It’s been a while since I posted a progress update, as things have been moving quite slowly during the Covid lockdown. Good news though – The engine is almost ready!
It’s taken a bit longer than expected, for many reasons, one of which is that I requested a custom 5th and 6th gear ratio and those gears had to be made by a third party, which took a while. Vetech got the gears a few weeks ago though and started the gearbox build.
The build didn’t go without issues, as the new, larger gears required the gearbox casing to be machined out a little more. Vetech saw to that and soon had the gears installed in the gearbox casing.
Andrew from Vetech has been keeping me updated over the last couple of weeks and things are really motoring now (excuse the pun) with the engine build. Below are a few progress pics that he’s sent.
Now that the build is almost complete, it’s time for me to clear out the garage and make as much space as possible for when it’s delivered. It’s going to be a bit tight in the garage with the mini and the new engine, along with the new subframes and other bits. I’ll remove the rusty old front subframe that’s currently on the mini just to make it a rolling shell and fit the new subframe as soon as I can, so that I can get the old subframe out of the garage and free up a bit of space.
I’m not sure yet whether to bother trial fitting the new rear subframe before I send the car for paint, as I’m not expecting to change anything there. We’ll see how things go with the trial build.