My mad plan for a frankenstein 1100 - Page 2 (see page 1 here)

2008 - Spending time making a tool to save time...
I have managed to make lots of incremental advances lately. Since the last update was ages ago i'll do a quick run throu of where all the items requiring modification are up to.

Subframe - I have the subframe tack welded together and in the car with the engine and gearbox sitting in place. I'm pretty happy with its position but there are quite a few things I will have anther look at one it comes out again. The rear mount for instance is very low, so I'll try to raise it a bit. Also I want to notch the rear crossmember for clearance for the 3inch exhaust. I also need to make a bit of room for the shifter cables.

This all happened a while back so if you have been following you'll be wondering what I've been up to.

Alternator - I sourced a smaller alternator (from a charade) and managed to squeeze it in in front of the motor. I mounted it quite high cause height is one thing I have plenty of in the engine bay. I may still have to reverse it as the mini guys have done, cause there is a lot of stuff that needs to go around it still, but for now it can stay where it is.

Radiator - Decided to use the 1100 radiator as is was the smallest. I was going to use a Swift one but it was only 2 core and was still bigger.

I took it to get the inlet and outlet swapped over and they said it needed re-coring. So now I have a brand new 1100 radiator. I hope its up to the task.

I have this to help it along thanks to ebay. Just wondering if I should make a shroud for it or just fit it and see how it goes.
It wil be front mounted but behind the intercooler so it may need the shroud.

Intercooler - I got an XR6 Turbo intercooler in good shape for $50. (thanks xr6turboforums!) I then had to work out how I was going to fit it in. I dont want to run a scoop or a bodykit so it has to go behind the grille. Now while I have more room than those doing this swap in a Mini, it is still going to be tight in there. Which is when I came up with the twisted end tank idea.

These pics show it in position and how it will work.

The radiator will sit in behind it here.

I will be running a black mesh grille which will sit just proud of the frontal sheet metal. This buys me about 2 inches of extra space over the stock grille.

Column - I managed to splice the starlet column with the 1100 column like this (still to be welded finally) and now just have to finalise the top mounts of the column to position it at a better angle than stock and in front of the driver.

Shift Linkage - This is the finalised shifter linkage at the gearbox end. Having flipped the 'up-down' axis at this end I had to flip it at the otehr end.

I planned to accomplish this with a honda shifter as they attach the cable above the pivot for that axis, but ended up getting an AE82 corolla shifter and modifying it to do the same. not as neat, but once mounted a bit lower and covered up with some kind of console it should look OK. I was going to shift the handbrake to the centre tunnel (which I have done on previous cars) but decided that it was getting a bit too crowded there so for now it stays on the right hand side.

Seats - All the interior stuff is currently waiting on getting these installed. $20 on ebay, these are a pair of Series 2 RX7 seats. They are not perfect, but for my needs they should be fine. I was going to get everything retrimmed in the end anyway so why spend heaps on nice black seats now and rip it all off later. They are comfy and hold you in place well enough so we'll see how they go.

I was mucking around with some seat rails I got form hard-rubbish. I had 8 different shaped mounts and it was getting messy when I decided to bite the bullet and get some proper mounts made up.

These will be welded to the floor and cross box section for strength and once I source some better seat rails the seats will mount to the top of them.

See page 1 of this saga here.