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Car Forum / MINI / November 2004Alternative distributors for Mini engines
Those that know me also know that I've been recurving and rebuilding Lucas, Hitachi and Bosch distributors for use in Mini engines. Well, over the last few months I have been working with a company developing a brand new CNC machined drop-in distributor for Mini engines. The beauty of this device is that is fully electronic, that is to say the coil trigger, advance curve and vacuum curve are all programmed in. The prototype has 16 different advance curves programmed in, suitable for small bore, big bore, Cooper S and modified engines (4 for each). There should be a built-in curve suitable for any naturally aspirated BMC A Series engine. I have explored the market and I think this product can be offered at slightly less than a mechanical Aldon distributor (no vacuum, points and one curve) and substanially less than a Pertronix kit and major overhaul/recurve of a worn out Lucas. The only question is, how many people would be interested in buying one? Let me know, eh? If anyone is going to be at Leguna Seca this weekend, track down #31 driven by Bob Beauchemin, he has my prototype if you want to have a look at it. Marcel Chichak marcel@starchak.ca www.telusplanet.net/~chichm How much?  Signature_________________________________ http://austinmini.ositech.net Looking for cheap Austin Mini, Wagon, Clubman, Mokes and other variants for sale in the USA. > Those that know me also know that I've been recurving and rebuilding > Lucas, Hitachi and Bosch distributors for use in Mini engines. Well, [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > marcel@starchak.ca > www.telusplanet.net/~chichm > How much? Less than an Aldon! Read the post! Thanks for your input Nicholas but I am addressing the author and not you and you had nothing credible to add to my question. Signature_________________________________ http://austinmini.ositech.net Looking for cheap Austin Mini, Wagon, Clubman, Mokes and other variants for sale in the USA. >> How much? > > Less than an Aldon! Read the post! > Thanks for your input Nicholas but I am addressing the author and not you > and you had nothing credible to add to my question. Be nice boys. Our intention is to price below the competition, ie around $330 US. The exact price will be determined when I find out how big the market is. Thank you for answering my price inquiry. Signature_________________________________ http://austinmini.ositech.net Looking for cheap Austin Mini, Wagon, Clubman, Mokes and other variants for sale in the USA. >> Thanks for your input Nicholas but I am addressing the author and not you >> and you had nothing credible to add to my question. > > Be nice boys. Our intention is to price below the competition, ie > around $330 US. The exact price will be determined when I find out how > big the market is. > Those that know me also know that I've been recurving and rebuilding > Lucas, Hitachi and Bosch distributors for use in Mini engines. Well, [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > driven by Bob Beauchemin, he has my prototype if you want to have a > look at it. A programmable version would be very interesting. Why settle for 4 presets for a given engine when you could design a custom curve. Maybe a version 2 with PC software and some kind of interface... Anyway, I think the best thing to do would be to get in touch with minispares or minisport to sell it. Nick! > A programmable version would be very interesting. Why settle for 4 > presets for a given engine when you could design a custom curve. Because there are lots of programmable ignition systems on the market already, none of which are priced for the car-hobby market. Programmable ignition is only of use to someone with access to a dynamometer, otherwise there is no way of knowing whether a change is making an improvement. I use a DTA engine management system on my dyno, and it really is the cat's patoot for controlling ignition. But, an optimized ignition map is only suitable for that particular engine running under specific conditions. Engines used on the street under variable conditions (temperature, altitude, humidity, fuel composition etc) cannot use optimized maps, but require something generally suited to average operating conditions. The target market for the unit I'm working on is not the hard-core engine tuner, but the large number of Miniacs that have worn out Lucas point-type distributors. There are precious few people with the tools and skills necessary to rebuild and recurve mechanical distributors so this unit addresses that problem. It'll be a complete drop-in ready distributor: if a Miniac has the skills to change a set of points, they will have no difficulty installing this thing. There are enough pre-programmed curves, 16, to suit just about any A series engine, certainly more suitable than the one curve offered by the off-the-shelf generic mechanical units. > Maybe a version 2 with PC software and some kind of interface... Now that'd be the cat's patoot, and I'd be right there at the head of the line to play with it, but as I said, how many have a dyno to get feedback? I think the ultimate would be to have a knock sensor for limit detection... but how many of those could be sold? I always have to remind myself that we're dealing with a 50 year-old engine design (65 if you go back to the Stovebolt 6 where the A series was stolen from ;-) so there's little point in trying to drag it up to 21st century technology... he said while simultaniously working on an 8-port EFI 1330 ;-) > Anyway, I think the best thing to do would be to get in touch with > minispares or minisport to sell it. I'll be sending Chris Harper (Minisport) the prototype when it comes back from Leguna Seca. > Because there are lots of programmable ignition systems on the market > already, none of which are priced for the car-hobby market. > Programmable ignition is only of use to someone with access to a > dynamometer, otherwise there is no way of knowing whether a change is > making an improvement. How difficult is it to include a knock sensor in your design so that customers can choose the curve you recommend as closest to their engine and then set it up a little bit advanced and let the knock sensor keep the timing advanced as far as possible? If not for the "replacement market", such a setup would be ideal for the performance market whilst avoiding the need for extensive dyno tuning and programming. I used to have a 1275 (probably actually a 1310 or 1340, I never measured it) running on LPG. In America you call LPG propane, though it's got anything up to 50% butane in it here. Obviously the timing requirements are quite different to petrol and they also vary with the proportion of butane in your LPG this week. As it was, I just ran a distributor with fairly limited total advance and set the static advance fairly aggressively. I had a pretty high compression ratio - it used to ping horribly on petrol before I converted it - so that was enough to get me plenty of power. I adjusted themixture with an oxygen sensor and a multimeter and it went far better on straight LPG than it ever had on petrol. There's not much market for distributors for LPG on an A series motor, but it's an example of an extreme condition. If you can build something which can be persuaded to deliver optimum timing on LPG, then it will run right on just about anything! Graham, what state is your car rego'd in, How do you find the total economy of the LPG vs performance? Did you have any trouble finding a suitable tank for the boot of a mini? Have you concidered superchargeing? Marcel, I recon you'd unload quite a few units in Oz we have a lot of worn out mech dizzys in clubies over here. Regards Paul in NSW OZ. > Graham, what state is your car rego'd in, The car was registered in Victoria. I did the local TAFE course in LPG fitting and maintenance whilst I was studying engineering at uni and converted the car just before the requirement for registered workshops came in here in 1992. > How do you find the total economy of the LPG vs performance? I was struggling to get 200km out of a 24 litre petrol tank (under the rear floor) in a 1275 auto Moke, so I looked into putting a second petrol tank (in the left side pannier like most Mokes) in it and replacing the SU. When I realised I could convert the thing to run straight gas with a decent size gas tank for about $500 of parts and a few days work, the way ahead was clear. > Did you have any trouble finding a suitable tank for the boot of a mini? I fitted an 88 litre water capacity (70 litres LPG) tank across the load area between the rear shockers. It had an obscene range. As a student, during term time I sometimes went more than a month between fills. On holidays I could afford to travel serious distances, paying about 2c/km. > Have you concidered superchargeing? I scarpped the car in 1996 shortly after I graduated and bought a 1990 Nissan Pulsar. That car has now done about 170,000km on LPG, paying the conversion cost many times over. I borrow a trailer to carry lawnmowers or bicycles. For the money saved, the inconvenience is trivial. > Nick! > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > making an improvement. I use a DTA engine management system on my > dyno, and it really is the cat's patoot for controlling ignition. A dyno isn't the only way to measure the power curve of an engine. There are a couple of very clever software solutions out there that can do the job with a 1/4 mile run, a laptop and a connection to the coil. Measuring the acceleration of the car is the key. I use PowerDyn, which is very reliable and gives an extremely good approximation or power and torque output: http://jcdperformance.free.fr/ (sorry, it's all in french, but there is an english page that explains the basic principles). A friend of mine is actually prototyping a simple programmable ignition curve system. Basically what it is supposed to do is this: - User enters 2 ignition advance curves - Do a quick acceleration run with each curve, same gear, same variables all around - The box gets a signal from the coil, and records an engine acceleration curve (time/rpm) for both runs - a line of leds indicates for steps of say 500rpm which curve provides the best acceleration - Modify curve as required, and try again The system is quite crude (no actual power plot), but it should work well enough to compare two runs with different curve configurations. It could also be used to compare the results with 2 carb needles for examples. I'm sure I'd be good for 2 or 3. For those who don't want to do their own search, Minimania sells the Aldons for about $325 and Minispares sells them for about $225. Just curious Marcel, what kind of bearings are you using in the distributors? Cheers, Kelley >Those that know me also know that I've been recurving and rebuilding >Lucas, Hitachi and Bosch distributors for use in Mini engines. Well, [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] >marcel@starchak.ca >www.telusplanet.net/~chichm |
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