Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

My GF used to have a Mini Cooper, which I was often stuck with for the occasional weekend, as she always used to ‘borrow’ my M135 when she went up north to visit her sister...... getting a bike in the back was a proper PITA, even with my small bikes.

From memory tho, I think the seats were actually pretty flat when folded down.... not sure getting rid of them completely would have actually made that much more space. Could be totally wrong tho.

Actually.... now I think about it I think the fact all my bikes have an ISP never made things easy.

Yeah they're an odd car space wise. This will actually be my fourth first generation Mini but my first time buying a Cooper S. In my orchestra playing days I used to be able to fit a double bass, acoustic guitar and luggage for two weeks in the back of one and I actually used to be able to fit my Fort Track in the back of a classic Mini with the wheels off (should really just start buying bigger cars)...

My only issue is that I doubt I'll be able to fit my medium YT Capra in the back, I can't get it into the back of my other halfs R56 Cooper even with the seats down and wheels off (Might be able to squeeze it in with the passenger seat tilted forwards...)...

should really just start buying bigger cars

Buy an Audio TT the other hairdresser car

Anyone know what this part is called? Missing one of the rubber nut/glass retaining thingies from the pop out window of the berlingos sliding door.
Have covered it with a sticker to prevent water ingress for now.

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Lyfe goals.

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This looks mega on the smaller wheels with chunky tyres, I'm considering the same look for my car at the moment but scared I might need to substantially lower it.

Buy an Audio TT the other hairdresser car

2005 called and they'd like their joke back...

That NSX camper is the best thing ever though...

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Fat tyres always look great I think and they're actually practical for most of the shitty roads in Ireland and UK. I do suspect it'll need to be lowered a bit to look right but most of the "cool stance" cars are actually unusably low and the photos of them are always shot straight on from a low angle. A bit higher will still look pretty fine.

Had you considered a roof rack?

I probably will just get one but I'm not a fan of leaving my bike out on the roof for any extended period of time...

Try looking through here

https://www.vehicleclips.co.uk/search-by-model/citroen

Martin's car is very cool.

Started life as a Cooper, did the engine swap to a Cooper S.

Mini Torque forum can give you much more info than I can regurgitate here or remember tbh since it's been so long for me.

Don't buy cheap coilovers as they're just an easy way to make you hate your car. KW V3 will give you grip and compliance, if you just want to lower it and give it a slightly sportier feel while maintaining ride quality (or even improving it) then get Bilstein B8 with Eibach springs.

Don't reduce the pulley smaller than 13% without getting a new intercooler, as your IATs will go through the roof and give you major temp clipping.

If you want it to sound a bit louder, pay someone to remove one back box (one ball mod), a bit louder still then get an aftermarket exhaust, Borla is popular, many other brands too. If you want it louder still with more power then get an exhaust manifold, but get someone to weld the OEM cat onto the aftermarket exhaust manifold, it's much more resilient and free flowing than the aftermarket sports cats. John cooper Motorsport manifold is very nice (not JCW, jcm). If you want it asbo loud an OBX decat exhaust manifold and Borla Cooper exhaust (need to use Cooper rear bumper).

Back in the day the DaveF intake was the one, you have to drill a whole to get air from the scuttle but it sounds good and gets best performance as proven on the dyno.

If you want more power then you need smaller pulley still, 15, 17, or even 19%, in conjunction with bigger injectors, bigger intercooler, and a remap.

If you lower it, I recommend getting camber adjustable topmounts for the front and adjustable rear control arms for the rear to get a proper alignment done.

Regardless of anything else, get the front lower control arm bushes done as a minimum, and then as many more as you can afford.

Yours is a facelift so you have the benefit of the closer ratio gearbox and it should have a factory diff, but a wavetrac diff will make it much nicer.

Spicy pricing though.

Orranje sell lots of trick bits, I think they're the go to these days.

In Volvo news, it is definitely a cracked block, what led to the initial breakdown is unclear at the moment, but it looks like the actual crack might have been me putting cold water in the very hot block. Which is a bit of a kick in the balls.

Any way, it's getting a 2.4 bottom end from the V70 which will give it a larger bore (2.3 up to 2.4) and longer throw. The rods and pistons are good for 700ish ft/lbs so I'll be fine there, but it will get an hone, new rings, and potentially new thrust bearings depending on how much float on the crank.

I'll keep the same head but it'll have a bit of a skim. The head is already ported and polished, upgrade to a new better flowing but still OEM manifold off a different model (Japanifold), same turbo, maybe upgrade to COPS but not sure on that at the moment.

Extra capacity should give it a bump in power, more torque and less lag.

The larger the ET the closer to the centreline of the vehicle the hub face is.

Not really. The distance from the centreline of the vehicle to the hub face has nothing to do with ET. That's determined by the suspension and hub geometry. You can put any ET wheel on it you like, that number isn't going to change.

The ET is the distance in millimetres between the centreline of the wheel and the hub mounting face. In unusual circumstances it can be negative (where the mounting face is closer to the inside face of the wheel rather than the outside face) but in the vast majority of cases ET will be positive, as the brakes and hub will sit inside the wheel.

So an ET25 wheel plus a 10mm spacer should be equivalent to an ET35 wheel.

Definitely not.

A wheel with a 35mm ET has a 35mm gap between the centreline of the wheel and the mounting face. A wheel with a 25mm ET has a 25mm gap, so assuming everything else is equal the wheel will stick out 10mm further. To turn a 25mm ET wheel into a 35mm ET wheel, you'd have to machine material away from the mounting face of the wheel, so adding a spacer is the opposite of what you want to do.

A 10mm spacer would turn an ET-25 wheel into an ET-35 wheel (both with negative ET values) but as noted above negative ET values are unusual. I run ET-25 wheels on the back of my race car, and they were special order due to -ve ET wheels not being available (in the type I wanted at any rate) OTP.

All explained here.

the actual crack might have been me putting cold water in the very hot block

Wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

Which is a bit of a kick in the balls.

True, but...

Any way, it's getting a 2.4 bottom end from the V70

...get in. Good call.

Hah, I knew there was a 50/50 chance of me getting it the wrong way round.

Thinking about it my ET 50 wheels are going to be 15mm further out than my ET 65 ones, so I should have got it the right way round.

As Aroogah says, there’s no replacement for displacement so that all sounds positive. I’d go for CoP if the £ is not huge, it’s a big improvement from what I hear. Also a GT 3076 (or whatever the latest version of that is) would be good on the Japanifold (I tried to get one of those BITD but people only seemed to sell cracked ones).

Enjoying the Cooper information. I would have had one, but the rear legroom was unbelievably worse than an Abarth 500. So here's that car, with Orra intake recently fitted. Makes silly noises. A FMIC and remap should see 220bhp, after that it's a hybrid turbo for anything more, but should see 250bhp.

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Thanks for the heads up. Much appreciated.

The exhaust on it definitely isn't stock but I can't make out what it is from the photos. I have a suspicion it could be a JCW exhaust already on it though.

I was actually looking into the KW V1 coilovers as I figured the adjustable damping on the V3 would probably be overkill on a road car... I do want to go with the KWs though as the Inox coating would be worthwhile for longevity and I've read that the Bilstein monotube design can be a bit harsh compared to the twintube on KW due to the initial force required to start compression (something along those lines anyway)?

The main goal is to just keep it reasonably comfortable and reliable while having a bit of craic with it!

Love the look of that one Enkei RPF1s. Definitely a good choice of wheel.

Yes, sorry, I forgot KW V1 were twintube. They will be good, the Bilstein I recommended (B8) aren't coilovers but just non adjustable dampers for lowered springs.

You're right, a guy I know who works at multi matic explained twin Vs mono to me, on the road twin tube is better unless you can afford the very fancy monotubes with external reservoirs or Ohlins have their secret sauce DFV units. On the road the monotube can't keep up with the road surface, you sacrifice track performance for compliance with the twin tubes but that's what you need on the road. KW are excellent and Inox coating will make them durable.