It's been brought up before http://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic ... e+mini+box and now I'm foolish enough to try it myself.
This is what the guys in England have done so far http://www.minicooper.org.uk/ and http://www.16vminiclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9394 and this is what I've done:


If you look at their photos you'll see that they've cut about 2-3 inches off the top of their box and of course I only noticed that when I put mine together
So a couple of Q's. What's easier/better, cut the box down with the angle grinder or find a machine shop that can machine it down perfectly level and to the exact height? Obviously I'll need to weld a new plate onto the mini box so the Suzi engine has something to bolt on to so I figured their would be some distortion . My idea is to cut the box down, weld on the plate then machine it to level.
What do yous think?

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

Yes, cut, weld machine in that order.

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"Not Speeding Officer..........Qualifying"

Alright, I need to know what type/grade of alloy is used in the mini gear box so I can get the right type of alloy plate to weld onto the box.

Also thanks to a local club member I now have the spare box and diff I need to start cutting it down so the suzi crank lines up with the mini flywheel

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

Its cast isnt it Ken?

Which may mean you may have to get it tested to find out its constituents.

For the 'sandwich plate', one would guess that you need an alloy that machines well, but also has a high corrosive resistance. This would lend itself to 6262 in probably a T6 hardness as it will under a fair bit of stress.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Tricky

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"Not Speeding Officer..........Qualifying"

Talked to a machinist briefly yesterday and he seemed rather confident that he can do it so I'll wait and see and hope .

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

Ken

you really need to talk to Warwick Agustin who fitted a toyota twin cam to a mini mini box 15 years ago, he has been racing it for many years and he will tell you of the troubles you can expect, his is chain drive to the mini gearbox and that itself causes problems

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Roundies and Clubbies(except vans) are both ugly that is why I have Midas and a van
1293 Mini Midas Bronze,1275 Clubman van

Warwick did it around 1990-91. I know, I was watching it come together in his workshop

He did not cut down the gearbox, as he was building to supermini rules which said that you had to retain the mini gearbox entirely. His solution involved cutting the flywheel housing in half and welding in some plate to raise the flywheel housing to the Toyota crank centreline. The alignment for the oil seals was a bit of a bitch. He also welded the crank tail on rather than bolting it on. This was a major source of problems with it cracking until he solved it. The gearbox casing was extended lengthwise with some plate welded on as the Toyota block is longer.

He used the chain to drive the gearbox, as the Toyota engine rotates same as a mini engine but he wanted something to take the power to the input of the gearbox without having to cut a custom idler gear and line up its centreline. Chains are a lot more forgiving of misalignment than gears. The problems in this area were because he was welding the chain drive sprocket to the idler gear and input gear. If you had them machined up from scratch I doubt you will have the same problems. The gear set is a straight cut from Harrop I think.

Now his biggest problem is breaking driveshafts.

A major thing to be worried about is the sharing of the gearbox and engine oil. Why not separate the oil systems if you are doing all that fabricating anyway?

good luck
michael

<edit> got my rotations mixed up

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the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates

Like the links I'm planing to use a mini flywheel, clutch and all that. I will be getting a crank end adaptor machined that will bolt to the standard holes in the suzi crank so hopefully it will be strong enough in the bolting section, that's the weakest spot I can think of. I haven't thought about separating the oil systems...I was just going to treat it like a std mini engine and run 30 or 40 weight oil and change it just as regular as a mini .
Why do you think the oils should be separate

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

Can put you in contact with Warrick if you need to. He's my Brother in Law's uncle.

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But he's thriving and striving and hugging the turns.

Good on you for having a crack, but i must ask why?

One of the biggest advantages of doing an engine transplant means a better gearbox (IMO). I don't know what comes with the swift (nor do i know how robust the swift one is), but the box that comes with the 4EFTE will be staying with mine... 5 speed box, seperate fluids, better diff (especially when you upgrade to a TRD one)...

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Answer the Question....
BUT always Question the Answer

Warwick has a filter in line on the pickup side before the pump,as well as the normal filter system for the tojo engine, he did about 16 tears without really touching it and only freshened the motor last year after a blown head gasket, it got a bit hot

toyota engine spims same direction as A series, very few engines spin the other way, couple of honda;s and a couple of Kerean engines is about it

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Roundies and Clubbies(except vans) are both ugly that is why I have Midas and a van
1293 Mini Midas Bronze,1275 Clubman van

Amos the reason why is because I don't need to build a modified subframe, and I like working through the mini gears . IMO it's the most authentic engine conversion around as it's only the engine being swapped for a more powerful, lighter and better developed engine. As far as I can see I might have to tinker with the radiator engine mount and fab up a couple of engine stays to suit the new engine but that's it.
Think of it as the step between a twincam head conversion and an entire running gear conversion
By all accounts the swift gear box is better but this will still retain some of the mini character.

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

Back in 1974 when I was involved in grafting a Ford BDA eng onto a mini box we make a new crankshaft and a flywheel housing. To allow for the crank/gearbox shaft center dist. difference we fitted a bigger idler gear. The eng was slanted to the box to reduce height.

After we got it going, it just disintergrated gearboxes. We found out the the poms were drysumping their engines and once we did this and ran 80/90 gear oil in the boxes with brg mods they held together. The diff was a "low hydrogen welding rod" type. A pig of a thing to drive around corners, just went in straight line. When the rear was set with toe out and the back stepped out it went around corners beautifully.

If you are going to make adapter plate for box then it's dead easy to drysump. The ones I have played with require .7mm off box top and shape a .7mm alumin plate between eng/box. The sump seals on std front brg and the rear is machined the same. The rear seal is fitted into brg/block and runs on crank next to gear shoulder.

Looks like you have a very interesting project going there. Keep us up to date

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Yep, got my rotations mixed up, and reading Dsvid's post reminded my why he used the chain - see edit above.

I went to the first few events that Warwick had it going at. 1st one at Amaroo he cracked the crank tail off the crank, but solved that one for the next meeting. Next was at Oran Park where he monstered the rear end of a Chev 6L Commodore sports sedan all day. He only had problems keeping up with him down the straight. Mind you this was with a stock as a rock 4AGE. He was tempted to upgrade the cams and compression to Group A specs, don't know if he ever did. One time at a MRA event at Wakefield he has broken a driveshaft, and I think it had happened before that as well. Not bad for at least 16 years as you say feral...

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the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates

Have you considered using the mini casing with a gear cluster/diff out of another car. The work invloved may be less.
As for chain drives, the high velocity chains made today are very good. I think that the austin 1800 autos had chain drive
Another set-up to look at is to set the eng flywheel /clutch up as std. Then make a shaft from the clutch with a drive to the gearbox in-put shaft. There was a early model Saab the had this type of set-up

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Research is the difference between speculation and investment. Anyone who copys some one else will always be second
www.minisprintgt.com