Last winter at the SCCA Motorsports Expo in Charlotte, I was speaking with a Wilwood brake engineer about my struggle managing temperature gain with MINI Gen 1 JCW brakes. I told him I use the car mostly for track instruction and the instructor runs are generally 25-30 minutes in duration, though some weekends I might …
The clutch on the AC compressor died the other weekend at the track and since the AC was anemic at best, we decided just to delete it, saving almost 25 lbs of weight, mostly ahead of the front axle. Fortunately, MINI makes a deflection pulley (11287570810) for just such a purpose — so you can …
One of the weakest links in the MINI suspension design is the front strut mounting point. The strut towers take a beating and the sheet metal can easily deform, especially with stock strut mounts. You get a little better protection with adjustable camber plates and their thick, flat mounting plate design. But to really make …
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MINI has an amazingly complex antenna system called the diversity antenna. It includes a signal amplifier; logic board to select from two antenna arrays; and pounds of wiring. What makes it amazing is that it sucks. It’s another example of unnecessary complexity that keeps creeping into automotive design. In this post we aren’t ready to …
You may remember this video from my last track weekend. Well, we decided it was finally time to put some competition seats in the GeorgeCo MINI. Since this was our first time trying to put this combination of parts together, we thought we’d document the progress to save you some of our headaches. Safety is …
We managed to get the first five pre-production diverters completed this weekend. Three went out to our beta testers; one is on the test-mule; and the other one we just don’t talk about. The photo at the top of the post is the one on the GeorgeCo MINI. Here are the three beta units before …
Catching up on some missed posts. Had another fun weekend instructing on the extended Jefferson Circuit. Here’s a lap for those who aren’t familiar with it. And if you’re planning to drive it for the first time, here’s a couple of narrated laps. I was testing out a new camera we sell in the store, …
Modern emissions control systems use engine vacuum to suck oil vapor out of the crank-case and into the intake path of your engine. If you have a turbo or super-charged car, this may be gumming up your intercooler, reducing its efficiency. Luckily for you an oil catch can may help and it is a fairly …
I finally got a couple of days this past week where the temperature in the garage was above 45 degrees so I started to prep the MINI for the upcoming track season. No major changes are planned this year, just routine maintenance items. First up is to inspect the brake calipers and change the wheel …
Have you ever needed to change a drain plug or a drain plug seal ring, but didn’t want to change your oil? This post shows you how by using your shop-vac to pull a vacuum on the oil fill tube which will hold the oil in your oil pan even when you remove the drain …
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