Mini Cooper S R53 Track Car

When I first started out on my track day car project one of the requirements was that I would be able to drive the car across Europe in relative comfort (more on that later) so I could take it on the Nürburgring. I don’t have space for a trailer and

It’s been a couple of months since I got the car back after the engine rebuild at 1320Mini and I’ve finally managed to get the car back on track. After the engine rebuild there was the small issue of 500 “gentle” miles on mineral oil to bed the engine in

I like to do as much of the work on my car as possible but sometimes there are jobs that are outside of my abilities, this is one of those examples. A few weeks ago I took my car to 1320Mini with the intention of having CatCam fitted along with

In the last post I’d replaced the leaking stock radiator with a new all aluminium Mishimoto part, sadly that wasn’t the last of the problems I experienced with the cooling system. With only a couple of weeks to go before my final track day of the season at Donington the

Before replacing the radiator I spent a few days reading the Haynes manual and a number of articles from the excellent Pelican Parts Tech Library. I decided to follow a combination of the two approaches. Because of the modular nature of the MINI’s front end there is a fair bit

After waiting an age (it’s actually been a month) my new exhaust system from Milltek finally arrived, via the nice folks at Lohen. It certainly looks a quality bit of kit in all of it’s stainless steel glory. It’s only got a single very deep slip joint which is a

As part of the new exhaust system I need a solution for the catalytic convertor, when the car is running on track I can use the de-cat pipe. Obviously when the car is being driven on the Queen’s highway it needs the emissions kept under control. Rather than fit a

A couple of boxes of parts turned up yesterday, a Janspeed Manifold and de-cat pipe from Lohen and some exhaust wrap and other bits and bobs from Demon Tweeks. There is a major difference between the stock manifold and the Janspeed one, the picture below shows them side by side.

On Friday 24th August I headed off to Motorsport Vision’s Bedford Autodrome for a track day and a How Fast? session. In contrast to a normal track day where timing is forbidden How Fast? is run with the aim of getting the fastest time on the leader board. The day