| 1982 Austin Mini 1000 |
| Week 20: Racing |
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| The mini 1100 head unassembled |
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| New valve spring left verses an old one on the right |
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| Cleaned and reground valve seats |
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| Descovering at the 988 is 40 thou oversized (1040cc) |
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| Mini at grassakana |
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| I destroyed my good grill during an act of frustration |
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| The grass was super slipperly, but the mini was at home |
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| My babies, 11 years in between and totally different technologies |
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| Racetech 4000 seat a Sabelt 4/5 point harness |
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| Seat and brake bias/proporting valve |
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| Wildcat deep dish steering wheel (not produced any more and I found one luckly) |
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This week I found out you cant replace a BMC A series valve spring without taking the head off (I tried!) unlike an modern conventional engine. Doing this though I descovered that the pistons and valves were covered in crud. This is caused by using valvemaster (a known problem) thus Ill be swapping to Moreys Upper Cylinder Lube. After cleaning the pistons I found they were 40 thou oversized making the 998 in actual fact 1040. Proof that someone had taken care of this car sometime in the past. After replacing the valve springs and re-assembling the whole engine, it still valve bounced at 5200 rpm. Ohh well at least I know all the head components are fresh.
In an attempt to fix the rear wheel problem (they were locking up before the front) I installed a Willwood proporting valve. Even with it fully restricting the rear line I still had the same problem. I managed to purchase a second hand tandem brake master cylinder at 11 pm the night before grassakana. I finished with the mini at 2am and I was on my way to the event at 6am. The new cylinder still hasnt fixed the problem, nothing left but to try a single outlet master cylinder.
The seat is a Racetech 4000 manufactured by Black Motorsports here in Wellington and its bloddy awesome. It has to be one of my better puchases ever! I welded up a braket to hold the seat and bolted it to the floor following the NZ Motorsport guidelines to ensure I will be save, and so I can enter motosport events.
The fire extenguisher has also been mounted under the passengers feet.
Another great investment was the Wildcat deep dish steering wheel which fitted the bosskit I already had on the steering column. Installing this and a steering drop bracket will allow me to move the seat further back making a more comfortable driving position.
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--Follow the saga here--
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