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".

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.

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.