In this episode of Mighty Car Mods The Honda B series goes in the Mini
Welcome to another episode of Mighty Car Mods
Now, last time you saw us we were pulling all sorts of things out of this Mini.
And we were throwing them in the bin.
And in their place, Martin, we are putting in this Honda Civic engine which is from a JDM Honda Civic Type R
The Mini A-Series engine was getting the arse, and the B-Series, the beautiful B-Series buxom, behemoth of... bangability. I don't know, four banger thing is
Bangability, well done is going up into here
So everyone, there it is, Martin is fanboying over the Honda
Which is a frightening, exciting, and a sensual moment in MIghty Car Mods history.
Anyway, last time we had a little bit of an issue
because our steering rack wasn't working.
Now, why wasn't working. Because this is a right hand drive Mini.
We're on the correct side of the car, over here.
And so the steering rack wouldn't fit
And so we had to make some adjustments.
And those adjustments were larger in scale than a flapper wheel was able to fix for remedy.
As such, we had to call in the professionals, didn't we, Martin?
That's right, and there's a kit made my Minitech
The same guys who make this beautiful thing of B-Series bangability awesome.
They make a little panel that actually goes in and sort of pushes the firewall back but still keeps it nice and rigid.
Yeah, it recesses it (firewall) by probably 3 or 4 inches And that gives us enough room to hit the steering rack.
Now, there's still a couple of little complications that we need to attend to.
Namely of which we got to shave this before we erect that and get the insertion shot.
But other than that, today is an exciting day, Martin, because it's going in, isn't it?
The engine is going into the Mini.
Yup, it's going in and not coming out again... Is the plan.
The B-Series, Honda Civic engine, is banging the Mini.
From the front.
It's pretty exciting.
It's a big job.
Before we kick off, I would like to acknowledge Miles Stinton, everybody.
Dose Vader, everybody.
What a legend.
Where would we be without him?
Still hanging
Middle of the intersection, maybe?
Yeah, probably.
Anyway, let's get to it.
Now, Martin, something else has happened without my knowledge.
Which is also not surprising
More Subaru parts.
Yeah, i wonder who could have been responsible for this?
It was him!
These coils have been taken from a Subaru engine and then modified so they'll fit our Honda B16B.
Would you like to tell me what's going on here?
Why, and how and all the magic.
These are better, for starters.
Coil on plug is a much better option.
Internal igniters, it's a lot easier. You don't have to have a bulky distributor on the engine.
In this case, we need to keep the distributor because of the crank angle sensor that's inside.
But we're also restricted for room to refit some other components in the engine bay.
So by changing to coil on plug, we got rid of all the leads
And we're able to reduce the size of the distributor cap.
So we can fit all the other stuff in the engine.
And the Subaru parts have it better.
Dose Vader, everyone. Dose Vader.
Subaru
Honda
America
England Japan
Australia
For this next part of the build we have called in the professionals.
And had an expert panel beater who is modifying the firewall.
This is a common enough modification that there's actually a kit for it.
And this will allow us to relocate our steering rack and get it out of the way of the gearbox.
We've had some good news. Our engine mount has arrived from the USA.
So I'm taking a moment to ask the car gods for forgiveness.
And now it's time to keep cutting.
Meanwhile, Myles has relocated the steering rack and mounted it to the subframe.
So one of the incredible advantages of doing a B-Series swap in this Mini is going from a 4-speed to a 5-speed.
Now as it stands currently, the car can do 100 kmph when it has the A-Series
But it's not that happy about it.
It's like anyone with mechanical sympathy would feel sorry for it.
So we're adding a fifth gear.
But the question is, Martin -- this doodle just fully dungled out right in our face.
Halfway through the doodle.
How do we, Martin, how do we change gears?
Oh, we need a shifter linkage.
So in a front wheel drive you often have a big shifter linkage, much like this one.
Much like this one that connects the shifter up to the gearbox.
Cause the gearbox goes that way.
So it's a clever thing that mounts here
and as you move it adjusts the rod thing back and forth until it changes gear.
And we got a 5-speed gearbox, which is pretty exciting.
But this is for a Honda.
Yup This is from an Australian delivered EK Civic
Something like that
Do they have a D-Series engine? Does someone know?
Tell us all about it, we can wait to hear it from you
Anyway, this shifter is slightly different.
But we have to cut up so much of it anyway that it is gonna get heavily modified
But the end of the game is we have to mount this end to the body with the gear stick inside the car
This end to stabilize on the engine.
And this is the doodle that bats around and changes your gears.
We're gonna chop here, chop here, we're gonna use the good bits
And we're gonna make a chain of cable ties between here and here
that connects that bit to that.
We're not 100% sure that this is going to work
But we're going to give it a go, and no. We're not actually using cable ties.
With this one nicely chopped up
The gear stick can go in and then we can drill new holes to mount it.
Later on, we can work out the shape and lengths of the actual linkages which we will modify from the original.
So a fairly exciting part of the install
Which is installing our mad custom driveshafts.
Now custom driveshafts, if anyone's ever done them, are a pain in the bum.
Cause you gotta measure stuff, measure it properly
And you can make or break your build
Cause if they're not right, you get vibrations, potentially you break them
Or worse, nothing fits at all.
These are awesome because they're custom made to fit this engine, this frame, with this car.
So, all going well, these will just slot straight in
The one on this side
Connects up to the funny little jack shaft thing that goes from the gearbox along here
And there's another brace thing that
Was speaking to Turbo Yoda about that a little while ago.
For this one to go on that side.
And that one is the drivers side.
I dono, the other side, Martin.
Basically, this is Mini on one end,
Honda on the other end.
This is the thing that makes this turn that.
Which is super exciting, it probably doesn't look every exciting
Nah, this is awesome.
This is the thing that makes the romp romp go wamp wamp.
And then unleash the unicorns.
The unicorns are transmitted through here.
There's a lot, isn't it?
Through that.
You know what else is mad about this?
Is that this gearbox has an LSD in it too.
Which means not so much one wheel drive,
You might get a little of torque steer and that's the reason why these shafts are a similar size.
To try and reduce torque steer.
Martin, let's install them!
MAAAD
And this side is done.
We've got Honda on this end
And Mini on the other end.
Amazing
Now, on to the other side.
With both sides done, our Honda engine can now power Mini hubs.
So this is our mad brake booster
With its funny lever thing so the brake pushes up there and through the booster and its gives us assistance when we brake.
This, like the car, is a 20-year-old part and it's had a slight leak from the master cylinder
And over time it's dripped down and it's fairly common.
And it's started to rust the paint and sort of rusts this
So because it's out and so easy to do, we're gonna give it a bit of a clean up
Bit of wax and grease remover, little bit of black paint, and the master cylinder is also being rebuilt
Which will mean it will be nice and fresh and will not leak anymore fluid anymore for the next 20 years.
Something very exciting is about to happen inside so the brake booster repair is going to have to wait.
Yes, the engine is going in the Mini.
So it's time to put some oil in this Honda engine
And the reason that this is exciting is because up until this point,
The Mini's A-Series engine and gearbox have been sharing the same oil.
Which is a mineral oil, but now we are going to a fully synthetic
So We're putting in Castrol Edge 5w30
This is like a modern performance oil which we use in all our maaad turbo cars
And now all our maaad Honda Minis as well.
And there's a whole other that I'm really excited about this engine.
And it's not just the power and the performance of it as well.
It's also that we're just modernizing things so much. You can now just use oil that you can pretty much buy from any shop.
You can get parts all over the place and the whole thing is getting me super, super excited.
And it's not gonna be too far into the future that this car is actually going to be unicorning down the highway.
I don't know when that's going to happen
But it's going to happen soon.
And I'm super, super, SUPER excited.
Even though there's so much more to do, it's such a good feeling knowing that the engine actually fits in the car.
And we are that much closer to having a working and properly fast VTEC Mini.
So I was just on a Honda forum, yes I was, that happened.
To find out how much oil I should put in this engine.
And one of the people on there said the way you fill up the engine oil
Is just keep filling up
Until there is oil coming out of the top of the engine.
Obviously don't do that.
Get online, see how much oil your car requires
OR check in your manual. It will tell you how much oil you need, plus it will tell you what type of oil you should use.
Or go to a reputable source like an actual website of an oil manufacturer like Castrol
Who has a website where you can check plus an app where you can see what kind of oil and different fluids your car needs plus how much it is.
You won't always get the right information off a Honda forum. Believe it or not.
With the engine oil done, a brand new filter, and the levels checked
Now we can move onto the gearbox oil.
Meanwhile Myles is mocking up the gearbox linkage using pieces that were left over after cutting up the Honda Civic one that we got from the wreckers
We're cutting rough lengths and then holding together with masking tape
So we can get the approximate shape and length that we need.
And then we can tack them together.
With it all tacked up, now we can weld the pieces together and paint them BLAACK.
So it's been another massive day and most importantly
The engine is now in the car which is getting me super juicy and super excited.
I feel really rekindled and rejuvenated and revigorated
and lots of other re- words that mean I love Honda VTEC in a Mini.
There's lots of fiddling and stuff still to go
And sometimes getting the engine in the car is kind of like
You know when you see a frame go up of a house?
The frame goes up in like 1 or 2 days
And you're like "wow, it's done" but then it's like another 8 months for them to actually do all the stuff.
It's not gonna be another 8 months but I would say for the 1 day of actually getting the engine in there
There's probably realistically 4 or 5 more days of fiddling and jiggling and supermingling
To actually get it working
There seems like wiring, little bits of plumbing, like where is the heater gonna come from.
Where's the hoses gonna go
And again, this is customized.
We had the benefit of a kit to do the basic framework
But all that stuff we still have to be done tomorrow.
So we're in the right place with the right homies.
We are, Martin.
So tomorrow, we'll kick back into it.
But until then, thank you very much for watching
Of course you can keep the eyeballs on the Faceballs
faceballs.com/madminisforyouandmeandeverymonkey
With VTEC
Yes. And there it is
Thank you very much
We're in NEWSWA so we're gonna eat some NEWSWA burger
*random Australian Gibberish*
I'm taking my boost-
yes
-er and going away
Becuase it's metaphorical for the boost that's been taken away from the Mini
But unicorn power has been put back in.
So I'm taking this boost away as a symbolic - you need to take it as an offering to the VTEC
I don't know what I'm talking about... I felt like it's a booster that adds boost and that's a good thing
Martin, we're gonna go and eat an Acai bowl.
That's what they ate in Queensland.
You know an acai is like the untasty ugly brother of the blueberry?
Wait, acai costs more than a blueberry?
Yeah
There's something wrong with the world.