a solid case for using a Haltech 550 over the Hondata. “But you didn’t buy a 550, you bought a 1500,” I can hear you say. Well I was looking for a good price for a 550 and had pretty much assumed I wasn’t going to do better than retail at around $850. Then came Black Friday and oh deal of deals: the 550 was around $650. How could I pass that up? So all prepared to order my 550, I talked to Shawn (maybe? It was Facebook Messenger) at Tuned by Shawn and he convinced me to go for the 1500 because it would add knock sense and extra levels of engine protection. Thankfully the 1500 was also on sale so although it busted the budget I had set for an ECU, I still saved about $400. But now I have to go through the extra steps of wiring a more universal ECU which I’m expecting to prove…questionable. Happy 2022 which is feeling an awful lot like 2021. But putting that aside, I'd like to talk about the mountains of parts that I'm stacking up. I've accumulated quite a large number of boxes filled with goodies from Mini Sport, Mini Spares, SpeedHut and others. I ran a price comparison for all the major suppliers in the US and UK including Mini Mania and 7 Enterprises and found that with the exchange rate and prices, Mini Sport and Mini Mania were the cheapest for these orders and probably saved well over $1,000. There's also more boxes on the way with parts from Haltech and SMCO. I've also gotten some of my conversion parts from MCM but there's still a few more pieces to arrive. So what do I have? I think the biggest and most important piece is the engine! The engine I've gone with is a D16Y8 from a 2000 Honda Civic EX. This should provide around 120hp. It might get a bit more from the intake and exhaust along with the tune. I suppose the next big piece of the puzzle is my MCM subframe. This will slot into the front end (after some minor surgery) and provide a home for my new D16. It's currently in raw metal and I'm going to send it off for powder coating along with the rear subframe and roll cage. My intake is from MCM and it is bespoke for the Mini conversion. There were a couple companies that make intakes for the Classic Mini including Potential Motorsport in the UK and Gildred Racing in California. If I'm honest, I kind of prefer the looks of these intakes as they are not so boxy and maintain and stock look. The price, however, is quite large and in the end, I decided to stick with the MCM intake since they fabricated my kit and will hopefully be able to provide support during installation if needed. I've received a few more large boxes in the mail which included a number of necessary parts for the swap and then some parts that I'm going to use to upgrade my Mini while doing the swap. The list includes:
I splashed out on a set of aluminum 4 piston calipers in Orange during Mini Sport's Black Friday sale. Orange is my oldest son's favorite color and I figured it was a bit more exciting than going with silver, grey, black or red and shouldn't clash too badly with the blue. I'm pretty excited about these too. This was another Black Friday special that I ordered from SpeedHut. They are sized so they should fit in a triple clock dashboard (something I still need to find). They are a silvery background with blue lighting at night. I'm also pretty excited about this. I pulled my shift linkage out of a car in a Pick-N-Pull in Virigia and ordered this from Aliexpress. It's a Civic Type-R knockoff and I'm blown away by the quality given the price I paid (under $2!). It's nicely machined and feels quite heavy in your hand. I don't know how it could be made for that price.
So what am I still waiting on? There's a couple big items that I have ordered but still waiting on such as my headers, engine mounts, alternator, CV joints and axels and ECU. Then there are the things that I still need to buy like the transmission, fuel line, throttle body, seats, dashboard, flywheel bolts and clutch bolts. I'm sure there are more things that I'm forgetting but I'll just have to order those as I go. Next step is to stop shopping and start wrenching. Time for me to dust of my keyboard and ressurect this site. Although the site went dormant, it was never truly dead. I'd like to give a big thanks to anyone that sent me an email and apologies for not responding. If it's not apparent, it's been several years since I've added any new content. Some of that had to do with moving and job changes and just life. But more of it had to do with the fact that my Mini wouldn't start one day and it's sat, unsued, ever since. Was it the fuel, the fuel pump, the coil - who knows? I didn't have the space to work on it and as time past, my strategy to fix it, changed.
So enough of the excuses and the bad news. On the plus side, I still have my Mini and my passion for it has never diminished. Additionally, anyone that may have seen my garage knows that the Mini was a tight squeeze. But that garage is no more and I now have a much larger space that has the room to start working on the Mini again. So, "what's the plan?" I hear you asking. Well I've always wanted to modernize my Mini. Ever since I read this article in Car and Driver when I was younger, I had a hankering to Honda swap a Mini. So much like Moog, I will be dropping a VTEC power plant into my Mini. But unlike the MCM crew, I won't be going B16, I'm going 2 letters later in the alphabet: D16. I've been saving up and now it's time to go shopping. I'll be documenting everything as parts arrive and as I inveitably make mistakes. I still have young children and a full time job so I have no idea how much progress I'll be making, but I'll be doing my best to document it. Oh, and what about my magazine archive? I've been maintaining my subscriptions and will be working to start adding magazines again. Hard to believe it's almost July. It feels like just yesterday I had returned from England with renewed vigor to see the Mini moving. I think we can all see how far that got. All is not lost however, because just last weekend, I pushed the Mini out of the garage, hooked up the battery, said a prayer and turned the key. I couldn't believe it, but it fired right up! My dad and I took a cruise over to a local car show and had the pleasure of parking next to another Mini. Some may recognize him from the same show last year. Although weather put a bit of a damper on this year's show, it was still a great turnout with a great group of people. I was actually quite shocked by the level of interest in the Mini. I was also very fortunate that there were a couple photographers floating around taking some pictures. One in particular happened to get a couple of great shots of my Mini and have to share them. All credit goes to Bearded Mug Media. His photos are fantastic! The last picture was mine, in case the vast difference in skill and quality didn't tell you already I have to say, getting it out really does remind me what an awesome little car this is and why I love it so much. It just puts a big grin on my face. There are some issues I need to address before I can continue to drive it around, but it felt really good getting it out on the road after such a long time sitting. And now I'm going to finish my evening by watching a show that reminds me why I love cars and the Mini so much. I've just returned from Europe feeling refreshed and with new energy to continue work on the Mini. I'm always on the lookout for Minis and, as with other years unfortunately, I didn't come across many. I believe I saw about 5 driving around but my camera wasn't ready for any of them. I made a trip to Mini Speed which had a couple more, but I'll touch on that later. I did see a number of other interesting cars. Again, my camera was not at the ready so I missed many as they drove by.
The majority of these cars were seen in London or while driving around England. I had the good fortune of renting an Audi A1 which I quite enjoyed. While it had more road noise inside the cabin than I would have expected, it felt just as upscale as any other vehicle wearing 4 rings. I have never been shy about my fondness for Audis, but I was genuinely sad when I had to give it up, especially knowing that I didn't have an Audi to come home to. Apart from England, my other stopover was Iceland. This was my first trip there and although it's a beautiful country, I think the weather might have been more cooperative had we waited at least a month. It was mainly snowy which wasn't pleasant. Since I mostly blog about my car, I won't go into the breathtaking scenery, but I will talk about something equaly awesome; Icelandic Super Jeeps. Anyone who has seen the Top Gear Polar Special will be familiar with a Super Jeep. The Toyota Hilux that was used to reach the North Pole was prepared by Iceland's own Arctic Trucks.
These trucks are driven by citizens and entrepreneurs alike to both conquer the glaciers and take tourists out to conquer the glaciers. I couldn't stop freaking out over these things because I thought they were so cool. My favorites were the Land Rover Defenders, but they came in all shapes and sizes. My only regret is that I didn't have a chance to go for a ride in one. Petrolicious has just released this fun video highlighting the Mini. I really need to get my radiator fixed! For the last couple months I have been without a home. My wife and I sold our condo and were going through the process of purchasing a home. Thankfully, that part of the process is done. Unfortunately, the process of fixing things has just begun.
The downside to doing some renovations is that my wife and I still don't have a place to live. The upside is that the garage is not currently part of those plans which means the Mini can come home! I pilled a bunch of extra parts that I had in the unit into the Mini and fired it up. Just like the last time, I took off with a small puff of smoke and a smile on my face. All I had to do was make it 10 miles to my new home. In the venerable words of Jeremy Clarkson, "How hard can it be?" I don't think I made it 3 minutes down the road before I heard a noise I had never heard before. It was extremely loud and worrying. It sounded like rattling metal and I needed to pull over before something bad happened. After a quick listen, I traced it back to the radiator fan. I'd always known something was wrong with the radiator. It was very apparent that the shroud was not perfectly centered on the fan because the fan was worn down from rubbing on it. I only compounded this problem by trying to fit a new upper radiator mounting bracket. It didn't fit and had no way to secure the top of the radiator. It hadn't been an issue until now and it was becoming a big issue. I didn't have much of a choice so I just continued along my way. I figured I needed to replace the fan anway so I might as well just make it to my destination. I was concorned that the fan would shatter into a million pieces, but thankfully, I made it to my destination! One of the things that was not negotiable with my wife while looking for a home, was the need for a large garage to work on the Mini. Above all else, I wanted a space that I could spread out and make sure that I was able to dismatle the Mini in comfort. I think we got it a little wrong. For as long as I've owned the Mini, I've wanted to drive it to work. Lots of coworkers have been interested in seeing it given how often I talk about it. I think many were starting to think that it wasn't real. I knew that eventually I would be able to commute in it, but that wasn't going to be any time soon.
I had tried to take it once before, but I only got halfway around the block before the battery died and I had to get my wife to give me a push start. Lucky for me, today went a lot better. As some may know, my Mini has been in storage for the last couple months. I chose a storage facility only a few miles from my office because if I had to check on anything, that would be more convenient. I had also hoped that if the stars aligned, I could take the Mini out for a drive. This small fact came in particularly useful today. I left the house a little early today with the hopes that I might be able to get to the storage facility with enough time to grab the Mini. This would require minimal traffic and no business calls on the way. Thirty minutes later and I was sitting at the storage unit, high fiving myself because I was about the drive my Mini for the first time in 3 months, and it would be to work! You might be expecting the next paragraph to be a tale of disappointment as it overheated and left me stranded and late for work. If you thought this, you would be exactly...wrong! I pulled the choke, gave the key a couple turns and it screamed to life...literally. The accessory belt was a little squeely, but that went away after a couple minutes. I proceeded to head down the back roads to my office and I was loving every minute. This is why I bought the Mini. When everything is working, it just puts a smile on my face. After about 15 minutes and a couple thumbs up, I had arrived at the office. I think some of the people that work in the building thought I was a little crazy, but I couldn't have cared less. This was the best work day ever! |
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