Exhaust Routing & replacement systems.

[wolfie]

P.S the nimbus heatshield is good but bloody expensive so I use heat mat from CBS in the engine bay as the turbo tends to get very hot

[DavidL]

What a quick and fantastic responce, many thanks to all. The photos certainly give plenty of food for thought. Has anyone tried raising the selector unit? Having a look at it again and wonder about maybe enlarging the hole in the tunnel bending the rods suitably. Any thoughts or things to watch out for?
From the photos I think I might have a Mini LCB manifild too.

to raise the selector you will need 2 uj's Steve. Think that's the route I will take as I need a 2" exhaust system and I'll make it adjustable just in case I cock up the measurements

You could end up with something really quite elaborate, and I'd think you would have a lot more friction to overcome. You might also find you need extra support bearings wherever your UJs are.
I know I mentioned changing the gearchange to a cable system before, but in this case it might be worth thinking about.

However, if you do decide to use a couple of UJs, you might find it worth looking at the bottom ends of car steering columns in scrapyards. I have the lower part of a Mk 2 VW Golf steering column in the garage which I might post a photo of, it's fairly compact if I remember rightly.

[stevew]

I must admit I had just starting thinkings along a more heath-robinson line of raising gear selector by 2" to 3" via bending the rods a bit, and maybe strengthening the bends if not stiff enough. The cable system sounds intersting - are there any photos of any cable systems out there please as I'm keen to see how they would work.

[DavidL]

I must admit I had just starting thinkings along a more heath-robinson line of raising gear selector by 2" to 3" via bending the rods a bit, and maybe strengthening the bends if not stiff enough. The cable system sounds intersting - are there any photos of any cable systems out there please as I'm keen to see how they would work.

I haven't looked for any - until five minutes ago! I just image-Googled "cable gear change"; mostly bicycles came up, but there were a couple of cars there, which could be worth further investigation.
I made the suggestion because I thought it might be worth pursuing, but it won't be straightforward, unless you can find someone who's already done it.

I'd have a go if I had the time, which sadly, I don't...

[wolfie]

This is what I'm thinking of but I can do it myself a lot cheaper that this kit

http://www.kentautodevelopments.com/sho ... inkage-kit

[stevew]

Wolfie, this looks iinteresting. From looking on the www at installations for this it looks like the gear selector is rigidly mounted to the car. Do you know if this has any issues for the car, such as the engine needs to be more rigidly mounted to the subframe, or are the present mounts sufficient?

[stevew]

I've had a few e-mail exchanges with Alistair at Alternative Cars recently (very impressed with each of them) and he has had a request for a rear undertray without a cut-out for the rear box; this I would expect further improve the downforce of the undertray. So gets me thinking about smaller rear silencer boxes, and I've alreday seen some 2 box systems for the Metro with a small box at about mid system which looks like would fit in the "transmission" tunnel. Has anyone got any knowledge or experience in this area? Motorbike exhausts for engines with similar capacity to the Metro, which rev more than twice the speed seem to have smaller silencers than the box I have at present - are there some options going this route?

[wolfie]

motorbike exhausts would be of no use as exhausts are 'tuned' to the needs of the engine. The shorter the exhaust is the higher the engine will rev but suitable back pressure is a problem. Bikes dont need torque due to lack of weight but a car does so the longer exhaust and manifold helps in that area and with scaveging. If you want a smaller rear box either buy the parts from the likes of Europa or Demon 'bloody hell that's expensive' Tweeks like re-packable silencers or something from Jetex or even buy a cherry bomb and weld a left hand bend on the end. For my Turbo installation I'll be manufacturing my own stainless system from scratch using my existing Midas system as a template where it goes around the subframe. From talking to various people the best exhaust is as straight as possible and with a turbo installation I don't need a middle silencer

[stevew]

Wolfie, I'll need to do a bit more research here! In the mean times to get the car running & MOTed I've raised the gear change remote by about 1.5" to stop the knocking and be able to raise the exhaust at least 1" to reduce the grounding out. Had to cut a bit of the shell away and it seems to the job (hopefully I've managed to upload a photo below).

IMG_1425.jpg (68.86 KiB) Viewed 7160 times

Longer-term intend to make something along the lines of what you’re going for - post looking at the link you provided I’ve searched some of the Mini forums and there are quite a few approaches out there for the racing scene, some very crude. One thing they all share is that they are all rigidly mounted to the car, so for a car that is going to see many road miles I expect this will increase the noise & vibration in the car but to what level? Also is there a need to more rigidly mount the engine to cut down relative movement between the engine & gear change remote (would hate to have large engine torques inducing inadvertent selections of neutral!)?

[DavidL]

Longer-term intend to make something along the lines of what you’re going for - post looking at the link you provided I’ve searched some of the Mini forums and there are quite a few approaches out there for the racing scene, some very crude. One thing they all share is that they are all rigidly mounted to the car, so for a car that is going to see many road miles I expect this will increase the noise & vibration in the car but to what level? Also is there a need to more rigidly mount the engine to cut down relative movement between the engine & gear change remote (would hate to have large engine torques inducing inadvertent selections of neutral!)?

I've seen subframe mounts on eBay which, instead of being rubber mounts, are completely solid metal which I'd guess is what you use in a race car. I wouldn't want that in a road car!