Robs Leyland Mini S

Hello all, my name is rob, I live in Melbourne Australia.  I’ve been thinking of turboing my mini for a while now and I thought I better get my arse into gear and start to turbo my car. I’m doing this on a budget because I’m a tight arse. So I will be begging, borrowing and using friend’s machine shop as much as I can ;-) and most of this stuff I have sourced from wreckers yards, off friends and good old dodgy eBay,
It’s a 1974 Leyland clubman S. The green I think is a Leyland P76 colour.  I want to keep the car kind of standard looking. I’ve had the car for over 10 years now, it was my first car and I can’t get rid of it. I know that’s sad but hey,
It’s got a 1098 motor in it stock insides just a minispares manifold and a set of extractors, rod change box, it’s a dry setup at the moment but I do have wet sub-frames to go into it, I have to do some panel work on the car rust around the rear windows and front A panel, front floors are good but I might redo the boot.  The parts I have collected for my turbo conversion so far are
T2 turbo out of a Nissan EXA, flanges for the manifold and turbo, a Nissan 180sx intercooler, a Nissan N14 pulsar throttle body, Suzuki swift alternator nice and small, 2x bosch fuel injectors out of a Ford BA XR6 turbo falcon they flow about 440cc ea injector, a BA Falcon fuel rail, I might try and use and adapt , an bosch blow off valve from a Saab 93,  slow getting there with parts, I might put a carb on it first until I sort out the fuel injection,
I still need to get a fuel pump, ecu etc, I will be making my own exhaust manifold, return lines to the tank, piping for the intercooler.
I still need heaps of stuff so all the help I can get will be great,
I want the car to be a good road cruiser not a mental track car; I’m looking for around 90hp from it..
Here some pics below.

Thanks rob.


my mini when i was driving it only took it off the road at the start of 2013 to do some panel work, and turbo


stripping the car of most its parts and starting on some of the A panels but mostly the turbo


dummying in the intercooler have removed the fresh air heater intake pipe to make the cooler sit closer to the headlight on the drivers side


making my manifold steam pipe and flanges i got from ben on here thanks for that, still in the process of making a dump pipe,
the manifold is all tig together with a purge gas inside,


the T2 yeah for me, ripped it off at the wreckers in 40mins because they were going to crush the car after i was finished, the guy was there with the forklift and all


minispares manifold, nissan n14 pulsar throttle body spacer plate i might use


i will have to port the manifold to suit or make up a spacer with a taper in it to match the throttle body to manifold face.


turbo on manifold and in the car just checking everything fitted after welding its a good feeling know that it fits all the hard work paid off, well so far,


drilling out the injector bosses


injector bosses showing from the rear, will grind the bosses down to match the inside of the throttle body also redrilled the throttle body to suit the SU bolt pattern


what the injection will look like, just have to weld the ends on the rail and make brackets to hold down the injectors, also these are std ford falcon injectors im using to dummy everying with

wow   heaps impressed with that!

your clearance around the turbo looks better than i ever got and the injection setup is looking awsome.

Have you thought about what computer you are going to use? I have been thinking about possible injection for mine one day and was think about using microsquirt

http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/microsquirt-engine-management-system-839-wiring-harness-p-509.html?osCsid=756fb7b4337b4228be9d6e477584e168

Nice and little and seems to be up to the task? Price seems resonable too.

keep the updates coming:)  

that looks good have to look into more, i was going to use megasquirt II v.3 but that seems to be the same but smaller,
i hopeful will be using LS1 coils if i can get them cheap enough, if not a nice and small coil pack with std lead ends.
im slowly getting there, i will make up some alloy brackets for the intercooler at work over the next week, i build boats for a living so we have heaps of alloy scrap lying around.
where is the best palce to get the silicon pipes from for the intercooler piping. also
still looking at trigger wheels i dont know what to do, make my own or buy one already done,

blown away dude! that looks brutal!

what made you decide "bugger it, gonna be Fuel Injected"? that power figure is well achievable with those specs... glad there is some movement on this page!  

i want something a bit different, also a bit easier to tune dont have to buy needles etc, also i like the challange of something new, ive read alot on turbominis fourm in the uk, but they knock fuel injection alot, i just thought if im going to turbo my car i might as well do efi at the same time it makes things more fun,

started to make the fuel rail up, started to weld the injector bosses in last night, the two green injectors are bosch 440cc ones,
should flow enough for what i want

you doing all the welding? doing a great job.

A friend of mine has a 1293 running a t2 at 12psi boost . He is using 2x 440cc i believe they were maxed out at around 115hp at the wheels so im guessing around 150-160 crank hp.

keep the updates coming loving your work  

yeah doing all the welding, tig and mig if i need, also all the fab work as well, we have a bender pipe benders at work, i want to run around 10 pounds of boost, not massive, i would like to see how much it makes,

norm74 wrote:yeah doing all the welding, tig and mig if i need, also all the fab work as well, we have a bender pipe benders at work, i want to run around 10 pounds of boost, not massive, i would like to see how much it makes,

Sweet , its more enjoyable doing it all yourself anyway and it least you know how it all works then.

10psi with a good cam should see about 100hp at the wheels 140hp crank in the 1100  

Quick update, ive bought some 90degree and 45 degree elbows in stainless for the intercooler piping, and getting some stainlesss pipe soon it all going to be in 2" (50mm).  ive welded to the injector bosses into the throttle body, it turned out ok but im not happy with the result, so i will be heading back to the wreckers and getting another throttle body and making up a spacer plate with injector holes in it instead. so its so far so good. i know i was bound to have something not work out right, but thats what happens when you do these things.

shame about te right side intercooler outlet, a 300zx standard intercooler has one straight outlet.

Or because you can weld aluminium, unpick the plastic end tanks and fold up some aluminium ones that will suit what you want.

A modded 300zx one i did for peter on this forum >

thats what i was thinking. was it hard to unpick the intercooler. i most likely do that as i can setup the pipes where i want them.

how did you go fitting an air filter, i know you used a sock style one in the photos you sent me. it just seem really close to the timing cover,

Yeah that was a uni-filter 60mm foam filter, i got it from a motorbike shop. It was close but i never had any problems even though it was very close to manifold. I now have it up near the wiper motor.

Intercooler was easy as to unpick , if you wanted could just do the one end .

thanks heaps i need to move the outlet pipe that faces the passenger side as it sit in the wrong postion.
i'll get on to that straight away.

just an update with my intercooler i unpicked the end tanks and made some new ones up at work, just have to put the pipe into the tank to complete it, and then weld it all together, i'll tig it all up. was also able to get about 2.3m of stainless steel pipe 1.6mm wall thickness and 2" (50mm) diameter thats polished for the intercooler piping, paid beer for that   getting there, also got a heap of body panels there my xmas present     so hopefully over xmas i will be able to get work done.

looks good , easy to do and a cheap custom intercooler.

Definatly making good progress , i think your the only one on this forum at the moment  

i'll stick at it, we have to convince some more people to come over here   

ive finished off welding out my intercooler   has nice pretty welds    now just need to fit it in place and make the brackets to suit

welding is heaps good !!, plumbing should be a fair bit neater now.

How are you doing the brackets ? i assume the lugs are for that

yeah im going to drill and tap the lugs and cut them down.
i have removed the fresh air heater pipe and made the intercooler sit nice and close to the headlight panel, im making up brackets that will bolt to the front of the intercooler like the factory one did. i will make the wrap around the intercooler so i can bolt them up to the headlight panel and the centre grill panel like the red arrows shows (see pic below),  it will all be rubber mounted as you need it to flex a little bit. it will take a while to get right as i would like a neat as fit possible. im thinking of finding another fresh air heater pipe, and cutting it down and putting it back into place to retain that factory look about the car.

norm74 wrote:yeah im going to drill and tap the lugs and cut them down.
i have removed the fresh air heater pipe and made the intercooler sit nice and close to the headlight panel, im making up brackets that will bolt to the front of the intercooler like the factory one did. i will make the wrap around the intercooler so i can bolt them up to the headlight panel and the centre grill panel like the red arrows shows (see pic below),  it will all be rubber mounted as you need it to flex a little bit. it will take a while to get right as i would like a neat as fit possible. im thinking of finding another fresh air heater pipe, and cutting it down and putting it back into place to retain that factory look about the car.

Do you need it to be rubber mounted? The hoses will be rubber at each end although fairly stif . I reckon should be alright solid mounted .

Just watch your bonnet catch i think mine rubs the top of the intercoler.

I was just thinking on the same lines as the factory. I have also cut the bottom panel to drop the intercooler a bit to clear the bonnet catch. Not much only a a few mm. I've dummy it to get the position right. I hope it all goes well. Did you use a MPI fuel tank or just a std with external pump.

norm74 wrote:I was just thinking on the same lines as the factory. I have also cut the bottom panel to drop the intercooler a bit to clear the bonnet catch. Not much only a a few   mm. I've dummy it to get the position right. I hope it all goes well. Did you use a MPI fuel tank or just a std with external pump.

Yeah fair enough they must have done for a reason.

I use an injection tank not sure mpi or spi although i have heard pump pressure is diferent . I will have to check mine and see.

Easy to install and pump is super quiet  

cool i have to find a MPI tank somewhere, i was thinking of gutting an SU electric pump but by the time i find an old one and gut and put in a new pump and make different lines up etc, it will be easier and look more factory if i use an MPI tank. have you heard of anyone using twin tanks on and MPI setup

I havent heard of anyone but i dont see why not , i was more than happy with the range from the 34L injection tank though.

when cruising i get around 8-9L per 100km so around 400km range.