I figured some of you guys may be interested in this project. I'll try and condense it, but to make a long story short, Wife is from Germany, got me into the old Mini Coopers, I have built about 20 of them in the last 5 years or so, everything from a Acura Integra GSR Motor swap to one I am currently building Suzuki 3 cylinder turbo, and now this project. My pops always wanted a hotrod, and since I love my british cars I picked him up a 61 Morris Minor 2 door. It had a measly 948cc 4 cylinder motor, however stock weight was only 1600lbs for the car... So, in typical hotrodding fashion I put a 86 Toyota 2wd Pickup frame underneath with the brakes/suspension/steering. Body dropped, new floors were created. I wanted to keep the 8" rear, but it proved too hard to narrow. I did use it for a while and it was decent, but I decided to go to a Ford Exploder 8.8 since it would be cheaper to narrow, and overkill for this application. Motor wise, after frame swap it went from the 948, to 2.8, to now a 95 v6 3.4 Camaro Engine SFI with 4l60e tranny. Figured it should be okay with a total weight of about 1800lbs. Anyway here are a few pics...

 

Here is roughly where it started.

 

Toyota frame, some stuff may look familiar. This was with Belltech drop spindles on the front and torsion bars cranked down a little.

 

Chevy 2.8 swap, lasted a few months before stepping up to the 3.4.

 

The old 8" with 2" drop blocks that I later went to 4" drop blocks, and then ultimately decided on 3" drop leafs....

 

The car originally had 14x4" wheels, so I decided to beef it up a little bit and made some custom smoothy wheels. 16x8 in the rear, and 15x5 on the front. 245/50/16 and 185/55/15 respectively.

 

The donor car a few months back, a 1995 camaro with the 3.4l v6. Runs and shifts fantastic so will be a great drivetrain swap. Snagged a few other goodies that I incorporated later, like the hood struts.

 

New smoothie wheels, before centers painted.


Little bit of poke.

 

Out with the old

 

You can notice the Yoda brake booster, steering box, etc




Then I had MMW make me up some 2" narrowed control arms. Got those in last week. Great looking pieces, just painted them on Friday, hope to get those in this Friday if we get power back.

 

Getting closer, had to use a VW Sciricco radiator, thats about max what I could fit.

 

Then once I knew everything fit and worked relatively good together I pulled the motor and trans to do final engine bay prep, redo trans tunnel, etc.


Here is the 91 Ford Exploder 8.8 rear with 31 spline moeser axles, I narrowed it down to 52" overall. This is before I painted it.


Here you can see how the toyota frame was integrated. Don't worry about the drums, got all new stuff in on Friday.

 

Wheels painted, they have a chrome center cap.


Here they are on the front, they stick out about a 1 3/4" per side, so hopefully the MMW arms will do the trick.

 

Man that's cool as hell ..love minis there's a guy that brings his to auto cross tears it up threw the cones he talked about doing a b18c5 swap

 

Yea, I did a B18c1 I believe a year and a half ago. Very fun car, way too much money into building it. Would like to try a S2000 Motor in mine maybe next year. Would love to go RWD in the Mini. Anyway, here is a old video of the GSR powered Mini I built:

B18c1 Mini

 

You thought about chopping the top a bit? I think it would look pretty good with a chopped top!!!! Still pretty sweet nonetheless!!!

 

Of course it would look much better with a chopped top. But with a kid on the way, and the lack of skill to learn how to properly do it, it will stay the bubble top it is. With that said, you would be surprised with the stance it has when on the ground that it is not as bulbous. The top will be painted black, as well as the arches. Plus dark tint all around. It really won't be that bad, plus there isn't a hole lot of room with the truck frame and flat floors...

 

this is a really sweet project! i only heard of a morris minor about 2 months ago while looking on youtube for how to's for interior work.

is the mmw arms above the ones for you or are they the regular yota arms? if they're of the same design the placement of your upper mount will kind of be determined by the arms slotted hole. with them being narrowed 2" it's definitely gunna be a tight fit between the frame and spindle with a 2500 bag, but i'm sure you can do it.

i have a piece of 2x3" (most bags are 2.75" collapsed) tubing cut to represent the collapsed size of an airbag, and it has holes drilled that match an airbags bolt holes. i bolt that to the lower mount and then build the upper mount off of it.

 

The above photo of the MMW arms are not mine, however I have gotten them in. I got bare steel ones, narrowed 2" per side. That was about the max they could go. I can't wait to get them on and see how it all works out, the tires currently stuck out 1 3/4", and I really couldn't have gotten any narrower with a wheel, or atleast what I would have been comfortable with. I will get pictures of them up next week when I have better access to internet, still waiting for power to come back on, day 5 now. Hoping to wrench on it this Friday and make some progress, still waiting on the correct drop leafs to arrive. I have the brand new ones for sale if anyone wants them.