Weight reduction.

[MrE]

Hi folks, I hav inherited the Minor from Mrs E as she is now 15 weeks pregnant (woohoo) and Norm is no longer a practical option for her. As I am now having the car I plan to strip as much unessecary weight out as I possibly can as when I have the Porsche 924 motor and gearbox fitted I have every intention of taking a 4 cylinder Minor to santapod and beating some V8 yanks with it. To do this I need to remove as much weight as possible but want to keep him riad legal. Apart from replacing bonnet, boot wings, valances and doors, what else can I do to reduce the weight of the shell?

[plastic_orange]

I'd be more concerned with getting some weight over the rear for traction. It's not the yank V8's you have to worry about - at least not in their original vehicle, but all the jap supercars, Imprezas, tweaked corsas etc.
What times do you expect to run? how much power do you have? Do you have sticky tyres?

A minor body shell isn't very heavy - 2 people can lift a bare shell, so weight saving really is as you suggest - plus of course interior trim and replace glass with perspex or similar. The doors are probably the heaviest part which could be replaced with something lighter.
As a guide regarding performance, my best time with my Minor is 15.1 @ 90 mph - that is with a Rover V8 making around 180 hp, but with auto box and a power sapping jag IRS. This was however enough to beat my mate in his manual V8 powered Minor.
I'd also suggest a helping of Nitrous to improve power.
It is surprising how slow some cars actually are, and anything in the 15 - 16 seconds is a really quick road car. I had a Seat Leon Cupra - 1.8 turbo, and my Minor destroyed it on the strip. It only managed very high 15's , low 16's - but was very quick on the road.
What I'm trying to say is - don't be too disappointed with times at first - they can be improved with a bit of work.

Pete

[MrE]

Hi Pete,

The engin I have is producing 150bhp from its own steam and will be putting Nitrous on it too, probably a 75bhp shot. Weight at the rear shouldnt be a problem as the Porsche transmission is in the rear axle which should balance the car out nicely. I have already thrown the mouldy old carpets away and have a pair of light bucket seats to fit (passenger one will come out at the strip). And I have a pair of Hoosier tyre's for my yank but need to see if they fit in the minor's arches, they are 245/60R15's so I doubt it

Your 15.1 is pretty good. I have a 70's yank with a 5.2 V8 and would be over the moon if it did that, so far thats done got PB of 16.7. I would like to get Norm into the 14's but well see when he's done.

Stu

[plastic_orange]

At our local strip they allow passengers, and as you can imagine times increase as you add them. If I remember, the addition of a passenger (around 10 stone) added around .2 to .3 of a second. I doubt if you could lose 10 stone from your minor over and above what you are doing.
In the Motorbike world, everyone is concerned about how light the bike is, but pay little regard to their own weight.
So - keep off the pies/booze/sweets etc and see your times fall

Have fun

Pete

[dp]

Hello Mr E,

I'd love to know more about the choice of engine and running gear - do you have an old 924 lying around? Has the engine been worked on or is it the 924S engine?

Given the transmission is in the rear axle, is it feasible to cut down the torque tube and move the engine back behind the front seats? That would dig the back wheels in nicely.

[MrE]

Cheers for that Pete, interesting stuff.

dp, thats a superb idea. If the engine goes up front I will have to move the bulkhead and re-work the steering. But what your suggesting could be much easier than it sounds. The gearbox in a 924 is the same at the on in a VW LT van, it just has an added gear inside the diff unit to allow the box to be rotated 180 degrees. The gearbox casing still has a bell housing which is what the front to rear drive tube bolts on to. Also the 924 engine block casting is the same as the VW LT van. so in theory I should be able to remove the drive tube alltogether and bolt the engine straight to the box. Brilliant , cheers.

Oh, the engine is a 1984cc 4 cylinder motor. The block is the VW 1.8 lump used in the LT vans and early Golf GTi's and has been bored by Porsche to 1984cc. The cyinder head is Porsche's own design with a single overhead cam and 8 valves. The camshaft has been changed to a high lift one and the throttle body for the Bosch injection system had been changed for a much bigger one. The transmission is 5 speed manual with limited slip diff.

[MrE]

Engine won't fit in the back, not enough room. Bummer I quite liked that idea.

[dp]

When you say won't fit in the back, is it too high or would it intrude into the rear seat area? Do you need the rear seats?

If I've understood correctly, the engine would stay in front of the gearbox, not behind like a Beetle.

[aussiemike]

If it wont fit then buy yourself a bigger grinder and make it fit!"? With all the stuff you are taking out of the car weight will be pretty down anyway so why not concentrate your efforts onto getting the car to 'hook up' well on the strip. ? Drag car set up is more of a black art than most like to admit. Suspension is crucial and also so is having a strong enough drivetrain to withstand sidestepping the clutch at high RPM.
Cool project though, lets have a look at some photos when you have the time.
cheers, michael.

[MrE]

The engine does go infront of the gear box. The gearbox is about the same size most RWD gearbox's, with the diff at the bottom of the box about half way down the length. Due to the engine being very long for a inline 4 cylinder unit, if you bolt the engine directly to the gearbox, the front of it comes right forwards past the front seats leaving no-where to sit. In order to get the engine n the front I need to move the bulkhead back at least 8 inches and put the radiator down the side of the engine as it will not fit infront. As a resut I will be sitting 8-10 inches further back (if not more) putting my weight closer to the rear wheels. The transmisionis pretty strong, I gave it loads of abuse while it was in the Porsche. I used to take it to the local air field and do doughnuts and burnouts untill the tyres burst (I paid very little for the porsche with the intention of killing and scrapping it) With no problems arising and nothing breaking at all. When I remember to take my camera to my workshop I will get some photo's

[les]

Put it back where it belongs and give it some respect this time!!

[MrE]

Nah. Don't get me wrong the Porsche was a quick and well built car, but just too darn small (knees touched the steering wheel with the seat bach as far as it will go) and the body parts for it are too expensive (front wing £200 I kid you not). And I figured, why not take the motor from a quick but overated car and put it into a slow and very underated car.

[les]

Only a light hearted post, and I know you kid me not!

[chickenjohn]

I think you'd be better off restoring both cars, then you'd have two very nice classics to use and enjoy rather than one modified car that would be rather less than the sum of the parts. Both are superbly engineered and designed cars, both sadly rather underrated, Enjoy them both!

A Minor with the 924 engine would he hugely nose heavy as the 944/924 series of cars had the gear box in the rear of the car- for a reason- weight distribution 50/50.

[MrE]

Hi John,

I think you'd be better off restoring both cars, then you'd have two very nice classics to use and enjoy rather than one modified car that would be rather less than the sum of the parts. Both are superbly engineered and designed cars, both sadly rather underrated, Enjoy them both!

The Porsche is not a cost friendly resto job and in my opinoin not really worth it, the porshe is not under-rated at all if anything they're over-rated as it is literally a VW wearing a Porsche badge (the 924 was actually a concept design for the Scirocco). I decided to transplant the 924 into something else when it failed its MOT and the repair bill for a £600 car was somewhere in the £1,000 region. The lighter the car it was going into the better and the more retro looking the better. A Minor is the best candidate.

A Minor with the 924 engine would he hugely nose heavy as the 944/924 series of cars had the gear box in the rear of the car- for a reason- weight distribution 50/50.

I dissagree. There shouldn't be much extra weight over the front wheels (if any) as the gearbox will not be strapped the the engine, so that weight will be lost over the front. Also I wil be sitting further back due to moving of the bulk head and this too will help reduce the weight over the front. The battery is going in the rear too.

I appreciate that this is not everyones cup of tea but at the end of the day this Minor was set to be crushed when I bought it. I am going to build a car to put down the 1/4 mile whatever, so I may as well do it with a car from the scrap heap rather than destroy a good one. I have seen people cut up perfetly good cars for a bit of fun and I think its savage.

Sorry if that reads as if I am being stroppy or uppity (not very good at expressing myself with words on a screen ) I just want people to understand that out of the cars I am using, 1 is not that fantastic regardless of the badge and needed far too much money spent on it for what it is, and the other was dead in the water and probably too far gone for a straight resto job.

[plastic_orange]

It makes perfect sense to use what you have, but given your comment on another thread, I think a full chassis is your way ahead - probably save time too.

Pete

[MrE]

Hi Pete, How difficult is a full chassis to do? I have never done one before, I usually use what I already have. I was planning to use the minor chassis for suspension mounts and the porsche chassis for the drivetrain mounts.

[plastic_orange]

Chassis building depends on your measuring and welding skills. Not being too familiar with the Porsche layout, you would have to judge if you could replicate the front and rear suspension mountings as per the original car. Then basically you join the 2 together by chassis members to give you the desired wheelbase. I built a box section chassis with just a hacksaw and electric welder for my V8 minor about 15 years ago, but never fully finished it (Ray has it now). It used an HA viva front suspension clip, and the minor leaf springs with Capri 3 litre back axle. My friend built one in tandem with me, and his car has been on the road for years - so it worked.
It only took me about a week to construct, and the body shell can be bolted to it, but obviously you have to modify the floor to suit your underpinnings.
My friend recently made me a full chassis for the same car (updated running gear), but this was a bit more complicated.
Here's a couple of pics.

Pete



New Chassis




















Old Chassis - note hacksaw

[MrE]

Nice work. I think I may have to return to the drawing board with this to work our which is the easiest fo me to do. Just when I thought I had it pretty much worked out.

Cheers Pete