Posted by Early in March my car took it’s annual trip to 1320 Mini for the “final” stage of it’s engine power upgrade. Since late last year 1320 had been working on my spare cylinder head to convert it to their top specification Big Valve Head (Ferrea valves, Crower springs and titanium retainers) this is the same specification used in their record breaking Old Red drag racing car. In addition to the cylinder head the flywheel was swapped for a lightened one and the stock clutch was replaced with a Clutchmasters FX400. The final modification for this visit was to replace the coolant expansion tank for a Canton Racing item with a Stant 18lbs cap.
In the previous state of tune the engine was producing a consistent 207whp on the dyno, with the new cylinder head we settled on a conservative 240whp, there should be more to come as the engine has lost a few pounds of boost due to the larger intake port volume. With a larger ATI Super Damper on it’s way from the US I’m hopeful we might see 250whp. Although to be fair the car isn’t short on power at the moment and can spin it’s wheels in 2nd and 3rd gear on a dry road…
Over the last few months I’d noticed that the exhaust was starting to get a little on the loud side, after checking the exhaust over it became obvious that the packing material had been blown out. To avoid any continuing noise issues I decided to get a custom repack able back box made by Simpson Racing Exhausts. I made another trip to 1320 Mini to get the exhaust mounted which turned out to be a good move as when the car was on the lift we found one of the CV boots had split throwing grease all over the underside of the engine!
With all the work done it was time to put the car to work and head out on track for the first time this season. The venue was Bedford Autodrome for a number of reasons, it’s relatively local, 1320 Mini were going to be there supporting two Time Attack cars and if I can pass the noise tests at Bedford I’m not likely to have problems elsewhere.
The car worked faultlessly all day, the data logging showed that the 50% meth mix being injected by the Aquamist HFS-3 system was keeping the inlet temperatures under control the highest value we saw was only 20 degrees above ambient.
