17th August 2007. On the road again!
I wanted to clean up the engine so out it came.. Interestingly the manifold has turned a lovely gunmetal black colour and there is not much in the way of rust, maybe the oil bath it received?? I'm not sure but I like it!
Nothing untoward to report and the engine started first time. Everything is back to square one and with the timing set to a nice safe 20 degrees at boost I'm happy. Its still overheats a little I think the 100 degree plus heat indexes in August may be a bit much for a Mini! But decided to add an Auxiliary Radiator and had a bear of a time
trying to fit in the heater core in a tidy way, the engine is tilted forwards and the starter motor is in the way. In the end I tried a 13row oil cooler matrix and it works a treat and I can actually fit it in above the starter but this scuppers my Intercooler plans. So far I am pretty sure my oil cooler is not even kicking in so I plan to see wheather it
actually does anything given the high temp stat I used (I suspect not) and if this is so I will remove it and fit the aux rad in its place opening up the air path for the intercooler.
The only other job is to find out why the mixture gets so lean when I accellerate from low rpm, I plan to try some stiffer Carb springs, more on this later.
