C16SE powered Mini

[pob]

A year ago I put up a few pics of my current project which was the installation of a C16SE multipoint injection engine/gearbox into a mini.
Of course this totally polarised everybody into "you've ruined it" and "you've made it 10 times better"

Anyway I can report that performance is "quite brisk ".
The handling has improved no end as everything is now rose jointed and solid mounted and the rear has been converted to coil over.
Subsequently every rattle is fed back into the cabin.

Brakes are "adequate", but maybe i'm just comparing them to my every day modern eurobox.

So here's the finished product, as you can see I've tried to keep the outside as original as possible.

[mig25_foxbat2003]

That's a neat installation, I can't believe how little the C16 is! I'm surprised you're still using the fuel injection system, don't most people run the C16 on bodies? I love the fact that you've kept the standard look on the outside too. All in all, I bloody love it, and I bet there's some embarassed boy racers around your manor...

[pob]

I had a tired a series engine in the car and I had a really good head sitting on the bench. So I put the head onto the engine without doing anything to the engine.
The result was that the head was too good for the engine and it blew past the rings, pressurised the water system and blew the radiator, the core plugs held.

I had had enough of the a series and the car lay there for a year.
Then I found www.16vminiclub.com and decided that was the way to go.
I didn't want stupid VTec type power levels, so 100bhp and 100lb/ft was enough (for now )

I undertook the project more as an engineering exercise to get me off my ass at night rather than a buring desire for power.

The engine was taken straight out of an 1993 Astra SXi and put in without a rebuild and came as a complete runner so I didn't want to mess with it and I put it in as it sat. Throttle bodies will be the next step, but I would want to strip the engine and rebuild it as TB's can easily bring it up to 130bhp, which might be a bit much for an engine with 100K on it.

The plan would be to drive it as it is, pick up a 1.6 16V and rebuild it ready for bodies (easy totally driveable 150bhp). But to do this the master cylinders need to be moved under the dash rail.

[chrisbaldry]

The C16SE is a cracking little lump, easily tuneable and not too tricky to put in something like a mini. I'd rather see an Astra without an engine than another Metro raped :p
Seriously some good work gone in there you have a lot more imagination and talent than a lot of the mini owners in my neck of the woods. Ultimate in street sleeper mini.

[Marinast]

Oh, I like that.
I love the totally standard outside spec too, far too many Minis are poorly modified with tasteless wheels and other add ons. For me you have a perfect little GT there. OK so it's not original, but you will have many years of problem free motoring with that unit, they are very reliable and I've had the pleasure of driving a few Astras with these engines in with an excess of 200k on the clock and they seem fine.

[pob]

Thanks everyone - anyone got a silver/black British Leyand sticker I could put over the Vauxhall?

[Lord Sward]

Excuse my ignorance, but what gearbox has it got?

That looks a next installation and that engine has be light years better than an A-series.

[pob]

Vauxhall F13. If the engine/gearbox ever has to come out again I would consider using the Corsa TD F15, it has slightly higher gearing that makes up for the difference between the original cars 13" wheels and standard 70 profile tyres and my 12" wheels with 60 profile.
The F15 has the same external dimensions and some of them have a hydraulic clutch that can be plumbed into the standard mini master cylinder.

The C16 engine with the F13 gearbox is narrower than the K series and dosen't have any ancilliaries sticking out the front.

[Lord Sward]

I like that alot, well done.

[pepper]

Even I'd consider having a mini once that had been done to them

[nicholls1966uk]

That GT is pure class.
It should be a COTM and a magazine feature car.

[Why Theory?]

I do like that, looks great.

[5ivegearsinreverse]

An excellent conversion - perhaps Issigonis wasn't quite the packaging genius he was credited with being.

The Jonathan Wood biography refers to an end-on gearbox ayout being chosen for the XC9002 Minor replacement on which development started around 1956. Following the Suez crisis the smaller, narrower XC9003 was given priority, and the gearbox-in-sump "bunk-bed" layout was adopted as it was thought that an end-on gearbox arrangement "wouldn't fit".

Was it fear of unequal length drive shafts? According to Graham Turner Issigonis thought that "The drive shafts were too short to get enough bump and rebound and I didn't like the inaccessibilty of the clutch plate which is the most usable commodity of a car".

I'd guess that the C16SE is longer than an A-series, so here's proof in the metal that - at least on this occasion - Issigonis was proved wrong.

Fünfzahnrader

There's also the Minki which shows that a K-series will fit - if you widen and lengthen the whole car by 50mm!

[pob]

http://www.16vminiclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9302

k series in a standard round nose mini.

http://www.16vminiclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8079

c16se in a standard round nose mini.

[406v6]

Looks a really superb piece of work and deserving of deeper treatment on this site.

I'm a great admirer of Vauxhall/Opel engines having put several hundred thousand enjoyable miles on them during the 1990s. They combined good torque, smooth running, good fuel consumption and reliability (reliable in my experience anyway). Definitely the cream of the mass market engines in my book (apart from the later Peugeot/Renault V6 which is the creamiest). I'd be interested to hear how the noise/vibration performance of the Vauxhall engine in the Mini compares with the A series.

[pob]

Most of the A series engines I had in it had "lumpy" cams.
But the engine mounting system is now vastly superior and I'm using a stock road cam in Vaux engine; there is no engine movement at tickover and is very quiet compared to the a series which, at tickover, always looked as if was about to jump out of the engine bay.

Some of the tolerances are very tight, 2 of my main concerns are the altenator belt's proximity to the driver's side suspension turret and the passenger side rubber boot the bottom of suspension turret.

I dont have any pics of the belt, but this is the tolerance of the rubber boot before I took the grinder to the tower. It isn't too much more though.