Featured Technical WWAD (what would Anthony do)

A 327 in that Mini would test your "packaging skills" Dave!

 

Interesting that they chose a 6V71 instead of a 6-71.

 

RSR, you know you shouldn’t tempt me like this! There is/was a Mini racer in Michigan when I lived there that built a Mini with a small block Chevy. Somehow! He had to sit in the back seat. He also used the leftover 998 engine and transmission to build a pit tractor to pull the race Mini to the grid.

Hey, Anthony, I have a shell and most of the useful parts. Maybe you should come up here and rescue me from this nightmare and take it back for your kids to have fun with. You could teach them packaging as well as automotive technology…

 

And actually a 90 degree 4.3l V6 would have a better chance of fitting in, and being tame enough for the street… and I bet Anthony would drive it!

 

I've always been fan of the big engine, small car build, even though I'm too big for that stuff.
Ended up with a Honda 600 sedan bare shell. Took some measurements.
Even a SBC with the short WP, shorty 'glide and a 9" was too long to fit aligned with the rear axle and the grille. The fenders would have to be stretched something like 10-12".

 

I do think it sits low enough for @anthony myrick though.
Dan

 

I did a lot of ring, bearing, gasket set, and timing chain set "rebuilds" back in my younger days, most of those also included a spray bomb paint job. Back then, I figured out it was cheaper to buy a complete car and part it out, if I needed a major part. As a result of that, I was buying, parting out, or selling a lot of performance era Mopar parts, cars, and trucks. I had a garage stall set a side for extra parts, and usually 8-10 vehicles besides the 3 or 4 my wife and I were driving. "Core motors" were never a problem, but if it would have been, I had an "in" with the 3 local junk yards to buy cheap complete motors, or any other parts I may have needed. All those stripped out cars had to go someplace after the good parts were pulled. Life was great!

The 1st "rebuild" I did just out of high school. One of the customers at the gas station I worked at had an old Plymouth with a 273 that had leaking frost (core) plugs between the motor and the transmission. He and his girls were pretty used to keeping the radiator as full as possible, but one day one of the leaking core plugs blew through and they over heated the motor real bad.
My boss had a 65 Dodge that he wrecked one day and he sold it to me cheap. I was trying to sell it to make a few extra bucks. The guy with the Plymouth and I made a deal to pull the motor out of the Dodge and install it into the Plymouth. The issue was the Dodge had the old poly 318 A motor, and the Plymouth had the newer LA 273. We ran into an issue with the crank hub and the torque converter interference (the problem was with the differences in years, not the different motors, both were considered small blocks). We would have had to swap the transmissions to complete the job. The Plymouth had a recently rebuilt transmission the guy didn't want to give up. Of course, we discovered this after we had both motors out of both cars.

The guy asked me if I would be interested in replacing all the core plugs, and replacing the rings and bearings in the motor (it had ran great until it overheated). I could keep the poly 318 and use the rented engine hoist to reinstall it back into the Dodge, and keep the money from our original deal. Then he would pay for what ever parts we would need to do the job, and he would also buy me any tools I would need to do the job! Sounded like a great deal to me!
He bought a ridge reamer, a ring expander, a ring compressor, a 3 blade cylinder hone, and a new torque wrench (he chose to buy some really good tools for me). I tore the motor down, cut the ring ridge (not too bad) replaced the rings and rod bearings. We inspected the main bearings and used plastigauge to measure the main bearing clearance and determined they were OK. I replaced all the core plugs, and cleaned out the block while they were out. I reassembled the motor and reinstalled it into the Plymouth. He and his family drove that old Plymouth for several more years before it finally rotted out.

 

I just swapped out a 350 for a 292-6
Big ride - small engine. That’s how we do it

 

that way you're not going too fast when you encounter a change in road surface...don't lose as many body parts....

 

Some years later after that first small block Chevy, and I had been racing for a while, my friend and driver, Jim, needed a 302-ish engine for his sportsman class car. The trouble was neither of us had any real money to expend on the parts that we would really have liked. Now he was the owner and chassis builder, and driver, I was just helping him out as much as I could. We had to build a decent engine for as little money as possible.

A trip to the local salvage yard, the owner was a friend of Jim, to see what we could get. A 327-300 hp engine that still ran, okay good start but oversized. A 283. Hmm, that crank will swap into the 327 block, they were both small journals. Okay, so we had a 3 inch crank, a 4 inch block, and a set of 462 small valve heads. We checked around with other friends and located a good used set of 302 pistons, 30 over. Great, Those 300 hp rods, if they pass magnaflux, will work. We’re getting there.

Another friend who had a small automotive machine shop did the bore, and hone to fit the pistons. Rods checked out okay, so new Rod bolts, but not rebuilt rods, just tap the old ones out, and the new ones back in. Hone the small ends to float the pins, and good to go. Polished the crank by hand, and used 1 thou under bearings. We couldn’t afford balancing or decking the block, so pass!

Heads got a valve job, used valves stayed in. We did spring for good springs and retainers, but no guide plates, I just pulled the old studs out, tapped the holes for those shouldered studs made for this, and assembled the heads. So we had a short block and a set of heads. We used a Chevy 754 off road cam and GM lifters. And I had a couple of sets of used pushrods, so that’s what I used. A Z28 intake and a 750 double pumper, with a decent cast iron tach drive distributor. Painted it Caterpillar yellow, because everyone knows yellow motors scream!

That was a couple of steps up from what we have talked about above, and that engine ran good. Jim ran it for 4 races before he arranged some sponsorship money for a new engine. That little junk yard refuge ran 4th, 3rd, crash, and win! Jim pulled it out after that because he just knew it wasn’t going to last. Stuck it in a corner just in case.

But he never ran it again. However it did race again. He sold the car because he was moving to California, and the purchaser bought the car and the engine. Now he was just getting started on dirt, and he was so over his head that first year. And that junkyard refuge ran all summer long for him. Well, when he was at the track with it. He bent up the car frequently, and missed about half of the races. Still, that engine ran about 10-12 races without blowing up!

 

Now that was high tech!

 

I hope you mean that in a good way

 

I’d be afraid to try that with a cast piston, but that’s a forged piece you pictured, right?

 

I believe cast, I’ve never tried the process just read about it. However I think they only distort the piston a few thousandths of an inch, just enough to tighten it up a bit. I’m guessing a cast piston would handle that slight amount. I have some left over pistons I should try the process on for reference.

Dan

 

Personally, I don't think I would ever want to drive that.................

Which brings a question to mind. Where are the radiator and gas tank located?

 

Yeah, but WWAD? I bet he’d drive it

 

Rabbit hole time.
Earlier version of same car?
https://www.streetmachine.com.au/ev...ubbed-ls1-powered-mini-at-summernats-30-video

insanity
https://engineswapdepot.com/?p=47724

Another pic

 

FYI, this is not a Mk1 shell, which would just make the age cutoff, kind of. The first year was 1959, and the Mk 1 shell was made thru 1967. The one in the shed is called Frankenmini because it has parts from first and second generation shells, and other parts from as new as 2000. Oh well, if it ever makes it to the hamb, it’ll be in the off topic category…

 

Sorry if this is muddying your thread, Dave. I thought somebody would have done it and posted the result. It seemed to resonate with the members, so dug a bit deeper. Have it cleared out if it is going to derail the thread.

 

Not a problem! There are probably a few members that would know that, but I’m betting that 90-95% don’t know that there was 4 generations of the original Mini. Our Brit and down under friends will know, and most likely the Canadian members, but like me, we would not know because legally they stopped importing them after 1967. Something about safety and emissions regulations…

I can understand the safety concerns, I always felt like I was driving in a tin can on the road in the first one. That was the justification for the rollcage, which led to the 1300 engine, necessitating the Cooper S brakes, then the other modifications that were then required to make it competitive…

Well, you know how that goes! And the evolution of the second one…

 

That's funny, I saw it and immediately thought, "Ah, the perfect commuter car, sign me up!"

 

Now here’s an interesting tidbit of trivia for your next bench racing session, when you have had a couple of adult beverages.

Does anyone know what the wheelbase and track width of a real Mini is? No fair, our British members jumping on this one. Okay, 80 inches and 47 inches…

Anyone put a small block in a Jeep? Besides an idiot like me? And can you guess what the wheelbase and track width is for Jeeps up to the CJ5? Okay, if you guessed 80 and 47, you might be a gearhead!

Hmm! Which one has the lower center of gravity? And independent suspension? And actually has really good handling characteristics?

So maybe that guy with the V8 Mini isn’t as crazy as he seems…

 

Well, there is the small (?) matter of one has a frame and a front engine, RWD or 4WD layout, the other is unibody and FWD.
Had a friend who did a SBC Jeep and another who did 3rd gen Hemi jeep.
Both required a bunch of work, but neither required bracing the body and cutting the bottom out!

 

Hey, I was 18 and had a spare 327 sitting in the garage when I grenaded the F-head 4 banger! Of course I knew better and could swap it into the Jeep.

 

Hey, we did a 327 swap in to Jeep, torch cut adapter plate for the Chev bellhousing and Jeep transmission, and used pipe cutter to modify driveshaft. I was early 20's at time.