Trunk Space - Part 3

Lately, I managed to free up some money to break down and buy the rear suspension system from MiniTec in Royston, GA (http://www.superfastminis.com). I know I sound regretful, but I had some stickershock earlier on when looking at this item. Bottom line is, you're paying for the engineering that went into making this finish product bolt right in without any issues, and at this point in time in this project for me (almost 4 years and counting now)... it's worth every penny spent.

Once I received the subframe, I was able to quickly line it up to the body (pictured below) and bolt it in place...

Upon bolting it in, I was able to see some slight modifications that were going to need to be done to the wheel wells in order to allow for proper clearance to the shock once the full assembly was in place.

As you can see from the picture below, I took a nice 4lb. hammer and "releaved" the rear half of the wall behind the shock in order for it to clear the metal once installed. Not the prettiest of treatments I know, but once this is rubber-coated later, none of this should matter.

Once the sheetmetal was modified to properly fit the shocks, I was able to bore out the shockmount hole at the top of the tower area to fit the new bracket, thus allowing me to mount the shock at both ends without interference.

Within a few minutes, I was able to dry-fit the new hubs in place, insert the new discs and spacers, and fit those beautiful 13x7 wheels in place for the first time.

At the time of the image, I had the body as if it were a dolly, rolling around on its own back wheels... a very exciting accomplishment.

Not wanting to stop there, I decided to try to line-up the body to the front subframe.

Doing this allowed me to see that I need to do a few more modifications to the metal at the front to avoid interference with the alternator. However, I did manage to take this snapshot of what the car will look like once both frames are mounted up properly... sort of a "glimpse ahead".

Floor Panels - Tunnel Construction

Forgive me Father, its been nearly one year since my last posting...

In that year though, my wife and I had our first child, and for as amazing experience that has been in my life... nearly no construction has occurred on the car.

I HAVE been working on a bunch of initiatives in the meantime however(upholstery/interiors research/rear suspension), so I'll try to capture them in the coming days in order to update the blog. So now, back to work...

I purchased some more sheet metal a couple of months ago, and finally managed to spend some time working out what I needed in order to create a tunnel. Once welded in place, I'll only need a few internal fillers/stabilizers (some shown in the picture below) to knit up the floor pans, and move on to the trunk area to wrap up fabrication.

So I told myself that I would not cut out the old tunnel until I was holding my new replacement part in my hands in order to not mess up by removing too much material (how I got myself to this point in the first place when doing the floorpans!). Now that I have the tunnel ready to be fit in, I'm cutting out the old material, and then trimming off excess in order to have a nice tight fit prior to welding (shown below).

So with the hole in the floor now, I can begin inserting the new metal into place. I've left myself approx 1" on each side of the length of the part (shown in the overlap of the main cross member) for flanges to be bent so I can overlap the old metal and weld.

Next steps are to massage the cutouts at each end of the tunnel (going from a rounded tunnel to a trapezoid shape), get a tight fit, and tack the pieces in place before all of the seams are welded shut for a good seal.

Floor Pans

Thanks to a great friend in my area, I managed to have brand new floor pans created in order to replace all of the old, tired metal in the bottom of my car.

Hopefully in the next days to couple weeks, I'll have an opporitunity to get these put in, then its on to the undercoating...

I've managed to attach the panels with self-tapping screws, this will allow me to have them held in place to ensure proper welding with the panels secured.

After Undercoating, we'll start talking about first fit-up with Engine to Body.

Happy New Year

Due to the house taking priority lately (small renovations, fixes) I've been pulled away from the car for quite some time. So I started off the year telling myself that I needed to hurry up and get a move on. I decided that in order for this to happen, I needed to just take a leap of faith and start getting some major things accomplished. Top of the list was getting the hood and front end separated from the main body of the vehicle. Because this car will have a flip-lid in the end, I took out the 'ole Sawzall and went to town cutting.

Here you can see some of the floor board in the back corner has been cut away. I recently purchased sheet material from a nearby steel yard, and enlisted some help locally in order to get some new floor pans fabricated. I'm hoping in the next few days/weeks to get these new pans installed. The addition of these new pans will surely help ensure that this body will be solid enough for the 400% power increase.

Pictured below is the hood/front end sitting on the floor next to the body of the car. I'll need to next fit these two pieces together with proper spacers, etc. Then have them welded into one piece vs. two that they are now. Later in the process, I can begin fitting up the brackets for the hinges, structural supports, flares, etc...

Trunk Space - Part 2

In doing a ton of research for ways to modernize suspension, I've learned quite a bit in terms of dealing with the rear end of the car. I've found this site called carbibles.com that has a very good description/explanation for many aspects of vehicle design, so I've taken some notes of what I've learned and of course am trying to update accordingly in order to balance the car for the amount of HP I'm adding to it while still maintaining it as a daily driver.

Currently, Minis were outfitted with a suspension system similar to this Hydrolastic setup;

Additionally, here is some reference from the Haynes Manual for Alignment of the subframes onto the body of the car.

Here is a sample image of some photos of a rear subframe I pulled off the net from someone else working on a resto.

While this setup allows this small car to have a very short suspension setup in the back, and comfortable riding at near any speed, the responsiveness for more aggressive driving really suffers. I'm looking at what mods will need to be done in order to achieve something more like a 4-bar shown below.

Modern racers have this typical setup due to the adjustability and stiffness of the setup. My design problem at hand will be figuring out how to eliminate the axel thru the center, and build more of a framed unit with fuel cell, battery, etc. all residing in the same real estate.

There is an outfit in England using motorcycle engines vs. Honda motors... this company makes this below framework to house the motor in the rear of the car, and still has a flat coilover system in order to reduce height of the suspension system. I'm thinking that there may be a possibility of building a similar framework, without the need for the motor, but substituting the motor for the fuel cell and battery location in my application.

Lately, SuperFastMinis has come out with a Rear Subframe Kit (approx $1000.00) that takes all of the existing parts and pieces, and replaces them with a fabricated sheet replica in order to incorporate a coilover suspension system in the rear of the vehicle. Below are some images from superfastminis.com of the product.

While this setup is awesome, my budget is really tight, so I'm going to try to utilize as many of the original parts as possible in order to cobble up a similar setup. Below you'll see some imagery of what will be needed to be done to the rear wells in order to make a shock tower. What's not shown here is that because we're going to a 7" wide tire, I'm going to need to widen the well prior to adding the tower. If I dont do this, 1. the wheel will sit out way too far. 2. The whole car will look 'jack'd up' in the back end, and I want my car to sit relatively flat with minimal rake.

First Coats of Primer

Here is the car on its way to my friends to get a coating of Epoxy Primer. Funny thing to notice here is the tiny trailer I can fit this thing on...lol.

Here is the Master Joe Campbell laying on a fresh coating of Epoxy Primer... without a mask... in a garage... with poor ventilation... grass roots resto at its best! lol Joe ended up paying for that one later in the day. Folks, you always have to take necessary precautions when dealing with these chemicals. This primer causes nerve damage if left to prolonged exposure, dont take chances... do like your daddy told you and "wear your safety gear"!

Here is the car drying after Joe was finished. It was pretty nice to see the car with a nice even coat on it... like a light towards the end of a tunnel.

Now the car is back in my garage, and ready for the next stages to begin... more updates to come as I begin the cutting and patching!!!

Take care for now...

Innocenti Mini Restoration - R & D

I know I've taken some time since my last posting. As things always turn out, life takes a hold and some things take priority from the things we like to do best.


As of late, I've relocated the car to my new home. At least now I'll be able to have the car close instead of traveling to it everytime I need to work on it... As I get settled in, I'll photograph the garage setup in order to show what's new with all of this.

On a separate note... I've recently stumbled across http://www.superfastminis.com/ . Minitec, located in Royston, GA (20 minutes from me) outfits classic minis with Honda motors.

Shown here, you can see that they've taken the entire front end of the car, and turned it into the hood...this would allow full access to the motor which trust me makes things a whole lot easier!

You might be asking "Why?"

A standard A-Series runs you at about 60bhp, on a good day. A Honda motor tends to start in the vicinity of 140bhp and goes way up from there (up to 240-280ish) with modifications/additions that are far more 'off the shelf' in terms of availability vs what is avail today with the British A-Series motor. Coupling this with the reliabilty of a Honda Motor, this has the makings of being a pocket-rocket-daily-driver with a power to weight that blows the doors off of most anything you can run into on the streets.

Yes, this would compromise entirely the concept of restoring the vintage vehicle to its prime condition... so, I'm going to need to check the financial ups and downs in order to see if there is value in bringing the '72 back from the grave, or going towards this modern solution.














Images Copyright of superfastminis.com, Minitec LLC.