First Sneaky Test

The time came that I needed to test that the car went, changed gear, and stopped... so I took it for a sneaky lap around the village.

First off the throttle linkage setup was awful...very sticky. The clutch worked fine, but there was very little feel. The gear shift was fine, but felt very odd. I crawled out of our cul-de-sac and hit the brakes....they stopped the car, worth checking before I headed down the hill! I set off down said hill, at the bottom the brakes felt less good but did stop the car. After a bit of messing about with clutch and gear stick I got the car moving 1st then 2nd.... away I went. Next left turn one to the wider back lane at the back of the village, I could press the load pedal at last...yep, it accelerated alright!... but the front wheels were fighting each other, tracking was way out. Again on braking the car tugged this way and that. Left again and 2 lads were delivering newspapers... they gave the little mini a very quizzical look as it revved away out of the junction...it made me smile. Left again and back to the garage to inspect the car. The temperature was steady, no fluids leaking, so a successful test just:

•           Throttle linkage needs a little work to get it smooth

•           Another go at getting the tracking a little better

•           Brakes need checking

Looking at the brake discs, the pads were only touching on the edges so should bed in. After moving one of the return springs to the throttle pedal, the pedal was nice and smooth. I turned the rod ends in a turn, so it should be a little better on the tracking front.

MoT – take 1

I made the call and booked the MoT. Chris at Zcars recommended Maple Garage at Sproatley, this is the garage they use themselves. This seemed a good idea on 2 fronts, (1) they wouldn’t be surprised by such an unusual mini, and (2) it was a nice 30 minute drive away, giving some scope for bedding the brake pads in.

I set off for the garage.... as soon as I got on the lane out of the village the car was leaping about all over the place. I stopped and tugged the front wheels about, nothing seems loose. I pushed on a little and once on a smoother bit of tarmac all was relatively OK, I concluded the tracking and suspension setup was giving me horrendous bump steer. I drove steady, still getting used to the bike gearshift. It got very confusing at junctions, “what gear am I in???” A couple of miles from the garage I hit a pot hole which jarred the exhaust loose, so that bottomed on the tarmac on every subsequent bump. Also, by this time I had notice the brake pedal had gone very squidgy and I wasn’t getting very much assist from the servo.... I don’t think it was going to pass!

I explained the score to the MoT tester - that I wasn’t expecting a pass... just a list of things to sort. He was good, we went through everything and found the exhaust problem, (the clamp had slipped) and also the source of the brake problem, one of the rear caliper / flexi hose unions was seeping, and needed nipping up tight. The brakes passed on the front efficiency, the hand brake was OK, just the air in the rear system gave very little via the pedal. So the result was:-

•           Rear brake efficiency – just needed tightening up and bleeding

•           Dash headlight main/dip warning working the wrong way round – just needed connections swapping

•           Hazard warning lights not flashing fast enough – load on flasher was too much with all the lights driving direct, driving them via a relay solved this

•           Lock nut on the track control arm loose – shake down problem, just needed tightening

•           Lack of servo assist – turned out to be leaking servo, I removed the servo

•           Loose upper suspension bolt – shake down problem, just needed tightening

•           Fog light not working – needed the contacts cleaning up and bending to grab the bulb properly

•           Headlamp washers squirted the roof not the windscreen – just re-aimed them

All in all, nothing that was too tricky to fix

MoT 2

Off I went again to the MoT, the mini was still leaping around as I hadn’t had time to sort the tracking. The mini passed most on most of the previous fail points, but to my horror the hazard lights failed again, this time one side was failing to flash. I tried to get at the wiring in the garage car park but, it was a dash out job to see what I was doing. So I had to go home with a second fail... very disappointed as I had it working the previous afternoon. It turned out to be a bad crimp to the relay, so probably vibration that caused the fail.

MoT 3 – Third time lucky

It didn’t start well... I got pulled over by the police! I explained I was on the way to my MoT he looked at the documents I had, saw that I had a MoT fail sheet and was happy. The MoT was a 2 minute affair... checked the hazards and gave my a pass! Unfortunately the DVLA system was down and they couldn’t give me a certificate.... but one of the guys (Andy) dropped it round my house the following day once they had got into the DVLA system. The Mini was still twitchy on bumps, but a little better as I had adjusted the tracking in a little further.

Immobiliser

The insurance company insisted that I had a Thatcham Cat II certified immobiliser fitted. This irritated me as I could easily fit one myself... but I needed the certificate from a registered installer to keep the insurance company happy, so doubling the cost of installing one. GRRRR !!

I found Incartech just round the corner from work were Thatcham installers, so I booked it in with them.... it also has the advantage I had an excuse to bring it into work and show the guys.

So the first proper drive was to York, the car behaved its self, but still twitchy, a small problem that had occurred was the CV boot had come off on the near side hub and split on the near side diff. Now I had the insurance people happy and off my back, I could book the car into Zcars for a suspension set up and look at the CV boots. So the following day I dropped the car off with Chris to sort out.

Chris replaced the CV boots, and mentioned they were sometimes troublesome. He also found the engine mounts had began to fail, so replaced them. He hadn’t seen that problem before, so was probably just a one off problem. Chris also found a bolt that had stripped on the front suspension which wasn’t helping me which he replaced.

I picked the car up a week later, WOW, what a transformation!! It was like a completely different animal. It rode choppy tarmac with ease (I’d have been in the hedge the week previously) the car suddenly had the composure to use its performance....now I could open the throttle...whay-hay! What a car... I arrived home with a cheesy grin on my face. Suddenly it was the car I’d been hoping it would be for the last 12 months. All I can say to anyone building a Zcars mini is budget for a proper suspension setup.... money very well spent in my opinion. The following  weekend I took it around a few familiar local roads, what a great little car... I would describe it as like driving an angry wasp! It buzzes like mad every where and changes direction like a house fly, its mad and fast.

First Passenger

My cycling mate Paul was eager to see the finished article, so I popped round and gave him a test run in it. His opinion was “bloody hell, its quick!”. To anyone who has never been in a Lotus seven or something similar, it re-calibrates what they regard as a quick car. A “hot hatch” then becomes a “mildly warmed over hatch”.  He was really impressed by the gear shift, and the incredible speed that I could clutchless shift up the box with the engine screaming away on full chat. Paul did say (well I think he said it, I couldn’t hear him very well)  that “its very noisy”. Yep, it is very noisy... but its not the car to going touring in, its a balls out fun track day toy. When your driving it, it doesn’t seem as loud for some reason. It does get tedious if you are stuck in a line of traffic doing a constant 50 or 60mph, then you wish Yamaha had had the forethought to have an over driven 6th for cruising... but I suppose they can be forgiven for not anticipating their Superbike engine would eventually find a home in the back of a Mini.

Zetec Tiger Cat vs. Zcars Mini R1

No contest, the mini wins...but not on all counts

Performance – Whilst the Tiger had the bhp advantage 165bhp vs. 160bhp, the Mini is a 100kg lighter, couple that with the super fast shifting sequential box of the R1, plus the limited slip diff to put the power down and the Mini is head and shoulders above the Tiger.

Handling – The Tiger was upset by bumpy bends, the clumsy Sierra rear end that it borrowed wasn’t subtle enough for a light car. The steering never felt great, somehow a bit numb. The Mini has sharp steering, although there is a small amount of bump steer (Zcars have designed a new sub frame that solves this now). The rear end feels planted solid, the handling on a mix of roads gives a lot of confidence.

Price – the Mini cost about £500 more than the Tiger build, so comparable.  The Tiger was cheaper to insure, almost half the price.

The build – The Zcars bit went together very well and were of a very good quality, much better than the bits Tiger supplied for their kit. The after market Mini bits are the tricky parts to get the right quality, the wheel arches I got were crap for instance. In terms of difficulty, they were about the same although a lot depends on the state of the donor mini, I only needed to do a little welding and body work. Time wise, again, probably about the same for me but this all depends how much you decide to do on the Mini. 

Living with it – A little early to be sure on this. The Tiger was an OK all rounder; could do a trackday, was OK as a fast road car (although the poor sump clearance spoilt this) and was good as cruiser/tourer. The mini should be a cracking track day car, it is an excellent fast road car, but it isn’t a cruiser. So it depends what you are after. The mini is less at the mercy of the weather being a hard top, so a bit more usable all year round. No reverse is a little annoying at times, but an electric reverse could be fitted.  The mini loves a twisty B road, as did the Tiger, but the Tiger was easy to drive in traffic and was relaxing to drive moderate distances.... the mini is more demanding. One plus is that the mini is better on fuel. The DCOE 45’s of the Tiger threw petrol in the engine, were as the fuel injection of the R1 is a lot for frugal when not on full throttle.

Insurance

I did mention insurance above. I was paying just over £200 for the Tiger on 4500 limited miles per year. The Mini I got down to just over £400. I was insured with Footman-James on the Tiger... I never had to make an accident claim, but the service was good from them and the cover came with breakdown cover as well.... which I did use when I clipped the sump on some debris. Unfortunately Footman-James don’t offer cover on modified cars. Zcars recommend Adrian-Flux on their website, I heard bad stories about Adrian-Flux via the Tiger forum so was a little weary of them. I got a quote of over £600 to start with, they eventually came down to £580. I continued to look elsewhere and found Graham-Sykes. They quoted £150 less than Adrian-Flux, but wanted a Cat II immobiliser fitting. I went back to Adrian-Flux and asked them “what if I fit an immobiliser” and got the answer “oh, you’d have to fit one anyway for the £580 quote”.... not giving the full facts up front REALLY put me off Adrian-Flux! So I went with Graham-Sykes who use a KGM policy.

Graham-Sykes / KGM are pretty thorough in the detail of the car, and driving record. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked as many questions by any insurance company. I’ve never been asked to show a valid MoT certificate for motor insurance before! They wanted copies of my driving licence, details of previous motor insurances, evidence of NCB on my regular car, full details of all modifications to the Mini.  I went for the honest approach (its just not worth risking invalid insurance). I gave them a full description of what the Zcars kit contains, details of what Zcars recommend eg. uprating the brakes to Metro Turbo brakes, and full details of my modifications eg. bucket seats, Minilite alloys etc.