Final preparations are complete for the debut of our Mini Cooper S race car. The final stickers and badges have been fitted and we’ve made some improvements to the cooling since testing the other week. The car spent some time on the dyno and with modifications to the carburettors, profiling of needles and some ignition advance we’ve found 10.5bhp and increased the power band by nearly 800rpm.
A smart little Mk2 Morris Mini with a 1275cc engine and twin HS4 carburettors. The engine was running poorly due to a number of factors. We set the points gap and set the ignition timing. Once the twin SU carburettors were balanced we setup the idle then gave it a power run. A change of needles was required to get the fueling right but it runs an awful lot better now.
Today we had the company of Nick Naismith and his son Harry. Aside from a cup of tea they popped in for some rolling road time. Nick’s Aston Martin DB4 race car has recently had an engine rebuild and went on for a setup prior to an upcoming race. The Mk1 Austin Cooper belongs to Nick’s son Harry and went on for a general tune up.
Malcolm Gerrish from Crosthwaite & Gardiner pops in to get his Mk1 Mini tuned on the rolling road.
Motoring journalist John Simister came in for a rolling road tune on his Shorrock supercharged 1959 850cc Mini. The well known and very early mini has just had its supercharger rebuilt and required setting up. The single SU carburettor required some needle profiling to get it just right and in the end produced an impressive 70bhp (flywheel approximation). That’s 1275 territory from a little 850.
