The Engine :-
- The crank, con rods (again steel race prepped), pistons and flywheel were being balanced and lightened.
- The crank was being toughened via chemical nitriding process and the camshaft was a stock Oselli 731 semi-race road/rally high lift cam. This cam produced excellent torque if timed at 110 degrees ATDC.
- The block was being bored out to 1340cc which required a slight modification to the head and a different head gasket.
- The head was being ported and polished to stage 3 standards. The stock 1275 was a good breathing cylinder head, these polished and ported heads breathed even better but drank fuel of course.
- The rocker assembly was a race prepped steel job and again nitride toughed.
- The exhaust system was a Janspeed stainless steel LCB manifold system with a very small tuned silencer to produce that tuned rasp engine noise and to improve torque.
From stock, the factory 1275 allegedly produced 56 bhp and 69 lb-ft torque.
The aim after assembly and dyno bench tuning was to produce 125 bhp and hopefully 130-140 lb-ft torque at the flywheel.
A brilliant achievement for a road going Mini in those days, though it does not sound much by today’s figures and standards but, mama, it was heaven in the back seat of my Mini…. or was that a Cadillac as the lyrics went from a Hot Chocolate song?
The clutch and flywheel assembly were lightened with a race prepped clutch plate and pressure plate.
The transmission was overhauled and prepped with a race/rally limited slip diff.
The transmission diff and gear ratios were checked and selected to best suit my configuration of engine torque and tyre/wheel diameter. However, despite many mods and configurations from my stock of donor bits, I never did get the speedometer to work correctly!
Mini Cooper oil cooler, modifications to the oil pump and cooling system were all that was needed to complete my dream.
The final Engine: –
