Mini Farewell

Out to Cahors in the Morgan this morning, which just confirmed that the Mini is redundant. The Morgan is so much fun and makes you grin most of the time, even going slowly. It is actually pretty quick up to 70 or so as it is very light, but has limited grip and weak brakes so it’s fun and quite fast to push along in it – and it makes a great noise and you are in the breeze etc. And when you stop everyone wants a look or a selfie.

Finally got the registration through for the MINI – it took three months.

The last message was one month ago when they asked for a copy of the reverse of the UK reg doc – which shows nothing of value. Then another month goes by as it works through the queue again and now it’s OK.

This is the ad copy for the Mini

Mini Cooper S 2005 John Cooper Works

For sale is my near immaculate late model R53 Mini Cooper JCW. The is one of the last of the first generation of the new mini, before BMW started feeding them steroids and they became bloated. With the first generation (R53) the development team did a fantastic job of capturing both the classic look and wheel-at-each-corner-go-kart feeling of the original Mini that made it so much fun.

These are becoming increasingly rare and are sure to become future classics. The Cooper S variant is relatively common and makes a great performance bargain – if you can find a good one. With a 170 bhp they have enough performance for most people.

But to appeal to the real enthusiast and cope with the occasional track day, BMW developed a faster version in conjunction with John Cooper Garages (who developed the original Mini Cooper). The John Cooper Works makeover came in many flavours covering engine, suspension, wheels, body kit, seats and interior trim.

I spent quite some time last year searching for a Mini JCW in good condition and with the right specification. Eventually I found the perfect car, which I am now offering for sale as I have since acquired even more vehicles and it is getting out of hand.

In addition to the JCW parts this car has benefited from a lot of work and expenditure to make it an excellent fast road / occasional track day car. It provides huge fun and outrageous performance. I would say it is faster point to point on A and B roads than the Lotus Elise I used to run in the UK. It doesn’t have the same handling finesse but the wave of torque from the supercharged engine and the seemingly unlimited grip make up for that.

The car is a genuine JCW (with build certificate) has a fully documented service history and was in standard JCW form until purchased by the previous owner about 2 years ago.

It has done 104k miles, but a new engine was fitted at 72k so the engine has only done about 30k. This was fitted in October 2013 at a cost of £3,000.

In the last 2 years the car has had a lot of attention and upgrades and has only covered 4k miles in this time. The previous owner (retired company director) bought the car to use for a bit of fun and to do a few track days in the UK. He spent a lot of money on parts and maintenance. I have used the car on the road with one track day at Pau in March.

Don’t be put off by the track day use – this car has had more attention and maintenance in the last couple of years than most cars get in ten years.

Ownership plus points :
– Huge fun, brings a smile to your face
– The classic shape and glossy paintwork, together with the black body red wheels combination gives some real ownership satisfaction – it looks great and attracts quite a bit of enthusiast attention
– A hoot to drive with the go kart like responses, massive grip and huge torque at any speed from the supercharger
– The supercharger whine
– The pops and bangs from the exhaust on the overrun

Ownership minus points :
– The ride is very stiff – great on the track or smooth roads but not very comfortable on bumpy French lanes

Still reading, OK let’s go through the specification of the car :

UK car RHD
French registered on French plates
Carte grise in my name
CT 13 March 2018 (3 months old)

Engine

1.6 litre supercharged engine. In std form as a Cooper S it delivers 170 bhp. With the JCW upgrades this increases the output to 210 bhp. This car is running higher boost with an 18% supercharger pulley and a much larger motorsport intercooler. So the power is something over 210 and it feels like it. Still perfectly docile and civilised to potter around town.

Last service was in October 2017 at 102k miles, only 2000 miles ago. This included :

Motul 5w40 fully sythetic oil and Mahle filter.

Gerbox oil changed – Kennol 75w90 fully synthetic.

Brake fluid flushed and replaced with Motul RGF600 motorport fluid.

I have topped up the supercharger gear oil, which is not a normal service item and not easy to do but is a useful safeguard. I have also fitted a metal expansion tank to the cooling system as the plastic ones have a habit of splitting.

Coolant renewed with Motul -25 anti-freeze.

Resealed the tdc sensor to fix the slight oil leak – they all leak.

Fitted a bypass resistor to the fan so that the low speed fan works – most don’t.

Cam chain drive so no rubber belt to worry about. Tensioner was changed at 98k miles.

Air filter foam washed and re-oiled

New Bosch battery.

Exhaust and Intake

Full JCW exhaust and JCW sound pack – more noticeable supercharger noise due to the ITG filter and cold air intake – and pops and bangs from the exhaust on the overrun.

Suspension

JCW suspension replaced with Eibach lowering springs and new standard dampers at 98k miles.

New front suspension top mounts and obdurator plates fitted at 102k miles.

Brakes

Fronts are new Nitrac coated discs running Mintex pads with less than 3k miles.

Brake cooling ducts fitted replacing front fog lamps.

Rears are new Brembo discs and pads with less than 2k miles.

Amazing stopping power and fade free.

Wheels and Tyres

OZ racing lightweight alloy wheels.

Virtually new (less than 2k miles) 205/45 17 Michelin Pilot Super Sports – 600 Euros for the set.

Interior

The highlight of the interior is the leather Recaro Works bucket seats (£1500 option when new). The standard seats are comfortable for your granny to do the shopping but are useless for any spirited cornering. These seats are a rare but essential option (in my view).

Also has a rare leather dash rather than the usual painted metal.

Harmon Kardon stereo and the all important air con.

Works floor mats.

Body

Black gloss bodywork in great condition with the JCW body kit extras and badges.

Two small paint bubbles on the rear hatch which I have rubbed down, rust killed and simply painted black.

Underbody

In contrast to the upper body the underside did have some surface rust as a testament to many salty English winters. Although superficial this has been painstakingly rubbed down, rust killed and painted with hammerite. Now very tidy.

Lights – Fitted with Xenons, these have been given the joey mod – stripped and painted black and red to match the rest of the car – the standard headlights have a chrome interior and don’t look right on a black car.

Controle Technique / MOT

I have a print out of the previous MOT records from the gov.uk website which validates the mileage.

There is a folder full of receipts and I have summarised all of the service history in an excel document for ease of reference. A copy can be seen by using the images link at the end.

The French CT was passed on 13 March 2018 – 3 months old. Observations on the CT were :
Rear seat belts not present – the previous owner had removed the rear seats and belts but these have now been refitted
Slight oil leak from the engine – see TDC sensor fix above
Surface rust on the chassis – see details of treatment above

I have uploaded a few images but you can see a more complete set including the service records here :
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Woefed7yrahMjTLh8

Out in the Mini today, what a fun car !

One set of bends on the way in to Cahors is like doing a lap of a racetrack and normally not much traffic to spoil the fun and no gendarmes along that bit.

Trouble is the Morgan is probably even more fun on the same bends – at lower speeds.

For the record…

Things I Like about the Mini

– huge performance and massive grip
– supercharger whine and pops from the exhaust
– seats
– appearance and small size
– the mods and JCW spec

Things I don’t like

– No finesse to the controls or driving experience (it just goes and grips)
eg. Can’t feel what the front tyres are going. Even when understeering round corners on the track there was no feedback through the wheel, just a feeling that the car was pushing wide.
Controls generally too heavy – balanced in that they are all heavy but too heavy – clutch, steering, gearshift
– Black paint comes up beautifully but gets dirty instantly which doesn’t encourage use as a daily driver
– the handling balance – might have improved with the camber plates but probably should have addressed the rear
– To get the level of excitement I was looking for it had to be driven very fast (too fast on the road). The Morgan provides more excitement and driver involvement at much lower speeds. But if I hadn’t got the Morgan I would probably be keeping the Mini and continuing to work on improving it.

Mini faster than the Lotus I used to have but nothing like the same “feel” to the car – which is what i prefer. Mini would be better in this respect with less grippy tyres and set up to be a bit twitchy.

Scorpa Trials Bike

SY250

Dougie my old mate from the UK is coming over next month en route to the Pyrenees to do some sort of week long off road motorbike adventure and is calling in to visit for a couple of days. However, he did mention that he will be bringing a van full of bikes and his mate Mark and suggested we could try a few of the trails around my area. Which is all well and good except that I didn’t have an off road bike and had never ridden a motorbike off road. He did say there would be plenty of bikes to go round but that didn’t help my confidence.

On the postive side I have been riding motorbikes on the road for years, although very little in recent times, and I have had quite a bit of experience on the local trails with a mountain bike.

I thought it would be a good idea to get an off road bike and get some practise in before he arrived. I decided to get a trails bike as these are great for learning the basic skills of slow speed balance, clutch and throttle control. To make them as light and manoeverable as possible they don’t have a seat – all the riding is done standing up. So I bought a second hand Scorpa SY250 – French made with a Yamaha 250 water cooled two stroke engine and a reputation for reliability.

That was the easy part – the tricky bit was learning the necessary skills to ride it by practising around the garden and nearby trails. Easier said than done and I did have a few offs, some of them on camera.

First crash

Not spent very much time on the Scorpa recently but trying to practise some techniques around the garden. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and this is taking time. My Figure of 8 turns have got slower, tighter and more controlled but look much the same in the video. Need to lean the bike into the turn more. The slow wheelie to lift the front over obstacles is still pretty pathetic. I need to override my inbuilt survival instinct that won’t let the front wheel come up very far. The spin turn is coming along, albeit on an up slope and with a pallet helper.

Next step was to get Alexander involved and try out some more difficult challenges…

Not a bad start but could really do with some proper training to move me up a level.

Track Day at Pau Arnos Circuit

Mini Cooper S JCW

The children booked me a track day at Pau circuit for my birthday this year…

Booked a cheap hotel in Pau for Saturday night. It’s about 3.5 hours from here so can’t do it as a day trip.

Will probably just do the morning session and then head back in the afternoon. Pod has to be at work on Monday and he has a 5 hour drive to get home.

Spoke to the organiser last week as I have had no communication other than an email confirmation of my registration.

It seems that if there are no “single seaters” it will be an “open pitlane”, which means you are not organised into groups and sessions but just a free-for-all. In theory I could get on the track and drive round for 3 hours !

Not what I’m used to. The track days I did at Goodwood were organsied into sessions with similar cars/people. We were sent out at intervals with only a few people on track at a time and only 5 lap sessions. One warm up, 3 fast laps and one cool down.

Have been looking at YouTube videos of other track days etc at Pau and I’m feeling nervous….

1. The free-for-all format encourages overtaking (not to say racing) and there seem to be some banzai drivers in pretty fast cars. Can’t see any overtaking rules but maybe the driver briefing will shed some light.

2. Seen some crashes on video – just due to losing one end of the car on a corner and not having enough run off to gather it up again.

3. A couple of corners are very fast and partially blind which will require BIG BALLS to get round at a decent speed – apparently flat for the fast guys?

4. I don’t know how the Mini handles at the limit. Power on understeer for sure but they are apparently pretty sensitive to lift off oversteer – which is what you naturally do when overcooking a corner entry. Might be wet as well, which will lower the limits dramatically. Planning to use it as much as possible this week to get used to it again.

Watched more youtube on board videos last night so getting to know the track. These are from normal cars as well as single seaters.

This gives you an idea of lines and corner approaches – but on two of the worst (most dangerous) corners I still haven’t got a turn in point mapped out.

The videos also don’t show braking points and it’s hard to tell when and how much a driver is braking.

One obvious thing I realised is that the faster you go the less room there is for error – ordinary road cars don’t go that fast round a track and have quite a bit of lee way on different lines round a corner. The fast people in single seaters and on fast bikes have much less room for error – they have to be on line to get round the corner.

I think I scared myself a bit looking at some of the faster people. Ordinary people seem to bumble around with a bit of tyre squeeling and lots of room for error.

Forecast is looking cold and damp which will make things interesting. My new Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres may not be ideal. Probably better than the semi bald Pirelli run flats that were on it though.

Track Day

Long drive down to Pau (over 3 hours). Stayed overnight at Pau in a budget hotel. Up early and fortunately my phone adjusted to the clock change, otherwise we would have been late. 20 min drive to the track.

Got there and queued to sign up – compulsory insurance and club membership as well as a disclaimer and the fee for the day. Paid for a half day 85 Euros as I thought that would be enough and we had to get back home – with Pod then going on to Limoges.

Turned out there were some single seaters there so the morning was split into sessions. In theory we had 4 x 20 min sessions available. We were in with normal road cars which was mostly hot hatches, plus some 300+ HP 4WD Subarus and Mitsubishi Evos. The next class was track cars and finally single seaters.

Driver briefing was very brief and not a word about overtaking – free for all it is then.

Feeling incredibly nervous as we went out for the first session, cut short as it was late starting. Just using part throttle and light brakes trying to tip toe my way round. Not many people out.

Second session much more lively and the mid part of this is on the video. Chasing down a couple of other cars and later being overtaken by some of the fast guys.

Track very wet but not many puddles. Surprising grip levels from the Mini even in the wet.

The two corners I was worried about before were the hardest and scariest. Car sliding at the front especially under power but very benign so easy to control. Had a four wheel slide on the entry to one of the fast corners – not really evident on the video but you do hear Pod say “shit”.

Looking back I can see that I have a tendency to go into the corners too fast, fight my way round and make a mess of the exit so not able to get the power down for the next straight. Fortunately the Minis handling allowed this type of behaviour, but not the fastest way round the track. I was not using all of the braking apart from in a couple of places and need to brake more to get to a slower entry speed to get a better exit. Pleased with my speed on the fast corners compared to some other cars though. On the other hand I always seemed to mess up the slowest and tightest part – the downhill chicane. Cars always pulling away on the exit from this corner.

The second session nearly went the full 20 mins but was red flagged when someone went off at the chicane on the main straight – this was the third corner I was worried about but was OK for me.

The third session was starting to dry out and faster. I did a couple of laps on my own and was getting a better rythym, but then had to overtake slower cars and get overtaken so there was too much traffic to concentrate on proper lines etc. I preferred it when the tarck was less busy.

After a full 20 mins in the third session I was knackered and decided to call it a day and not push my luck further. Still had the 3 hour drive home to do.

Hitting just over 100 mph at the fastest points.

MINI performed perfectly – what a great car.

Possible mods if I was to do this regularly…

Camber plates for the front supension to allow some negative camber.
Adjustable control arms at the rear to take off some of the negative camber.
Some proper track tyres.
That’s about it.

Really need to get a trailer if I do it again – it’s a long way from home to be taking risks with a car you have to drive home again.