Welcome to FrankenMini Racing

The following is a blog by Paul Monaghan aka paulmon to highlight work in preparing a 1967 tube frame Mini Countryman (aka Estate) for SOLO2 competition in Ontario, Canada. Look here for more information on the car, you can check out my upcoming event list and don't forget the Photo Gallery. For additional information contact me.

Well the cat is out of the bag, seems my other life, as Head of Race and Test Engineering for Red Bull F1 is finally public. Kidding aside, it seems the Head of Race and Test Engineering for Red Bull F1 is also named "Paul Monaghan." I've never actually met another "Paul Monaghan." Would be cool if this other Paul Monaghan Googles his own name, finds the site and gives me some tips. (tickets and pit passes to the Montreal GP wouldn't be a bad substitute) LOL. A Red Bull sponsorship wouldn't hurt either. Wow, what I could do with FrankenMini with just the budget for an F1 steering wheel. LOL.

No pictures, forgot my damn camera. Set off today at 7:48am for Jack's place in Youngstown to pick up the steering rack. Left Jack's around 10:45 and headed for Mr Mini to drop the rack off for Paul@BreadBox Racing. The steering rack looks FANTASTIC(just look at the picture). It doesn't look like the steering ratio is as quick as I was hoping. Seems to be 2.5 turns lock to lock, I was hoping for 2. Oh well. 2.5 is the same as my old 2002 Cooper S. It's plenty quick. If the steering isn't that hard to turn I can always order the 3.14 ratio to speed things up.

Paul painted the air intake a nice bright red. Looks really HOT! The gauges are in. Problem with the idiot light for oil temp, no where to plumb it in. No worries, the gauge itself works and the idiot lights for water temp and oil pressure work. Oil pressure is the most important gauge, so long as it works I'm good. The tachometer has also been mounted. All the gages now light up with power. Yeehaw.

The engine is now full of oil but it won't start. The starter solenoid makes a "click" but the starter doesn't do anything. There are a few possible reasons for this, I hope the starter isn't DOA. Might just be the solenoid, Paul is going to check it with a multimeter and we'll soon find out what the issue is. Might be a bad ground. Hopefully it is something simple.

I'll post some pictures shortly, forgot my camera. Luckily Jack drove up with me and brought his camera, so I do have pictures, just don't have them yet.

I'm getting so excited.

Update: Pictures online in the Week-14 Gallery (thanks Jack!)

As you can see the intake is in and it looks AMAZING! The gauges are proving to be pretty cheap and a little difficult to install. They're mounted but the various sensors aren't hooked up yet. Harness bar was also installed for the passenger seat. The engine will be started in the next couple of weeks once the gauges are sorted.

Gallery Images can be found here.

Looks like the airbox is well on its way, it will connect to a MONSTER K&N X-Stream filter. Hopefully that will be sorted in time for some pictures this Saturday. The harnesses arrived on Tuesday. As well I just got a call from Woodward and my KM Series rack is being shipped tonight. The only thing that could go wrong at this point would be a mistake of some kind with the rack, let's hope I got it right. I'll be driving out to my buddy Jack's place on the 24th to pick it up, hope he'll be home. There is a chance we'll be starting the engine this weekend. I feel as giddy as a school girl. Plenty of pictures and perhaps video to come.

The gauges arrived last Wednesday. Dropped them off yesterday, no pictures as I forgot to check and make sure the batteries in the camera were still good. The only real change is that the airbox is on and it does fit. Plan is to disassemble the driver's side headlight and use it as a basis for a cold air intake. From the side the car will look like it still has headlights.

The steering folks over at Woodward called me last weeks. "Good news and bad news" they said. Good news, I'm still getting the rack. Bad news, they don't have any 2.88 pinions available. So we're changing it to 2.62 but they're going to make a slight change to the rack so that it still gives me as close to 2 turns as possible. Turns out (no pun intended) that Woodward are redesigning the housing for the K-series racks and I'm getting the last one. Also thinking of using one of the Woodward Safety Steering Columns, seem a little more robust than the 3/4 shaft I'm using now. We will see, all a matter of cost.

Now that the gauges are here the engine can be started. So we're waiting for the rack and that's about it.