Supercharged K20a2 Vtec - Race Spec by cptkirk

4 minute(s) of a 377 minute read

Really struggling with motivation at the minute, will be better once I get the engine sorted. Trailer will be ready to collect on the 26th Sep - Woo Hoo, then its get the car loaded and off to get the engine sorted, then off to get brakes bled out properly as their not right (got a mate with the new sucking out type bleeder, so gonna give that a go).

On the note of brakes, I have had to weld the bottom UJ to the hex shaft as the bolt that clamped the arrangement together kept getting in the way of the brake pedal, even to the point of getting caught under it at one point while trying to get it off a trailer. Far from ideal but sorted now.

Then I am getting the doors hung and the door workings put back together by the guys at Minis-R-Us (Twyford) which is about the closest mini specialist to me. One of the problems with buying doors with all the bits in a box, you have no idea where it all goes and what screw/bolt does what, so therefore I am going to save myself the headache and get someone that knows what they are doing to finish it off for me. If I had taken them apart I would have no quarms in putting them back together. I am now at a point where I just want it finished and this way it will save time.


Am I prepared for how fast it gonna be??? - Honestly, probably not.....but I have a healthy respect for it, not a nonchanlant view of it, I know that it will bite me in the ass if I dont give it the respect it deserves, it is also a beast that needs taming and to that end I intend to hone my driving skills to enable me to do so - even if that means getting specialist tuition that will then allow me to get the maximum from the car. It will handle very differently to pretty much everything else I have driven, other than my old 250cc kart, so I dont mind holding my hand up and saying that I might need to go back to school for this one.....

The geek in me recently made me do a spreadsheet comparing the mini against other cars available on the current market, I think it makes for interesting reading, if you like that sort of thing. Note only the values in red are greater than the mini.

Yer I understand about the torque multiplier (good link by the way), I just thought it a flipant comment, to dismiss power to weight ratio's because the cars dont have the same top speed, without backing up the statement. Therefore if we read the statement correctly we are to dismiss all power to weight comparisons because the cars dont have the same top speed, that would then render pretty much all power to weights useless as I am pretty sure most cars dont have the same top speed. You could have two vehicles with the same engine, gearbox, wheel/tyres and weighing the same but if one is shaped like a house brick then they are not going to get the same top speed but the power to weight is the same and there is no change to gearing. If the topspeed is lower it doesnt always mean that the gearing is different and doesnt mean more power, sorry but IMO it was a sweeping statement that didnt have much substance.

For everyones information I have changed my final drive (taller - exact ratio figures I have not been able to get out of Z's - Chris/Richard if your reading maybe you can shed some light on that) to allow me to use all 6 gears, plus the profile of the tyres I am using (205/60 R13) are bigger than the regular 45's used on these cars so if anything it is higher geared than a civic, with the torque to pull it to a yet unknown top speed, I think aerodymanics (lack of) will come into play before I can reach the redline in top gear.

The power to weight ratio debate will rage long and hard and has done on many other forums, rather than make my build diary into one of them, I think we can leave it there.