And so it begins…
I bought this:
And 4 hours and a lot of knuckle skin later:
So the plan is to wedge in a nice Honda VTR1000 FireStorm engine
Im going to do the build on a standard (modified) front subframe and hopefully drop is directly in, shouldn’t require any body-modding (if anything a hole in the bulkhead to clear the diff)
wow, that looks like an awesome project. Good luck with it!
That looks like it’ll fly! All you need now’s the wings 
Now this is very interesting… I have been thinking about using the carbs off of this bike as I think they have 48mm chokes.. Which is massive for bike carbs. But the installation angle seems to aggressive to mount them on an aseries. Can you shed any light on the float bowl setup please?
Thanks
Graham
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Now this is very interesting… I have been thinking about using the carbs off of this bike as I think they have 48mm chokes.. Which is massive for bike carbs. But the installation angle seems to aggressive to mount them on an aseries. Can you shed any light on the float bowl setup please?
Thanks
Graham
Yes they are the largest honda ever fitted to a bike apparently!
However i have not had them apart (and the bike was fully functional before the stripdown) so i dont have any intention to either.
The float bowls look to be rather small and located in the lower part of the carb (facing each other) inside the V.
What’s the plan fwd or rwd? Chain, transfer box? Spill the beans
Cheers
David
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What’s the plan fwd or rwd? Chain, transfer box? Spill the beans
Cheers
David
(spilling)
(i want to keep the actual mini so i can reverse the mod if needed)
FWD, via a strategically aligned LSD just behind the engine
Annoyingly i cant find a suitably small diff so there will be a chain involved, but not were you expect…
keep an eye on this one, was looking at a motorbike vtwin mysel’ or a 1200 bandit, back to my bike times but best of both worlds 
how will the reverse be done? easy mod or pain in the backside?
cheers
fitting this will be a nightmare but good luck
I have an SV1000 sitting in my garage and was considering doing something similar.
The only downside i could see is the fact that neither the VTR or the SV are particularly powerful or torquey. On the bike yes, but with an additional 500kg? i’m not so sure.
Approx 110bhp and 75 ftlb torque in either case.
Will be watching with interest
E2A, could be the greatest sounding mini ever with the right pipes
Chris - agreed its not got epic power basically the same torque as an early 2000’s R1, and a bit less BHP (out of the box) - however with a light fettling will easily deliver over double the power of the standard mini lump, plus the gearing im going to use is around 3.5:1 (diff) as opposed to the 2.5:1 of the standard chain drive. and it has similar torque to the a-series too.
yes… it will sound completely epic one of my main reasons for going down the high revving V2 route, along with Honda reliability.
The current mini engine is on its last legs, so this seems like the right time to do it.
Got me looking round for an SP1 now, 130bhp and the clocks would look great too
Hehe! im fairly happy with the 2 HUGE carbs… - the bike was cheap, ive nearly got my money back by breaking the rest of the bike already!
I started playing yesterday afternoon: (my new TIG welder and gas arrived)
Its a bloody big lump of metal… there is NO WAY to mount it longitudinal (as in the bike) because the crank case is fully in the way of where i’d need a diff to be.
The only option is to jam it in right at the front of the engine bay, sideways (Morgan style 
)
then attach a driveshaft to the output sprocket, back behind a cosworth front diff, then have a sprocket on the end of the shaft, and the diff input, connected with a chain…
Hmm… i hate the idea of having a chain in the system… any bright ideas???
The electrics will be interesting.
Im fairly set on the idea of completely ripping out the CRAP mini electrics and transplanting in the bike loom, with extensions for the indicators etc. i think the only complication will be the reverse light and fuel pump (which i’ll need to think about, as its an SPI car)
are you going to keep inner wings and round nose
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Hehe! im fairly happy with the 2 HUGE carbs… - the bike was cheap, ive nearly got my money back by breaking the rest of the bike already!
I started playing yesterday afternoon: (my new TIG welder and gas arrived)
Its a bloody big lump of metal… there is NO WAY to mount it longitudinal (as in the bike) because the crank case is fully in the way of where i’d need a diff to be.
The only option is to jam it in right at the front of the engine bay, sideways (Morgan style )
then attach a driveshaft to the output sprocket, back behind a cosworth front diff, then have a sprocket on the end of the shaft, and the diff input, connected with a chain…
Hmm… i hate the idea of having a chain in the system… any bright ideas???
Well as a person myself who tried many different bike engines in the front of a mini in every orientation possible you can now see it not as easy as it looks, fitting the smaller bike engines in is the easy bit, the really differcult bit is squeezing the diff unit and drive system in there as well.
Your idea with the driveshaft may not work as when you mount the engine you will see you will only have a few inches of space left and the diff is about 14"~15" long in total so the driveshafts will actually be closer to the front panel than the bulkhead, the chain will also be extremely short and the engine will sit far to high, unless I have misunderstood your description.
What I have seen along a similiar idea is have the engine with the sprocket facing forward then chain drive a convential rear diff that has been turned upside down (I think) to reverse the drive to correct direction, there use to be more detailed pictures of the diff area but you should be able to work it out
http://www.locostbui…d.php?tid=20350
Although the lancia is a small car the engine bay is a lot bigger than a mini, so I don’t see this working in a mini engine bay either, but it may give a few ideas to throw around
Cheers
David
r1 mini i agree totally i lost count of how many time i had to start fresh because of drive issues not trying to put your project down darkcat before you have started i really wish you the best of luck keep posting
Thanks guys - Interesting stuff David!
Miniblade - yes i want it to look as stock as possible, there may be a bit of bulkhead alteration for clearance but the front end should stay standard otherwise - keeping the inner wheel arches too but again may have to recess the passenger side for one of the heads.
David - I think you have mis-understood what i was trying to do - I started mocking the subframe and engine up yesterday (i bought a complete subframe/wishbones/hubs/shafts etc) the driveshafts come into the engine bay close to the back - there is no way to get the engine behind them, as there is about 2" of space!
Having measured up inside the front of the engine bay, I see that after the subframe i have about another 2" to work with after the front of the subframe itself. Having removed the front part of the subframe (which will be replaced later with a box-section custom part once i know what needs to go where) The clutch housing is a pain, i may need to cut out part of the front panel of the car to allow it to stick out a bit, but this should be hidden by the grill.
Height-wise its all looking ok (will need a custom air box) - i have the subframe mounted on a jig that i built to the standard ride-height. The engine’s sump is below this, by the same amount as the standard block, this looks like i will get a good inch space from the top of the block to the bonnet.
This leaves me about 4" to work with from the back of the engine to the centre-line of the driveshafts.
If I need more space to work with, I MAY be able to remove the “generator” (alternator) from the back of the engine, (although i haven’t tried this yet, so not sure if thats going to be possible) and drive an external alternator from something.
The diff (which im waiting on) should fit into this gap, I may need to make a hole in the bulkhead for the input shaft…
I’ll get some photos up tonight
ONWARDS!
I never heard of a diff being anywhere near that small, but it will be interesting to see some pictures
Cheers
David
Thats why i was looking at mounting the diff backwards - the cozzy one is quite small too.
Work in progress anyway…!
well its VERY tight:
engine needs to be offset to the left it seems…
