Hi all
I'm looking at putting a starlet or Suzuki motor in my 74 clubman
I would like to talk to someone who has experience at doing this
Particularly the pit falls and traps

The biggest pitfalls and traps don't come from the the build, they come from lack of planning and research before starting - so it's good you've asked the question now.

Here's what I think would be the big 3 to work through before you even work out what engine you want:

Cost: engine conversion projects are not a cheap venture. I think a budget build should allow in the vicinity of $20-25,000 to get you from no car to registered car. I think most would run closer to the higher end and above of that. I know lots of people get into these thinking that their $300 toyota engine is cheap and it'll be installed in the car with an afternoons work but it's just not that simple. It's more common to see projects for sale on ebay / gumtree / etc than finished cars because the costs get out of hand.

Mechanical knowledge: not necessarily the best venture for someone with little to no mechanical knowledge or know how. This can all be learned as you go, and things can certainly be done by others at cost as you go, but even once the engine is in the car there are countless little custom parts that need to be made or sorted to get to finished car. I'd suggest welding is a good skill to have apart from a solid ability to dismantle / reassemble things.

Project Planning - know what you want to achieve clearly. if you're Ricky Bobby and just 'wanna go fast' then there are better cars out there to suit your desires, but if you want to spend 5 years building a car and learn or work on skills as you go then it's the thig for you. You need to know what you want to build and get an engineer on your side from the outset. Again, some project cars that come up for sale are because the owners can't find engineers or didnt know what was involved. We aren't Britan or America where they can build and deathtrap they want and register it - we have design rules to abide by.

Glen44 - while waiting for other responses I suggest you use the search function using terms such as starlet, Suzuki, conversion, etc. as there will be a lot of historical posts on this topic. Search is in the toolbar at the top of the page.

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ex-NSW Police 1970 MK II Cooper S
VMCI #43

There is a section on the Ausmini forum with build threads and lots of questions:
viewforum.php?f=23

There is also 16V mini club and theminiforum, although Australia has different regulations compared to the UK. They have plenty of ideas and inspiration though.
http://www.16vminiclub.com/
http://www.theminiforum.co.uk/forums/fo ... nversions/

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