February'03

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8th-9th February 2003, Action!

Fitted a new rev counter into Doris on Saturday because the normal 3 clock Mini one seemed to read twice as high as it should with the V8 in :-)

The cheapy 80mm TIM one from Mini Spares was (after a bit of bodging - and brutal removal of old tach...) a reasonable in the existing dash bezel.

So, with the GPS clipped onto the dash I went out for a 'quiet little potter' to calibrate the speedo. The gear ratios with the 2.7:1 diff are quite convienient, in 2nd 1000RPM = 10MPH, in 4th 1000rpm = 20MPH.

It seems that the plan to 'tune out' some of the low end torque has worked, because the power feeds in quite gently (by ejector seat standards) up to about 3500 rpm - after which the rate of acceleration becomes a bit scary, but in a good kind of way :-)

0 to 60 times should be quite good if I can keep the thing going straight without too much spinnage, because first gear will get me up to say 35 (5500RPM), then snick it into 2nd (3500RPM) and wind it up to 60 (6000RPM)

In all - a big happy Vroom :-)

Also bought a gearbox for the pievan

15th-16th February 2003, Driving - Yes, Actually Driving !

Over the weekend we spent a few hours out and about in Doris, and having clocked up a couple of hundred miles the V8Mini conclusion is..

DON'T DO IT !!!

The first real problem after driving the V8 is walking around with a permanent idiot grin, so that people think you have had a coat hanger surgically implanted in your mouth.

The second problem is that all the local roads seem to have had their corners moved closer together, this leaves you less time to enjoy the V8 cruising experience, however it does increase your cornering pleasure :-)

Third problem is the ecological disaster caused by 14.75MPG !!!!!! So it looks like it's time to refit the Megasquirt and get the fueling sorted before the oil reserves run out.

Also did a bit of 'research' into traction on nice flat newish tarmac:-

Idling along at 900RPM in first all seems pretty happy, then sticking the accelerator to the floor causes the revs to climb (quite quickly), at about 2500 the tyres admit defeat and start slipping and snaking about - This continues up to 6000RPM where one grabs 2nd gear, on the releasing the clutch and applying the loud pedal the tyres still do not really want to grip very often all the way to 6k again, only stopping their evil smelling shrieking when 3rd is selected and sensible levels of throttle are employed. I am too scardey to play wheelspins in 3rd, but only coz I think that it's sensible to have some sort of harmony between wheel & roadspeed over 60mph ;-)

In all I am very pleased with the performance, now the hard work of adding some 'finesse' begins (unless a major fix is needed due to something exploding!!).

Also managed to sneak in a bit of work on the Pievan back axle.

22nd - 23rd February, A bit more driving.

On Saturday I checked Doris over, and all seems to be ok apart from a bit of an oil leak - seems that old chestnut is back to haunt me again. I guess I will have to actually make some gaskets in the next rebuild instead of relying on orange goop ;-)

Just to keep my public happy, we went out for a quite run on Sunday morning and shot a few more driveby vids. Everything seemed to go pretty well, but the oil light popped on so we had to abort early and limp home on impulse engines. I hope there was enough oil kicking around to keep the bearings happy, but may pick up a spare set of mains and bigs just in case !!

Click for the vids

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This page last modified 04/02/2008.