Morris Minor Owners Club

Just been fitting an HIF38 and all the associated gubbins to one of my cars, and have run up against a bit of a problem - the throttle and choke cables aren't long enough! Has anyone else encountered this problem?

If the standard cables aren't long enough (i.e. mine haven't been shortened), are there any slightly longer alternatives?

There are certainly longer throttle cables available for use on Mini - to get a smoother action due to long easy curve - ask at local accessory place. Choke cable should reach - or be re-routed to reach ? I had no problem with either - choke is standard but acc cable could be anything after all these years - it certainly reached ok. Be sure to buy TWO acc cables - so you have a spare in the car. And - very important - you must set up the linkage so you get full throttle when the pedal is on the floor - and not before!! Or it WILL snap the cable in no time at all. Check and double check this.

Thanks for that BMC. The choke cable almost reaches - it's about 3/4" short. I'll take a look under the dashboard to check the routing tomorrow. If that doesn't work I'll measure it and then phone up a spares place to see if it's the right length.

Should the accelerator cable be a fairly standard item then?

What I did with the *original* choke was to re-route it through the other side of the bulkhead and it works beautifully. I will take a snap in the morning.

You will certainly get longer Mini cables no problem - and they are otherwise the same. Choke - yes I may have slightly re-routed it, it was a while ago now but I don't remember any problems with it.

Wish I knew about the mini cable
I used a bicycle brake cable inner and outer for the throttle and soldered a new inner cable into the pull for the choke.
Don't forget you need a locking choke pull.

Got the cable issue sorted now - I used a bike brake cable for the throttle and cut down the sleeve for the choke cable so that it now just fits.

Just got to sort the wretched ignition timing now!

Advance it till it pinks - then back off slightly. Sorted.

Right, timed it all up this morning (set it to 5 degrees BTDC just to begin with), and it won't start! Instead it's spitting back through the carb.

The spark is there, compression is 150psi, so I'm left thinking that maybe the carb is dodgy? The only thing is I've yet to connect up the breather hose but I wouldn't have thought this would prevent the car from running. I've tried the mixture screw set 3, 6 and 9 turns out.

I think it's more likely to be ignition related than carb related. Are you sure you've got the HT leads in the right order?

Yep, they're connected 1-3-4-2 order.

If its spitting back it sounds like timing or firing order. Screw the mixture screw right up to start with (fully rich) and double check leads and timing.....

When starting -mixture is not important - is the choke connected and working ? Pull it right out to get started - and block off the vent pipe for now. If it's kicking back (your spitting) you may have the timing too far adavnced - retard it. And indeed - the firing order is correct (but are you going anti-clock round the dizzy?) - and is #1 firing when that piston is at TDC with the valves closed ?
If all seems ok - check the carb -is the piston rising easily - and falling with a nice 'clunk' - is there a needle in there - and is it correctly fitted with the shoulder of the 'holder' flush with the base?

Got it sorted now, and it was ignition related! Many thanks for your help everyone.

I'd changed the cam back to a standard one (never could get it running smoothly with the 997 cooper cam I had in there), so obviously had to remove and replace the dizzy drive. Seems like I put it back in 180° out, as on the offchance I swapped the leads round on the distributor cap and tried to start the car on the handle. It kicked back and nearly took my wrist off, so I adjusted the timing and it now goes fine.

I'm quite impressed with the difference in performance over the standard set-up, even though it has the wrong (ADS from a 998 metro) needle and the timing is set by eye. The K&N filter does make a hell of a racket but I can live with that.

Very surprised the 2A948 cam (997 Cooper) didn't work - it's an excellent cam - although the MG Metro is a later improvement. Perhaps it wsn't timed in correctly ? Glad it's going again - so what is the engine spec now ?

Engine spec is now:
Unleaded 12G295 head (skimmed by 70 thou)
Standard 1098 cam
HIF38 carb
Torquemaster inlet
K&N pancake air filter

The exhaust section is still all standard for the time being. Not sure how much power it'll be putting out when correctly set up but I should imagine perhaps 55bhp isn't unrealistic.

Ok - well the 997 cam would have been ideal (althouh MG Metro better) with that lot. However you are pretty much at the MG1100 standard - so with a decent exhaust (it had a simple 3 branch ex manifold - although standard small pipe from there to the back) you would indeed be at ~ 55 bhp.

that's similar to my planned spec, I've a 1098 and will be soon plonking a 12G940 head on (I'm going to cut the valve seats deeper instead of pocketing) with an MG metro inlet manifold and HIF38. I hope for similar power gains.

I just need to decide what to (cheaply) do with the exhaust. Did you just cut the inlet bit off the manifold?

Well done on getting it going, someone once told me that most fuel problems turn out to be ignition. How right they've been almost every time I've had a misfire/flat spot/non starter.

What's the biggest difference you've found with the extra power/torque?

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

For the exhaust I have simply chopped the inlet part off the combined manifold. Took me quite a while with a hacksaw! You'll probably wreck one half of the manifold in the process (I just broke into the inlet) so it might be a good idea to pick up a spare from an autojumble before you start.

At the moment the biggest increase seems to be in the mid-range pull, but the needle isn't the correct one for the job so there may be some more top-end yet to be liberated. However I suspect that the top-end might always feel a bit strangled with the standard exhaust system.

It's a lot easier to sink those exhaust vales ! And it means the block remains original. I've found the extra power from the 1098/HIF38 to be right across the range - I had expected it to lose power at lowish revs - but not so - it happily slogs up hills at relatively low revs when before I would have been down at least one gear. And foir the exhaust - yes, cut into the inlet and throw it away - that way you are sure of getting the exhaust without any damage.