Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello from Cornwall!

Been so long since I posted, had to reregister. OK, having exploded my XXXth mini gearbox, I have decided to create a modern day "Miller Minor" by using a new RWD A series engine in my laid up to be restored 53 2 door split. I don't want to cut it up to fit anything modern and I think it would be fun. Plus I have all the parts already to build the engine and the car apart from the gearbox and the rear axle.

I've been going to do this for years, but life gets in the way as you all know. My reasoning is that I can get far more power out of the A series, (300bhp or a little more), than I can put down in the Mini.

The ford type 9 is not really going to be up to the abuse I plan for the car, hillclimbs, drag racing etc, so I am thinking about gearboxes which are made to cope with large amounts of torque as standard.

Thinking about the Toyota boxes, the later strong ones from Supras. Has anyone tried this conversion, it may fit the available bellhousings, but making an adaptor kit is no problem as I have access to CAD, rapid prototyping and 5 axis milling machines. Just after an informed opinion.

Rear axles - guessing that the usual supects are long gone and impossible to find? There do seem to be a few scimitar SE5a axles on ebay, are there any better choices which are not 40 years old out there? Otherwise it will be an IRS cradle conversion, a bolt in IRS has been done for the MGB so why not the minor.

Cheers

The Rover LT75 box (Triumph TR7 later versions) will take it - but 300 is extremely optimistic for a turbo A series anyway. Worry more about what axle to use - again - the later Triumph axle has the strength.

bmcecosse wrote:The Rover LT75 box (Triumph TR7 later versions) will take it - but 300 is extremely optimistic for a turbo A series anyway. Worry more about what axle to use - again - the later Triumph axle has the strength.

That 'box couldn't even handle the asthmatic SD1 V8 in std trim, used to lose synchro on 2nd gear & wrecked it's bearings frequently.

Phil.

Thanks, spares for the LT77 are thin on the ground, having just rebuilt one for another V8 and quite heavy and not that strong, I just wasted one with a 200hp efi V8. Good lateral thinking though!

It is difficult to get to those power levels with the A but there are at least three 300bhp turbo A series engines, (Matt - photographer and regular contributor to Turbo Minis), with a 5 port plus nitrous, one with a BMW K11100 16V head conversion and turbo, (John Kimmins I think) and a US rail from the 90's which I admit was tipping the can a bit, but still, it can be done. Thing is, many run 14 to 13 second 1/4's, (one street legal in the 12's!), I like the idea of a 12 in a streetable A series engined minor or 11's on slicks.

I'm using the K1100 head, efi, ross forged custom pistions with the 4v cutouts, high octane race fuel and a special garret turbo based on a GT17 frame along with nitrous, dry sumped, special cross bolted mains gurdle to hold the mains in double shear and I've already reached 230bhp withouth nitrous on the Mini with a 5 port and SU carb on a basically stock bottom end with cast pistons, custom cam and non exotic head.

I know it makes absolutley no sense at all, I just have a thing for the original Miller car and fancy a modern take on the ultimate A series engine.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Dear Lord - and I hate to think what it all costs! I suppose anything is possible if you really MUST do it.......

In every sense of the word, more power to ya! Sounds like a great plan if you've got the funds!

I believe somebody on another forum is in the process of using a 6spd box from a V8 Lexus, but haven't heard much on that recently. I don't know what sort of power that box could take anyway.

Might be best to find out what RWD cars have 300bhp+, and take a tape measure to them to see if they'll fit! The world is your oyster with the sort of equipment you've got to hand! (although i'd dread to see the bill for the billet of ally to machine a custom bellhousing!)

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions and encouragement!

It sounds like a lot of money, but I've been collecting parts for the minis for years so have a lot of these things bought over time for that ultimate mini project, then really decided that a MM or a Healy Sprite is a much better basis as the mini with 230bhp is, I'll be honest, a total nightmare to drive! Have the MM in the garage already so fairly simple choice.

The 300ft/lbs limit is why I was looking at the Supra boxes, they take this and much more as standard. For the bellhousing, first choice would be to use the Supra bellhousing and a new backplate to fit and the supra flywheel machined to the MM crank or a new custom flywheel. Failing that, then I would draw up the bellhousing in Solid Works CAD then build it in plastic using the rapid prototyping machine or printer, then use that as a casting and do a few to offset the cost.

This is more cubic engineering than cubic cash, if that makes sense? I bought an ex NASCAR 5 stage dry sump pump for little more than £150.00 ages ago and it's easy to fabricate a dry sump from steel, that's not much more than the std decent pump TBH and it means I can junk the in block cam as well, (more weight saved) as no longer needed to drive the oil pump and using coil packs, not a distributor and I can lower the engine a lot in the bay to help with the handling, depending on the gearbox. The ECU will be a reprogrammed scrapyard unit from a turbo engine with all the sensors, more on that in a build thread, (£25.00 including the loom and sensors! Far more sophisticated than megasquirt and OEM programming standards, the CANBUS to USB cost more than the ECU...).

I'm not restoring the outer body work at all, keeping the original patina, just fitting the strenthening kit and OEM convert panels to beef up the shell at the weak points and repainting the chassis. I don't know about anyone else, but once that patina has gone, it just does not seem the same. Done a few and regretted not staying with the old paint and chrome.

Anyway, who is going to notice a grey with worn through paint and rusty bumpers on 15x6 steels with hubcaps? Might buy a grey wig, tribly and a pipe to complete the sleeper look. Imagine the look on the boy racers faces, lol!

Sounds fantastic! It sounds like a good idea to go for the dry sump, it does seem a bit extravagant to have timing gear and a jack-shaft just to drive the standard oil pump. That will eradicate timing chain noise too (although you could have used a belt conversion i suppose).

Backplate swap would be easier, as you can just get it laser cut or water-jet cut. But if you try to keep a standard bellhousing, you might fall foul of squeezing it in the gap, especially with the steering rack in the way. Although being able to lower the engine with a dry sump could help in that respect.

You mention 'the' strengthening kit, that suggests you've already found JLH then . Hopefully you'll be looking to them for uprating the suspension and brakes. They're soon releasing a ford based kit that does away with the ford floating calipers and uses custom 4 pot fixed calipers instead. A bit pricier than the ford kits, but much better i'd imagine. Especially with 300bhp to reign in!

chrisryder wrote:Sounds fantastic! It sounds like a good idea to go for the dry sump, it does seem a bit extravagant to have timing gear and a jack-shaft just to drive the standard oil pump. That will eradicate timing chain noise too (although you could have used a belt conversion i suppose).

Backplate swap would be easier, as you can just get it laser cut or water-jet cut. But if you try to keep a standard bellhousing, you might fall foul of squeezing it in the gap, especially with the steering rack in the way. Although being able to lower the engine with a dry sump could help in that respect.

You mention 'the' strengthening kit, that suggests you've already found JLH then . Hopefully you'll be looking to them for uprating the suspension and brakes. They're soon releasing a ford based kit that does away with the ford floating calipers and uses custom 4 pot fixed calipers instead. A bit pricier than the ford kits, but much better i'd imagine. Especially with 300bhp to reign in!

Oh yes, JLH bits are really good. I have some of their vented discs and they were great. Properly engineered parts, much respect for Jonathans work.

I may be going a different route with the front end though. There was a lovely grey 16V fiat/lancia powered hillclimb car which had the front chassis rails cut off then a box section fabriated subframe welded in it's place to take double A wishbone front suspension, ford uprights and hubs. I'm thinking of a similar arrangement but using the standard front rails to bolt a tubular subframe to take the very cheaply available "Locost" wishbones, ford uprights then use the cossie 285mm discs and large scorpio single pot calipers like the old Capri Sport used to do for Capri brake upgrades.

This would tie the front end together very well and should be able to either have a new ford rack ahead of the front of the engine if I set it back or try to keep the original rack location but would require a custom milled upright for this option if I want to do away with the kingpins etc, which I really do. Advantage of the ford rack is a quick rack could be used.

http://www.adelgigs.com/graphics/3g.jpg Link to a picture of the locost style front end which could be easily made into a bolt in subframe keeping the std MM shell intact. Just have to reshape the bulkhead in the centre, perhaps cutting back into the old battery tray area to sit the engine a little further back, reshaped with original looking pressings, it would look like the factory did it that way. Dry sump means that the subframe cross bars should not get in the way.

At the planning stage really, so nothing fixed.

I can't contribute any technical advice here, but - this is going to be one hell of a car when it's done!

Good luck!

Thanks again for the encouragement!

So I have gone a little further. The Supra box is silly money and quite large, so I have identified the best low cost option that looks narrow enough to fit without chopping is the BMW Getrag 5 speeds, cheap as chips, lots of ratios to take from other boxes and narrow! Low mileage examples are cheap, seen lots for £50 in local breakers, pic below

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-E46-320i- ... 3cc2f96845

They have a rod change and ally suport beam which can easily be replaced by a custom length beam. Pic of what I mean here

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/93-99-BMW-E36 ... 45fdb1833e

Given the minor is less than half the weight of the BMW and the same box is used in the turbo diesels with over 300ft/lbs, looks like a winner to me, look how tiny it is. Even the cross member should fit the frame rails with little fiddling and can use stock TDi clutches.

I should be able to adapt the MM gear lever and place the change in exactly the same place as original. Fits the backplate just fine.

I'm getting a subaru impreza rear axle beam, (IRS), to play with. Super strong, disc brakes and 4 stud Ford PCD. 4 bots for the main rear subframe and a diff carrier which looks like it would bolt onto a simple fabricated mount on the rear floor under the trans tunnel at the back of the car under the diff. Lots of diff ratios, std is 3.54, perfect for the car.

I can either draw up a new subframe to bolt in in solid works or use the std one, which is quite promising in any case. I would rather design a new frame to bolt in, picking up on the minor frame rails bolted in double shear. May need to make up new half shafts if it is too wide, will see. Again, £150 for a complete rear end. Will need narrow coil overs and turrets, but not expensive or difficult really.

Wheel wise, found the ideal (i.e., cheap!), steels, 6X15 Ford Focus, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-FORD- ... 336fc4d171 £20 a set from a local breakers. Going for either 165/50/15's, 175/50 or maybe 185/45/15's. No benefit from very wide tyres on such light cars.

I should be able to mod the steels for the original minor hubcaps as well!

The low offset would really help with the IRS.

Now thinking about just keeping the minor IFS using a spare set of vented discs possibly along with a JLH bottom arm kit for a quick and simple solution, though I can use an old Spax tele kit I have in the workshop instead for now.

If the box works in practice, will scan the backplate and sort out making a few along with flywheels, a much better solution for my needs than an ancient and sought after ford box, which have poor ratios any way.

Digging around for some pictures of the rear beam while I wait for mine to turn up.

http://www.japanautoteile.de/parts/file ... 144112.jpg

http://www.japanautoteile.de/parts/file ... 112_01.jpg

There! Most IRS have massive subframes, this is tiny! The diff has it's own mounting subframe, but that is very small as well. Apart from the width which may need addressing, this looks like a very good solution.

Depending on the width of the subframe, may well be able to weld on a box section to the top of the frame and bolt it through the chassis rails. This is an issue as cutting shells now of course means a possible SVA, though as MOT's for my spilt have just been scrapped, not sure how they would know.

Updated with pics...

OK, moving onto the other part I have been collecting then as there is some interest and no one has stoned me yet for posting modded minor stuff...

So I will be using a charge cooler once again. I don't pay silly money for pace CC's, so I build my own based around 1.9TDi VW cores. Of course you need a pre rad. How about an alluminium pre rad with electric fan for £5? 10" minilight for scale.





...otherwise known as a motorbike radiator. They even come with stone guards, a temp sensor, nice ally expansion tank/filler and stubs the right size for bosch 12V water pumps. Result!

I had done a small bore turbo, this is the old 12G295 race head I cut for it along size the first stage turbo I will be using on the car. second stage will be a GT1749. Compound turbocharging is the best way to get a broad spread of torque rather than a straight line at 4-7k, which my old mini had.

...but this time I'm going for a 16V K1100 head conversion. 8 port heads make EFI easy and it obviously is going to outflow any modified 5 port head by some margin and only cost me £75.





The Minor engine bay is just huge compared to the mini, so packaging this lot is going to be so simple compared to the inch pinching hell of the mini engine bay.

Searching for a block. Best choice is the Maestro 1.3 A+ This will be overbored then liners inserted back to a stock bore to assist the engine in holding the boost and dry decked. There will be no factory style oil (dry sump pump) or water pumps, going to use an electric pump to keep the engine cool.

Block girdle incorporating the main caps and dry sump mounting points as outlined above.

turbo53split wrote:Thanks for all the helpful suggestions and encouragement!

It sounds like a lot of money, but I've been collecting parts for the minis for years so have a lot of these things bought over time for that ultimate mini project, then really decided that a MM or a Healy Sprite is a much better basis as the mini with 230bhp is, I'll be honest, a total nightmare to drive! Have the MM in the garage already so fairly simple choice.

The 300ft/lbs limit is why I was looking at the Supra boxes, they take this and much more as standard. For the bellhousing, first choice would be to use the Supra bellhousing and a new backplate to fit and the supra flywheel machined to the MM crank or a new custom flywheel. Failing that, then I would draw up the bellhousing in Solid Works CAD then build it in plastic using the rapid prototyping machine or printer, then use that as a casting and do a few to offset the cost.

This is more cubic engineering than cubic cash, if that makes sense? I bought an ex NASCAR 5 stage dry sump pump for little more than £150.00 ages ago and it's easy to fabricate a dry sump from steel, that's not much more than the std decent pump TBH and it means I can junk the in block cam as well, (more weight saved) as no longer needed to drive the oil pump and using coil packs, not a distributor and I can lower the engine a lot in the bay to help with the handling, depending on the gearbox. The ECU will be a reprogrammed scrapyard unit from a turbo engine with all the sensors, more on that in a build thread, (£25.00 including the loom and sensors! Far more sophisticated than megasquirt and OEM programming standards, the CANBUS to USB cost more than the ECU...).

I'm not restoring the outer body work at all, keeping the original patina, just fitting the strenthening kit and OEM convert panels to beef up the shell at the weak points and repainting the chassis. I don't know about anyone else, but once that patina has gone, it just does not seem the same. Done a few and regretted not staying with the old paint and chrome.

Anyway, who is going to notice a grey with worn through paint and rusty bumpers on 15x6 steels with hubcaps?

Might buy a grey wig, tribly and a pipe to complete the sleeper look. Imagine the look on the boy racers faces, lol![/quote]
tweed jacket with elbow pads and a dear stalker are a must

What block have you got at the moment?

les wrote:What block have you got at the moment?

I haven't! Well I have a 948 and 1098 but they are not really suitable as small bore. The mini engines were all small bore, one overbored 850 with 998 +60 thou pistons, one 998 with +60 thou.

So looking for a Maestro 1275 block, A+ with all the improvements they enjoyed.

Someone has done the subaru axle swap before!

http://morrisminorowners.co.uk/index.ph ... picid=2402

On a van but the idea is not original then, but practical.

Sorry--reading your earlier post you mentioned you had all the engine bits!