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Post by hydrolastic on Oct 16, 2016 1:04:54 GMT
So Today i got all of the parts together and removed the hif 6's then picked one of the mgb manifolds i have and the heat shield that came with the car. Sure enough the heat shield hit the exhaust. So i made a couple of 5/16 spacers by cutting off the flange off of a couple junk carbs and faced them on the mill. After a couple of mockups on the spare head and mixing and matching parts i was able to get a set of carbs to bolt up.Now i have to make some linkage and or see if i can find some MGB ones locally. I am stumped however on what to do about the air cleaner. Maybe a set of mgb ones or the rectangular one i have here. Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Oct 15, 2016 14:30:36 GMT
Hello David, looking around i have not been able to find a satisfactory explanation to your question, But i did fire up the computer engine dyno. What it shows for a typical eight port head is that the ITB's kill the low end and without increasing the diameter of the throttle body it also kills the top end. When i increase the amount from one to four and increase the CFM x2 of the throttle plates the top end power comes back but just barely and it says they are only effective above 5000 rpm. The Twincam mini i did last year started out with ITB's but i built a plenum manifold using the computer engine dyno. It worked exactly as it said it would and there was a very dramatic increase in power from 3000 and up. In the process of building the manifold i decreased the intake tube diameter and added 4 3/8'ths of length then i put a 50mm single TB on it. The mini guys have developed a program for the megasquirt that does a timed code that accounts for the siamese ports. I don't know how the factory did it or what the mini guys did. I have been wondering what a twincam four valve head would do for the 1800 but i expect it would be equivalent to the mini and make a very powerful engine. Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Oct 15, 2016 14:02:56 GMT
Hello Guys, I am starting on Gromits carbs. Right now the car is very hard to start and is running on two cylinders. (twin HIF 6's from a volvo) the previous owner had gathered some parts for a twin carb 1800 but there are broken/missing pieces and the hs 4 carbs are very worn. I have a couple sets of mgb hs 4 carbs and i am looking at getting a complete set of carbs together. One issue i see is the maniflow header will hit the heat shield as the shield has been modified but was not used. Looking on the internet i saw a picture of a twin carb 1800 and the float bowls were set inside of the carbs. This is confusing as it would make the linkage a split throttle cable but there was not a detailed picture of what is needed to do this. I was wondering if anyone had detailed pictures of a twincarb setup. The owner told me that the air cleaner is a very rare piece but again not sure from what or what parts are missing. The list of what i need to do to the car is getting longer. Items like the starter is not staying engaged the shift cables seem to be leaking oil and the engine is sagging on one side. But for now i am just looking to get the carbs sorted. Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Sept 25, 2016 13:44:40 GMT
Hello guy's just going to throw my 2 cents out there based on my experience racing minis. first lets look at a Japanese intake system. Most are a plenum manifold with 4 runners and the plenum. generally good for mid range power they can be modified by shortening or lengthening the runners or changing the diameter. For a 1800 cc engine it would require about a single 2" throttle plate and would be getting four pulses every two revolutions or a fairly even pull on the intake. Now lets look at ITB's (individual throttle bodies) on a japanese engine these flow huge amounts of air but have to be bigger to cope with the on and off pulse of the individual cylinder. Now for a siamese port head like the mini or the 1800 it is neither a plenum or a ITB the siamese port acts like an ITB in a sense but since there are two cylinders hooked up to the port it sees one long draw on the carb. This causes the outer cylinders to run at full power but the inners have the air partially robbed.The situation only gets worse with longer duration cams and or higher rpms. The 1800 S engine i take it has a different cam and was probably intended to provide more power at higher rpm. This means more carb and since its kind of a half ITB setup it requires a much bigger carb than it would as a plenum style manifold. Or in a single carb it sees more pulses or even draw so its smaller but as a twin carb it is much bigger. Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Sept 24, 2016 20:46:38 GMT
Thanks for posting the pictures. I am not good enough on computers to get that to work. First item on Gromit is to get the fuel pump fixed. It seems to have had a engine mounted pump but right now it has the facet electric rattle box pump. Having minis and 1100's i have come to like the SU pumps for the tick,tick. I was thinking of putting a MGB pump with the banjo type fittings. what do you guys do? I also am going to start on finishing the carbs.There are some issues as to what i have available here (in the US) mostly mgb stuff. There was a box that came with the car so i will set all this out and take a photo. Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Sept 11, 2016 19:07:39 GMT
Hello Chris. We have been racing the mini this year and the racing 1800 (Maxine) is parked for now. But she will get back up to speed again. This one is just going to be my for show car and will stay as an original car as long as i own it. I am getting closer to the Hydrolastic trifecta as i have my original restored 1100 and my in a million pieces hydrolastic New Zealand mini. Anyway couple of things to note are the boblehead dog in the back window. Its name is Gromit a cartoon character thats kind of interesting. The rest of the story on the car is that it came from Canada south Alberta to be specific. This is a "high desert" area and cars don't rust like in most places. It does need some TLC and i plan on getting it to look better. I also need to get the carbs sorted out as the mixtures and linkage has problems. I also want to get the original wheels on it but i think The previous owner was onto something as the car handles wonderfully with its current setup. There seems to be stuff missing on the dash and it will be tidied up as well. Gromit also came with a mini steering wheel but i immediately put the pristine one from maxine on and it looks great! There are also a engine mount issue and it is leaking oil from somewhere but i did not figure out where but it was about a teaspoon five minutes after i park it. Then it stops. Here is a link to the pictures s1346.photobucket.com/user/Hydrolastic/library/Austin%201800%20Gromit?sort=3&page=1
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Post by hydrolastic on Sept 3, 2016 16:39:29 GMT
Hello Guys, Aaron here. Some of you know me as the guy with the 1800 V6 racecar. A while back i was in contact with a 1800 owner and got to talking about the 1800 he had. He commented that he did not drive it as it was in the back of his warehouse and hadn't moved in many years. I purchased it then and there, sight unseen. It is exactly as he described. 99% rust free. Just now a almost 50 year survivor. Complete and running. super happy about the car, pictures soon. Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Jul 25, 2015 0:43:28 GMT
Hello Austin 1800 fans. The team was so pumped up from the race in June! Just before the race i was wiping off the windscreen from the last race. A few weeks prior i put a new set of rotors and calipers on and bled the brakes. We had spent most of the time prior to the race getting a new engine ready for the mini. We run two cars on the team , A converted mini to a wolseley hornet that Sean had painted up as the John Lennons rolls royce. Anyway not much had been done to Maxine. We started off with a huge disappointment with the new tires as we usually run Dunlop star specs. The tire store told me the new tire was the dunlop 102. I asked what the difference was and he said that the tread was the only difference. it turns out the 102's are total street tires and we were rolling the tread over right at the beginning of the race I was not hopeful they would go the distance. Never the less i increased the tire pressure a couple of times till we were over 10 psi over our normal of 28 psi. After that it was just a go for it for the next 16 hours. We got into the groove and again with fast fuel stops and driver changes the 1800 just kept going. I could tell the guys were really giving her cause they were shifting into fifth before the tower. My turn out and i just could not believe it Maxine was running like a top and despite the crap front tires I was doing 2;18's ! As we got closer to the end of the race we were first in class and in the lead! About an hour from the end of the race Crazy Mikes mini dropped out and we ended up thirteen laps ahead of the next closest contender. Scott being the best driver we have as far as easy on the equipment was in the car for the finish. First place in Class C ! Thanks everybody for helping to keep Maxine running. Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Jul 22, 2015 1:22:42 GMT
Hello again! Probably getting tired of the race car but this year has been amazing I was able to get the rear brakes fixed and a whole bunch of little items done before the race in june. The field was amazing as this race had mostly miatas (MX5) and bmw 325's and i was worried we would not do well overall. BUT little did i suspect that the four of us would really get our act together and we had uneventful fuel stops and fast driver changes. After 12 hours of racing we found out we were only 6th. wanting to give it our best shot we ramped it up notch and a few of us were doing 2:18 lap average's and our hotshoe Adrian was doing 2:16's at that pace we picked off 5th 4th and 3rd till we were just 4 laps behind the leader with an hour or more left we were just behind the leader in a 1974 Datson 260 Z Adrian could not get ahead of him. We finished the race in second place! Maxine did 340 laps 920 miles with an average speed for the race of 58 mph. Here is a link to a video of the finish s1346.photobucket.com/user/Hydrolastic/media/IMG_2291_zpsdrjzb1wd.mp4.html?o=0I went over to the Datsun after the race and yup it was all done up with a triple set of dcoe webers. It was a really nice race car. To say the least we were super happy with the result. Next post will be about the race on july 11-12. Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Feb 25, 2015 1:51:38 GMT
Hello Guys took the rear drums off and the worst has happened the rear shoes are down to the metal and the drums are heavily grooved I guess the race was harder on them than it appeared. Is there a part number for the rear shoes and what other cars or something else the drums could have beed used on? Aaron
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Post by hydrolastic on Jan 30, 2015 5:01:48 GMT
Hello All, So its hard to believe but we are getting ready for the third season with Maxine. This years upgrade was installing the ford power steering along with doubling up on the front springs. limiting the rear suspension with bump stops. We are considering taking it out in march for a trackday. while the engine was out I decided to replace the timing belt and put in a new waterpump since those are the things that I have to remove the engine to do. when I replaced the belt I saw that both heads the timing belt marks were off a tooth. I installed the new one correctly I hope we have more horsepower! The new front springs add up to 300lbs per inch and jumping on the bumper it moves much less now. The power steering is wonderful now, it is almost one finger steering! and it looks great as I kept the 1800 wheel complete with horn badge. Next items for the race is a full set of lights and a led light bar as Maxines first race (in June) is a full 24 hour race through the night. I also want to get a new set of brake shoes in the rear but I don't think there are any on the shelf in north America. Possibly there is a cross reference and they were used on a more common model of car. If anyone knows what to look for let me know. that's it for now. I will keep you posted
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Post by hydrolastic on Aug 2, 2014 14:41:49 GMT
Hello everybody, Well the second race is over. The performance of the probe powered Austin 1800 was superb. Not perfect but better than i expected. first we did the external coil setup with the pertronix 60,000 volt coil. Flawless! This year i added a set of ebay headers and a used cold air kit. I had the frustrating experience of disassembling the transmission to fish out the diff spider gears. This put real pressure on us to get it together and running before race day. On track we were in a field of 60 cars. Some are really quick the model T was there which looks like a model T but is a fabricated race car and it hauls the mail. Most of the other cars are german, japanese or swedish sedans. The real race for us was Crazy mikes Classic mini our teams classic mini and our teammates new car the 1984 C4 Corvette. Now we are all there on the same track. I was out first and i was super surprised when i floored the accelerator! the extra power over last year was huge and it really made me rethink where to shift. last year we just left it in fourth 100 mph down the straight. This year it was grab fifth and and 115! The pull out of the corner was awesome and the mazda 6 brakes were working flawlessly. So well that after the first day in our group we had the fast time for the day a 2:16 just a bit faster than the corvette! About an hour from the end of the first day the clutch exploded promptly puncturing the gearbox with gear oil everywhere! I Thought we were done for the weekend but we ended up removing the transmission and repairing the gouges with JB weld installed the off the shelf 104 dollar clutch kit. fired it up five minutes before the race started the next day. Had a collision on the front fender not big everybody that drove the car loved it. it was as a teammate said a "sleeper" We Had a blast Thanks of all the helpful reply's and the sticky's they all really helped. Thanks! Aaron hydrolastic is online now Report Post
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Post by hydrolastic on Jun 24, 2014 3:24:56 GMT
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Post by hydrolastic on Nov 24, 2013 17:04:21 GMT
Hello Guys, Charlie was at my house yesterday and was talking about the pictures he posted of the lemons race. First i need to apologize for not following up. The race was great we won organizers choice! Not a cash prize but it goes to the car they liked the best. We were late through tech but managed to get six hours done. The first day i had isolated the displacer with a valve in the line between the front and rear. The first displacer lasted only a few laps but the car handled like a dream. it was flat around the corners and turned in nicely. I was just getting up to speed with the tires squealing when the displacer blew out. Actually not the displacer but the hose just where it entered the displacer all three spare displacers blew the hose in the same spot. After the first displacer went we opened the valve. Whoa nelly! the roll was incredible. But it didn't feel bad or funny at any time so we just got used to it and started having fun. The second displacer blew out with Scott driving and the rear tire flare was ground into the tire at a hundred and five mph making a steam and burning rubber cloud so big they threw up the yellow flag cause the drivers behind our car could not see the track. They towed it in and another displacer went in. we replaced it in twenty minutes or so. The engine is a 2.5 mazda/ford KLDE and it did not miss a beat I had used a mazda MX 5 radiator to keep cool and the whole package was wonderful and we passed a lot of cars and were passed so a mid pack car it was to be not the Dominator i had hoped for Haha. I was last in the car and was limping it around at a 50% level and it ran out of gas with one lap to go. Thanks for the help and encouragement. See you next summer. Aaron By the way you guys are lucky to have Charlie, he is a great guy.
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Post by hydrolastic on May 18, 2013 15:47:05 GMT
Hello again, Finally got the engine in it's proper place turns out the probe is offset in the car 1 inch towards the driver I have it fixed now. the floorpans are in and the Sills have been torn out. Also it is now apparent that this car had been hit and repaired on the front drivers (left) side. as things were not lining up funny thing is i could not see where it was bent. finally i saw a wrinkle in the sheet metal under the displacer to the floor. it bent the lower part of the car not a lot but. as it got out to the end of the framerail the left side wing was drooping about 3/8 of an inch. i made a new framerail and have laid out the suspension points to compensate. I have also made new lower arm and radius rod out of chromemoly steel and rod ends. did not want to replicate what was there so i have welded the a 1" spacer to the aluminum housing to get the suspension wider as the probe from flange to flange is 2 inches wider than the 1800. to keep the steering correct the inner lower mount for the arm is moving in about a half inch. the lower arms are adjustable so we will see what works at the track. two months to go and the rollcage still needs to go in but that is next weekend. Some of the cosmetics have been worked on and the bonnet will get a set of flat black stripes or completely black as the paint blistered when i welded it to the wings. I don't know if i am just liking it more or what but i have to say it does not look bad as a race car. Aaron
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