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.

Been a while since an update. I've finally determined that the front calipers are leaking fluid. They need a rebuild. However the cost of the rebuild parts compared to the cost of new calipers makes a rebuild look less attractive. I'm discussing with Todd over at TCE Performance Products about changing out the Outlaw 2000 caliper with the Wilwood Billet Dynalite. Todd's a great guy and a great help with brakes, he's forgotten more than I know. If you're looking for some brakes give the folks at TCE a call. The Outlaw 2000 caliper has differential bore 1.75/1.62 pistons. That means one piston is smaller than the other. This helps prevent pad taper. Problem is Wilwood doesn't offer the caliper in a differential bore setup. This is what I'm on the fence about. I would need to change to a 1.62/1.62 setup. What I'm looking for is the Dynalite 1.62/1.62 setup for a 0.81 wide rotor. There are slight differences in the dimensions of the Wilwood and Outlaw calipers. Net result in these differences is that the Wilwood is 6mm shorter and 1.1mm wider than the Outlaw. That 6mm is attractive as I think the Wilwood will fit better. The 1.1mm width concerns me a little and I would hate to buy the Wilwood only to find the don't fit. Granted, I don't think 1.1mm is really going to make a difference.

Regardless, I'll be buying one caliper or the other to replace the ones I have this week sometime.

Well, it is all about brakes. Been doing a ton of reading and discussing with some very helpfully people in the CASC-OR forums. I bought a brake pressure tester and took pressure readings at the bleeder (both inboard and outboard) of the front calipers. I was getting around 400psi to the front. This sounded low to me. I emailed Tilton today (as in Sunday), the makers of the master cylinders, the 75-Series, through a form on their website. How's this for customer service, a great guy named Mike O'Neil from Tilton called me no more than 5 minutes later! On a Sunday afternoon! That rocks. We talked for a good 10 minutes. He ran some numbers and determined I should be seeing 600psi, with 90lbs of pressure on the brake pedal. This owing to the 6:1 pedal ratio and 0.750" master cylinders (0.44sq inch). He believes the balance is shifted, via the balance bar, too much to the rear brakes. The brakes aren't locking as there is a proportioning valve on the rear brake line. So I'm going to adjust that and see where it goes.

Here's hoping this does the trick. Regardless, Tilton just got a customer for life.

Today was event #2 at the Push it to the Limit (PITL) Autocross hosted by the Mazda Sports Car Owners Club. The day started off good enough. Getting used to loading the trailer and getting everything ready so I ended up getting everything done and ready and not feeling rushed.

First run was slow, and I swear the course changed from when I walked it. I thought I had gone off course, turns out I didn't but that moment of feeling lost was good for a second or two. I was running 20psi cold to start. After the first run I got the tire temps, 81F,83F,81F (Approx) across the tire surface. This is pretty consistent across all 4 tires. Now with the tires a little warm I dropped them to 20psi warm. First run, way off the pace at 52 seconds, the fast time of the day was 39 seconds for that first run.

Second run, was much quicker, at least it felt like it. Car did under steer in one of the corners badly, a sweeping left hand 180 degree, car started to plow pretty good. All was good until the stop box where my brakes went away again and I hit the stop box cone. This run was therefore a DNF. Tires on this run were 83F,84F,83F across the face of all 4, give or take 0.5-1.0 degree. The rear driver's side tire seems to get a little hotter in the middle of the others. However this is where my day ended. It started to rain. No brakes, and rain, and that was it, I called it a day. Running without good brakes sucks, running in the rain without good brakes is dangerous.

I managed to bleed to the brakes last weekend using ATE Super Blue, however it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I'm going to order another set of brake pads but I don't think that's the issue. I don't know what the problem is so I've got to start with the pads. I'm currently running Wilwood Polymatrix A pads, the heat profile of this pad is below. At 100F this pad as a Cf (coefficient of friction) of 0.55. These pads should work!

Brakes are my number 1 concern. I'm going to get a set of Street Pads to exhaust that option and if that doesn't work I'll have to take a good look at the hydraulics and calipers. I may order a brake pressure gauge that I can hook up to each line and see what the pressures are at the caliper. As well I may pick up special temperature paint which will change colour when it reaches a given temp. These two tools should tell the story. More to come...

Run number 2:

Ring Mini is a Mini Estate, just like FrankenMini, power is provided by an Acura Integra Type R engine (197hp) driving the front wheels (FrankenMini is rear wheel drive). Brakes are Honda, springs are replaced with Spax. Aside from that the Ring Mini is mostly stock, unlike FrankenMini which is entirely tube frame. The video is a perfect example of Colin Chapman's "lighter is better" philosophy. The video shows the Ring Mini taking on a new Cooper S and a Porsche 911. Here's a comparison of the Ring Mini to FrankenMini:

Ring Mini vs FrankenMini
Hp: 197 vs 140
Weight: 1719lbs vs 1400lbs
Drive: FWD vs RWD
Pounds per HP: 8.7 vs 10

I'm looking at needing 20hp to match the power:weight ratio of Ring Mini. The video shows me (and others) the potential that FrankenMini has once he's sorted. I really can't wait to get him to the track in place of just autocross.

Here is a link to the video.

I'll be working on the car this weekend sorting out a few items from the last event. First is to sort the brakes. I picked up a can of ATE Super Blue and will bleed the brakes as I really suspect this is a hydraulic problem. I looked at the current pad heat range and they should be fine. Regardless I'm also going (next week) to put a set of Williams brake pads on the car in the hopes that helps. I'll be going over all the major bolts and making sure nothing rattled loose.