Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi, On Sunday started my 1960 morris minor for the first time in 3 years It started with little fuss, it looks really tattly, not rusty but i started doing the body work so its half in primer. the next step after i paint it is putting a more powerful engine in there.

Im hopefully going to be using a metro turbo engine, port and polish the head and intercooler it maybe with a uprated camshaft and that will hopefully be pushing some decent power at 15 or so PSI, thats if the bottom end dosent go bang.

Few Questions, what compression ratio is the metro turbo compared to a morris ital 1.3, reason i ask is whats stopping me putting the whole bottom end of the ital on the metro turbo top, are there beefier internals to a metro turbo, are the pistons low compression etc.

trying to get as much info as possible at the moment

also want to lower it but one thing at a time, the engine conversion will keep me busy for a few months.

ill probably asking question on what g/box to use and whats the best diff for the car, ive read a escort mk2 fits but what about a capri LSD?


ill post some pics up soon

Hi and welcome!

You can use the Ital bottom end & block, but use Metro turbo pistons & head. OR use Metro everything except the crank. Use the Ital crank. I think there has to be a bit of machining of the block to get it to fit but nothing drastic. 15 PSI is quite a lot for a Metro tubo engine. I think they are 4 as standard (if memory serves). What sort of BHP are you looking to produce? Maybe a larger cc engine (non-A-series) would be easier/cheaper?

Best gearbox is probably the Sierra Type 9 (5-speed). They fit well and can take some power!

You CAN get an LSD for a MK2 Escort axle but they are not cheap! I don't think the Salisbury axle will fit as well as the Timken but I don't know why! They are not really used much for Minors. The only differene I can see is that the diff goes in from the rear as opposed to from the front.

also want to lower it but one thing at a time, the engine conversion will keep me busy

Don't forget to do the brakes before upgrading the engine. There's plenty of choice regarding disks, but it is best to know which rear axle you are having so you can get the front hubs to suit and have the same wheels all round (carrying 2 spares isn't too practical)

I have done this conversion twice

The best route is to use a complete metro turbo engine, and fit an ital crank and rear bearing cap( have the block lineboored with the new cap) then fit a minor front plate and either use a ital 4 speed box or an sierra 5 speed conversion as i can tell you that the minor box will go bang in about 10 miles at 8psi and you walk home..

I did 10.000 miles on a standard back axle with 8psi...

Metro's us modulated boost, to keep the torque from destroying the gearbox they are limited to 4psi untill around 4000rpm, above that an electronic bleed valve lets air into the actuator hose until the boost peaks at 8psi..

I went to around 10 psi when i had the original turbominor and could not suppress the detonation. a home grown water injector helped but the whole converision was diffictuly to keep reliable and was very very lagy.

I did see a nice conversion on a 998 mini using a turbo and carb from a 1l diahatsu turbo

If you want power go down the route that cam an i have done and moddify a 1275 engine ( ital/midget pref but a marina will do!)

Cam is up over the 100bhp figure from 1380 overbore

thanks for the advice guys, youve shed some light on what i really know nowt about, my mate knew a guy called Matt ?, he had or still has a metro turbo in his mini, his pushing it over 200bhp, you might have seen it, green, mini williams on the back, i know this is pushing the A+ to the limit but im only after about 140 bhp, ive been told there quite high compression to start with if this is true i dont know what can be done to rectify, forged pistons, thicker head gasget?

i know what you mean about the modulated boost helping not kill the g/box, i know that matt had a full quaife straight cut box to stop this.


how heavy is a minor? 1000kg?

rayofleamington wrote:

also want to lower it but one thing at a time, the engine conversion will keep me busy

Don't forget to do the brakes before upgrading the engine. There's plenty of choice regarding disks, but it is best to know which rear axle you are having so you can get the front hubs to suit and have the same wheels all round (carrying 2 spares isn't too practical)

is there a whole kit (for fairly cheap) you can buy to do 1. the g/box 2.the propshaft 3 the diff etc. because this will be the next logical step after i do the engine and this will determine the rear pcd etc.

i wont drive it fast when i get the engine done, ill have to sort out the handling aswell, loads and loads and loads of big jobs but im up for it

is there a whole kit (for fairly cheap)

It's all available from a few Minor parts suppliers, and some will even organise the prop conversion for you. If you go for a Ford axle, you need to follow round the Ford specialists to get the Diff that you need.
None of it is cheap and if you want really good stuff you need to pay more.

The standard Minor axle will take around 70/80 BHP MAX. The Mk2 Escort one (roughly the same width) will take around 170 BHP, so there's quite a difference. But it does not come cheap!

If you want around 140 BHP then you will have to completely re-build the engine and do a LOT of mods.

FIRST you will have to make sure the drivetrain will take the power, so get that sorted first. Axle, gearbox & prop. The prop you can get make up from any custom prop place. There is a good one in Coventry that will post the prop. You will want a fairly low geared diff which means expense unfortunatly.

Once you have forked out for all that lot then you will have to think about the engine.

There are a couple of cheaper options though:

1. Fit a FIAT 2.0 twin-cam. Bit thin on the ground now, but it's MUCH cheaper than tuning an A-series.

2. Fit a standard (ish) Ital engine and bring the power up with N2O. This way you can just pootle about normally and when you want to sprint just flick a switch. Trouble is that the bottle will need re-filling and it's an extra cost.

If you want a solid reliable 140 BHP out of an A-series then it isn't going to be cheap!

Hi,
if you only!!!!! want 140 BHP!!!!! then you will be pushing an A series really hard. Even a FIAT twin cam needs some reasonable tuning mods to get it up to this figure (they start around 105 - 115 BHP) depending on which model you get, some are better than this. But in both cases you are talking about engines that are quite old so would need a pretty big investment. You might be better off going for the newer K series conversion, they can come in aroung 140 BHP pretty much standard depending on engine size.

That all said with that kind of power you will start breaking bits off so the car has to be really solid before you even think about it.

Oh yes and you want it reliable too, start investing time now your gonna need it.

Regards
Wal

all the weldings been done before i put it into storage so it should be sound bodily, im going to sort out the suspention first but dont want to change the rear end yet as i dont know what engine im going to be putting in and dont really want to get a prop made up twice, even putting a fiat twin cam in is going to be a lot of major fabrication from the rear to the front. what i think so far is if putting a metro turbo in is only going to give me 140-150bhp and the fiat twin cam is near the same i might aswell put in a nissan CA18DET (twin cam 1.8 turbo), ive got to see if the gearbox will actually fit under the morris yet, i take it the gearbox is quite small? do you think it will accomodate this? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 54862&rd=1

no need to stress out the engine with 165bhp as standard. Have you heard of using a izusu piazza turbo rear end on a morris, fried of mine said its quite possible and its got a lsd as standard.

The goal posts seem to be moving a lot here!.
Firstly 140bhp turbo A series now 165bhp Nissan!!. do you have a plan of works or are you in the flux of compiling one.
What do you want your minor to do? if its going to be a drag car then forget all thats been said and drop a Rover V8 into it. If your going for finesse and a fast road/track day car then the Fiat should be your choice as it is easily tunable to 150 bhp via carbs,cams,air filter and exhaust. The fitting is not too involved and requires only a small amount of body mods. The Rover K series is a fantastic motor in a moggy, from the 1.4,1.6 or both 1.8 variants, you will have a free revving and economical engine. Our 185bhp version will crack the 0-60 in less than 6 secs, even the 1.4 will do this in 8 secs. However these motors will also return 55mpg in the case of the 1.4 and 40mpg with the 185bhp one. There is a price to pay though as they are more involved in terms of technology and cost of kit parts, plus they require a reasonable amount of enginebay mods.
A series motors can achieve massive bhp, but at a cost to reliability and whether you want a screamer of an engine.
Bhp is not always the important figure here though, if you cannot translate the power into traction you may well go for less power. A well sorted A series and a good chassis and brakes will out perform a mega motor with little attention to the key areas. Remember too that torque is the car killer not bhp, therefore opting for a turbo 165bhp motor with a good serving of torque, you should concider a spaceframe chassis or atleast some pretty radical modifications.
A lot of what you need for this project is available from the right specialists. Always listen to the right advice even if you go your own way eventually, there is little to gain by re-inventing the wheel.
Good luck with the project !

at the moment im trying to see what can actually go in there and what i cant do can do etc. ive got a few projects on at the moment but when there finished ill be starting on the morris buy probably first of all fitting a marina engine as this is a bolt in, and if the parts come up on e-bay or by here ill buy them for a diffrent engine to go in, i like the idea of keeping the A series engine and opting for a metro turbo but as you say a K series or fiat or even tuning a 1300 A series will probably be a better option.

due to the fact that the morris isnt really that heavy 700kg? i would say even 80bhp would feel very quick compared to the 1.0 ive got now and together with the suspention sorted out and brakes it would be good nippy car.

Don't fall into the trap of concentrating on power alone. You can make your Minor perform much better with very little work on the engine. Some choice parts with regard to cylinder head and fuelling will get you part of the way but by far the biggest difference comes by way of suspension and brake modifications. After all, for how much of your time driving is it possible to accelerate flat out and travel at top speed?
My 50 bhp 948cc Minor with antiroll bar, disc brakes and uprated shocks was a scream to drive. A wonderful balance of power and capability. Not the fastest Minor on the road but I was having too much fun to care
I've been the bhp route, from modded Polo to Golf and Quattro.
I realised there will always be something faster out there so now I look for other attributes in a car instead.

Peetee wrote:Don't fall into the trap of concentrating on power alone. You can make your Minor perform much better with very little work on the engine. Some choice parts with regard to cylinder head and fuelling will get you part of the way but by far the biggest difference comes by way of suspension and brake modifications. After all, for how much of your time driving is it possible to accelerate flat out and travel at top speed?
My 50 bhp 948cc Minor with antiroll bar, disc brakes and uprated shocks was a scream to drive. A wonderful balance of power and capability. Not the fastest Minor on the road but I was having too much fun to care
I've been the bhp route, from modded Polo to Golf and Quattro.
I realised there will always be something faster out there so now I look for other attributes in a car instead.

Well put Peetee! I completely agree. I too have been down the large BHP road and it's fun at the time but you soon get bored (and there IS always someting faster). Nowadays I like to extract the most fun from a less powerful engine! I can't wait to get the sidevalve on the road. I imagine that driving that to extract usefull speeds will require more skill (and be more fun) than just planting your foot in a 300BHP Subaru! Been there, done that! It's dull after a while.....

I had no end of fun driving Ray's 1098 Trav back from where he bought it and overtaking things! Plus sliding my tail-happy 1380 about is great fun too! You don't need masses of power to have fun.

(and there IS always someting faster).

Imagine driving your pride and joy 911 down the motorway, then being completely out accelerated by a Toyota So much so that you give up at 120ish and pretend that you weren't trying as the other guy was starting to dissapear towards the horizon.......

Yeah - better to be appreciative about what you have got than go for pure speed, as unless you have a few hundred grand spare and a desire for dragstrips and wierd fuels you are going to get beaten by something much quicker

My brother's daily driver is an Astra Coupe Turbo. 180 bhp through the front wheels. Absolute madness. Even with all the electronic techno wizardry as standard it struggles on anything other than a pan flat straight road to use all the power. I'm sure with 150bhp it wouldn't be any slower 99% of the time. The dynamic abilities of the car are outstanding and far in excess of anything a Minor would be capable of even with the best choice of modifications. However, in reality it's dull at best and unnerving at worst. The combination of cosseting silence and opulance necessary in a modern car combined with electronic traction control and engine management mean you either feel like your watching the action on a simulator screen or worryingly, that you could just climb into the backseat and let the electronics take over.

A road test of a scooby turbo I read once said it needed a sticker on the sun visor saying "i am not god, slow down!" I don't need a radio in the minor because the car is entertaining even at low speed.

Hi,
I don't totally agree that more BHP, or actually as Jonathan says Torque, is not more fun. Yes there is always something faster but my Moggy puts out 160HP and I still find it fantastic fun. That doesn't mean I drive round foot on the floor all the time (can't afford the fuel bill for starters) and it'll quite easily poodle along in 5th at 30MPH. But sometimes every now again it is fun to floor the throttle and scream up to 60 while waving goodbye to some suped up hot hatch. Not everyones cup of tea perhaps but there is something to be said for the buzz from acceleration. Mind you to get that you have to have sorted out all the suspension, brakes etc otherwise your just going to either break it or bash it.

Regards,
Wal

ive got my gameplan now thanks to this board going to start of with a big hunt to find a morris ital engine or whole donor car if i can find one, ill fit that and maybe do some mild polishing of the head while its out. then ill sort out the handleing, which would probably intal getting telescopic shocks, i might see if its possible to do a coilover conversion to the shock aswell which will save me time in the future. Next off will be gearbox and rear end, what ever pops up and im sure they do second hand etc. ive heard a sierra g/box can be fitted and im looking into a piazza turbo rear end because this has LSD standard and the PCD is 100x100 which is not far off the stock wheel size. when this is all done, probably around 2006 it will be more capapable enough to cope with a tuned Turbo A+ engine from a metro.
when its all done its will be ready for fast road or a track day car, im sure with the suspention and engine sorted out it will outperform 150bhp+ hothatchs.

the morris with 140bhp would be 200bhp per tonne which would make it a damn quick car, subarus are only 170bhp per tonne and imagine a morris overtaking a subaru

Well, it doesn't quite work like that! But it would be funny to see!

The Minor's 140BHP would be very 'peaky' and the 'area under the curve' would not be very much compared to the Subaru's! The Minor would seriously loose out on torque and so it's top end would be seriously limited. Also the engine at 140 BHP would be very highly strung unlike the Subaru's.

I have driven a few Subarus and (unfortunately) there is no way an A-series powered Minor will come anywhere near it (unless you pull a few spark leads off ).

I doubt the 1.8 K-series would be able to come close either as the Subarus are pretty well set-up cars with 4WD and bags of power and handling to match. The only chance you would have is if the Subaru driver was a real muppet and could not handle his car!

Mind you, you will SERIOUSLY upset the Uno/Renault/Escort turbo boys!

I remember really upsetting a Uno Turbo boy in my normally aspirated 1380 from a dead start at some traffic lights..... I heard his little dump-valve hissing away (from behind me). He was NOT amused!