Josh's Turbo 1098cc

Hello, this is my 73 club man its my first car i have since bought and sold a bunch but the mini stands out in the crowed so ill never sell it!



My pop showed me that way regarding the ground up rebuild he he did the tricky stuff and i did the easy stuff a grate learning curve!
Engine was a std rebuild with only some extractors ,a slight touch up on the head, a nice street cam and the HS4 carb in the way of performance parts perfect for a new Lerner drive but now im 4 years older its time for a power unit  






the body was straight and basically rust free a spot each side the front door and thats about it
but since the re spray i have found that the seam covers do come off and should have been taken off!
i now have dirty rust bubbles on all the seams (4 years later) due to the paint stripper getting under them and well thats a lesson lent the hard way!!  
also enamel paint is CRAP! ill be doing it in 2K next time might not be to far down the track now..

so where am i at now in terms of the engine and drive line/suspension
i have some MS 4 piston alu calipers on 8.4" vented rotors they pull up really good! i fried the drums twice from heat soak
sc cr + sc dropps box with x pin diff 2.95 FD
1098cc based build in progress
lightened std internals, GR 60 pistons, nice light weight flywheel assembly, grey plate, oil feed thrust, oil under crown cooling jets, re directed oil pressure relief return to drops, windage tray, center pick up, 202 head with bronze guides, ported/tidied up, slightly larger valves, custom ex manifold, hif44, possibly custom hif44 manifold, front mount rad, coolant to air inter cooler, MS3X, high voltage coil per plug
all in all im looking for 170+ bananas

i have a build log on turbominis uk but this is also a good place to show it and get advice!


equal length long slightly small runners for high gas speed and low end torque they are heat paint coated (DIY ceramic) and wrapped to keep the heat in  

front rad is the inter cooler coolant one and back in engine rad will be ducting and fans for each on temp senders n so on..



the turbo (T3 for now) will be turned  to have the boost out let pass straight in front of the rocker box

ground out bearing retainer in the box for 2.95 diff

Nice progress Josh! I was following your thread on turbominis. It looks good!

Looking great , This is your first build? good on you for having a go at everything , not an easy task and can quickly become overwhelming.

What do you do for a living , your engineering side of things looks pretty good .

thanks guys
yeah my first engine was std excepts a very mild cam.. pop showed me and did most of that build but its since suffered a main gearbox bearing failure that made the whole engine suffer oil pump journal bearings the lot so the end result was low oil pressure and low compression also due to revving the poor 1098cc the valve guides badly worn and the crank 3/4 cracked in two!
anyway this is my second build and a big step as its hopefully going to be a nice unit! at 60 over, worked bottom end, at this stage my own head work, re ferbed T3 and hif44 to get me groin then possibly a modern hybrid turbo and defiantly efi
im intending this one to be a healthy banan tree and produce lots of fruit along with loads of foot pounds! so will be turning the boost up to something like 22-30psi
fabrication wise (err everything) ive got a lot to learn i tent to make things up as i go and go from there haha for the most part it works out ok !
im an electrician by trade   

looking forward to getting back behind the wheel of my mini!

your build looks good, have been following on turbo minis,

are you in victoria, your info on turbominis states brisbane.

your fab work is getting better each time you do something its great, keep up the good work.

well, been a while since ive posted here
slow going all be we are moveing in the right direction ha somewhat..

mostly sorted on the electrical side of thing ecu, IC pump, fan so on
gear box is back apart as it was buging me that the 2nd 3rd gear neadle bearing didnt quite feel right compared to 1st gear and what id expect it to be
gears and shaft are waiting tl be mesured for taper/size so wateing to hear back on that

short block is now sorted ready for final build had some small hick ups but sorted now

cam sensor need th be taped when it arives in the post holes are drilled and ready to go

trying to find a virgin head    as i think ill see beter resolts if the pro dose it rather than my effort haha

fuel system is ready to go new lines reg pump bla de bla

waste gate fitted to ex mani over kill but hey..

had my first attemt at a carb heat sheild sort of happy ish probaly change it some what

basicly looking at sorting the box short block head as a whole and getting that in then the smaller bits to finish

seems this has been going for sooooo long there is more and more rust showing its face evry time i look   but with out a sutible place to sort it propaly it will have to wait or is that get worse..

External wastegate is the go if you are contemplating big boost , internal gates can be troublesome up around 20 psi.

I wouldn't even know where to start looking for a virgin small bore cylinder head , I was lucky enough to find a original 12g295 in excellent condition for my build.

How's your inlet manifold coming along?

yeah id herd of boost creep up higher didn't want that also it made more room for better bends/angles for the manifold its a Tial MV-S/R 38mm haha the system is 50mm looks funny that all

intake mani well ive drooped that for now at that point where i just want it running again!

with all this stuff under the hood its blody tight makes me want to hop the front off but its to late for that now itld look weird all bunched up with loads of room where the guards use to be

well it runs



its now in the van as that mini has rego the clubby ran out in the process of doing some heads then it will be taken from the van and into its propa place in the clubby

while the van has its engine out im going to give it a look over and a new head probably sell the van or de register it 3 cars is to much in the wallet to have rego and insurance

im happy with how the close ratio gears and tall 2.9 final drive on 13" wheels is to be honest you have to slip the clutch a bit but i dont think its that bad
first gear is long! 75Kph if i rev to 6000 RPM but because the other gears are close once moveing it moves and im not using the turbo kit yet as im "running it in"

van only has the std 1" twin box quite peace of crap and std 1.25" carb on the cast iron manifold so its well choked down needless to say once its all finished propa and in the clubby im sure ill be happy with it

this is all encouragement to get cracking and get it fully finished!

turbo this.. wrote:well it runs

im happy with how the close ratio gears and tall 2.9 final drive on 13" wheels is  to be honest you have to slip the clutch a bit but i dont think its that bad
first gear is long! 75Kph if i rev to 6000 RPM but because the other gears are close once moveing it moves and im not using the turbo kit yet as im "running it in"

this is all encouragement to get cracking and get it fully finished!

Nice work !!! I didnt relise you were so close.

2.9 is woah , I rekon i can just get 75km/h in 2nd with my 3.44 and standard box. Just need to hurry up and get some boost in it !!!

Ive got one bog stock 202 head ready to pick up from the shop on Monday witch has been acid tanked, bead blasted, magna fluxed, pressure tested and checked for flatness
so now that i know its a solid head ill put everything ive read about doing a good head into action ill report back with the before and after pics and if i can get the shitty valve seats to hold fluid ill take some cc readings for port size and chamber for reference as im not wanting to enlarge the ports just give em a tickle the work is around the seat and chamber that im doing the stock port flows something like 130 cfm and the stock valve flow like half that so why mess with the port when thats not where the choke area is..

anyways have it running really makes me want to finish it cash is a bit tight atm work is a bit slow blody sux

yeah the first time i started to let the clutch out i was like yep thats a tall first gear but not to bad i went up the street and was like    giddy up sound of straight gears and the thing pulling away was so good then i relysed i was doing like 35-40 kph in first gear at 3k rpm lol i cant wait for the boost   

it will be a bumpy ride tho when i switch to the rebuild HIF44 carb and mappable ignition sort of why i waned to prove the engine first in the van

well dont have to cash to spend on the head for a pro so had also wanted to build me a flow bench for good work and to see if im improving or just making it worse so DIY it is

started before xmas and had to leave it but here are few pics heads only scratched in lots to do lots ports, bowls, seats, chambers
you may see the brass tubes ive done this is to try get the large diameter from the carb/manifold blended down to the port, bowl, seat gradually shrinking the diameter
the push rods are the main tight spot besides the guide and seat so if i can bring it to a better average rather than big small big small i should see gains from big slowly getting smaller changes in dia and turns are what cause turblant air and losses so thats what im working on altho most of the work and trick stuff is from the guide to the chamber rather than the high flowing port

course texture in the manifold and will be same in head to help fuel stay mixed didnt really open it up just blending and making inprovements on corners ect

looking good , I think the biggest problems with the heads is around the valve guides. What do you have left to do after the head?

after the head is done not to much ive been trying to complete some thing small each day after work and some of the bigger jobs on the weekends so over it taking this long to do its like 3 years now just want to get boosting already

blot head on set valve timing by degrease not the normal feeler gauge method i care more about getting the valve off/on the seat at the correct crank angles
weld a breather pipe into rocker cover and put it on
bolt headers, turbo, down pipe and wide band sensors up connect oil feed line and clamp oil drain on
bolt intake manifold and crab on clamp boost lines on connect fuel line and pressure reference to regulator
tig a 1" tube on near the carb and before the turbo for the BOV to re circulate connect its line, fuel reg and the MS3X vacuum lines up to respective places
weld the air box up its going to fit under the wheel arch takes two flat elements few baffles and drain holes to reduce the chance of water wetting the paper elements
build diy kit or buy spark plug leads
test MS3X fan temp presser senders ing crank cam senders fuel pump cheek all that works
fill the coolant of both engine and charge cooler rads
45 liters of E85 in the tanks and set fuel pressure to carb
flick the key hope it runs with the freshly rebuilt carb thats not set up yet so see how that goes
check AFR and get the file out! E85 requires much more fuel so not sure how ill go with the fueling im sure its not going to be easy i may need to borrow your su needed position thing idea to plot it against AFR , load, RPM, boost
bleed air from coolant and ic should be easy ive made swirl chambers so long as the air can be pushed around it will rise to the filler no prob
check for leaks around the turbo install the heat blanket on the turbo

not that much but im sure it will take months like the rest has haha but for now my focus is the cylinder head then i can do the little things

i dont Evan know if the carb or turbo are any good ive rebuilt both of them but thats not a guarantee the turbo could blow oil for all i know

all rite well we have had the resused haead gasket fail and have since day one had an isue with the cam sender giveing two signals this casued the ecu to have problems that made it hard to start due the the ecu cuting/not giveing spark/fuel so out came the engine

the rings failed to seat witch sux so had the bores dusted (honed) new set of rings and ill try the hard run in aproch this time not the soft aproch i was soft on it not loading it or reving it last time so this time im gonna give it like i will anyother time it will be first start up to temp and 20 psi 0-100-0 runs hard full power runs and hard down shifts then hard on the pedal again and repeat the hard run in aproch this time the soft did not work for me so hard it is this is probaly ok as the cam is bedded in an the bottom end as well so this time round with no parts change except a dusting on the bores and new rings it makes sence to get up it from the get go after all its cylender pressure that seals rings not the tension on them

my leak down test confirmed it 3-4 cylinders blown on the gasket no damage to the block head and i had the new head ready to go on so nl big deal there

the cam sender is ti the best i can understand the alin cap head bolt sending the two high parts as two signals vs a std type bolt where thers only one mass not a peak vally peek so to speek so my sunition is to tig the cap head up and make it a solid mass i dont have space to trun a std hex type bold so its gota be an alin head bolt ill cut a slot in the end and thread in in by hand then tigheten by flat blade screw driver then ill spread the leags lige a split pin to lock it in

might splash some cash and get a ATB diff center and go back to the 3.44 fd ratio the 2.95 is grate once moveing like its awsome your coasting at about 2500 rpm and floor it boost spikes and it hooks n goes like stink gets wobly to say the least near 170 or so i need to sort the suspension but i do love the 2.95 for the free way runs is a 3rd or 4th gear and stomp it the boost just pulls and your hookin on the other hand take of from the lights is well crap its slip at 1200-1400 rpm and ease the clutch out till you doing like 15kph then start pulling onto boost then really start pulling to 70 kmh shift sort of thing its getting going that sux once your at about 2krpm its ok you can boot it and build booost fast to lunch then the ret of the gears are close and its flying

anyways ive gota time the cam and cleean the box decide on fd then it will be back in the car and boosting agian

will post back with pics and more updates hope fully have it regstred and not have to do the sneaky to drive it

well its been a while since ive visited so the latest news









so a while ago about a month i took the mini for a blast to get some motvation to finish the project and the head gasket i reused let go between 3-4 i knew this would hapen sooner or later the stock and twisted head with second hand gasket really neer stood a chance but at the time it was ok lets just get it running the new head will be done soon ill just swop it over anyway that never hapend

so it was time to actual finish that head





ive not taken any up to date pic but the heads completely done and torqued n timed the box needs cleaning and reassembling then its back in the car and back boostin

however ive got a 6-8 week set back as ive busted my knee real good so stuck doing stuff all

really keen to get it back boostin especially with the fresh modified head chamber opened out to 29cc and tial gate springs changed for 22 pound it should be quite the hand full

waiting for someone to buy the 4x4 so i can get a nice ATB diff center and nice soft semi slicks

Hey Josh,

Love your updates keep them coming.

Are you running ARP headstuds? , and what boost were you running when the head gasket failed?.

I found with my engine @ 10psi the head gaskets were not lasting long so I replaced with ARP studs. This helped a bit but then again 12psi boost was blowing the head gasket. I was blowing between the water gallery on the cylinder 1 & 4. This was using a ACL monotorque gasket.

I went and spoke with Graham Russell about the issue and he helped me with a 11 stud small bore conversion. Since doing the 11 stud conversion I still used ARP bolts and ACL gasket and had no head gasket issues with up to 15psi boost (yet to go further).

Here is the link to his article >>
http://russellengineering.com.au/11-studbolt-small-bore-head/

well its been a long time since ive browsed over here

so the reason for the HG failure was that it was a re used one.. but yes ARP head studs also ARP for the bottom end both main caps and big ends its just nice to know that a simple bolt is now not likely to window the block and throw a bunch of good parts in the bin mind you that's not to say it cant happen..

ive kind of just dumped the mini stuff for a while due to building a home so yeah toys go on hold or at least the parts that cost any real money.. but that said im still able to play with things like getting the fuel pump in the tank like a modern car altho even that is on hold as i broke the lathe like a dope! so yeah managed to get the part sent out for free so thats a win once ive got that back together ill finish the flanges for the tank and start on the pump hangger and cross my fingers the sealant works with E85.. if not ill have to find a compatible o ring or some kind of seal that can keep the fuel in

decided to jump over to port injection also as trying to get the carb right seemed inpossible for me and also a new turbo to fit the engine better.. old one was starting to build around 3200 and all in by like 4000 witch didnt leave a lot before shifting to stay under 5500.. hopefully the new one should come online around 2000-2500

ether way ive kinda lost interest in the mini due to the bike and poking a V8 into the old hilux