MARSHSEIS "Classic Mini Challenge" Creating a Time machine

Objective-3 Steady the Engine.

Dale Marshall looking very pleased and deservedly so as the front sub frame he is holding from our classic mini represents a "Quantum Leap" perhaps even a mile stone marker in mission assured objective achievability.

One hell of a statement but in layman's terms we are now confident, in fact fully confident we can get the engine to fit and retain all the key mounting points for the suspension geometry which was and still is our highest priority objective of the project.

They say a miss is as good as a mile but we missed by only 4mm and had the power plant from the new Mini been just that little bit wider....well 4mm wider we''d have been looking at a whole different ball game.

Achieving this mile stone I can say without reservation, was a battle that was not easily won and only conquered by doggedly traversing a long and tortuous path of trial and error. We lost count of the number of times we fitted the sub frame to the car, offered up the engine, then having to remove it again for more slight adjustments. But persistence paid off in the end and we eventually got the engine into the position where it needed to be and came up with viable and workable solutions to overcome the problems the very tight fit would present.

The front sub frame offered up to the engine in the position it will be when fitted to the car and yes as the eagle eyed amongst yous will notice we've had to brace the sub frame with additional cross bracing stiffeners to compensate for where some of the sub frame strength has had to be cut away. These are just tacked for now until such time as the engine is fully cradled and in the car so we can establish where all the ancillaries need to run which might mean slight relocation or fettling of the stiffeners.

A closer up image of the engine to front sub frame clearance shows just what a tight fit it actually is. So there is only one solution to this....We are going to have to hard mount the engine into the frame. "Not such a good idea" I hear some of you muttering, but think about it, this is exactly the way the engine is fitted into the frame on motorcycles even ultra high performance models and also into high performance track and semi race cars and such, so we're neither first nor alone in adopting this concept and we're not afraid. We're pretty confident that smoothness of German engineering technology couple with a liberal sprinkling of Marshseis magic and our car will run smoother and swifter than a sprinting rat catcher's dog and I'm not even keeping my fingers crossed when I say that.

Luckily the existing MINI power plant, top engine and gearbox mounting points lend them selves very well to fitting of flat steel plates as can be seen in the pic. These will make ideal and strong mounting points that we can incorporate into the engine cradle. All we have to do now is design a cradle around our known and fixed mounting points staying clear of all ancillaries and for that we do believe we are going to need another large portion of forward thinking coated with a liberal sprinkling of Marshseis magic :-)

That's about all for this blog....All the best and take care and be sure to keep an eye out for our next blogs where you'll find out exactly how we got on with "Creating a Time Machine".