6/26/13

Ok, Mini news.  I was walking around campus the other day when I decided to stop in at the desk of the dude in charge of the annual BNSF Family Day Car Show.  I wanted to show him the picture of the Mini and basically show off what I'm up to.  He was only passingly familiar with the cars and so I had to school him on the thing.  I told him about the Honduh kit and how I'm kind of leaning back towards going that route.  Oh, the Haynes manual and David Vizard book arrived the other day.  After looking through both of them, I'm not so sure I want to mess with the stock engine.  The clutch makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me yet.  Perhaps after I've seen it in pieces it will, but for now it is even more voodoo than an automatic!  So, that was why I mentioned the Honduh to the dude.  Ok, so after talking to him, I stopped in another gear-head’s cube to show him the car.  After telling me that he used to drive one, he asked if I was going to put the Honduh motor in it.  I laughed and said I was giving it some thought.  Well, after those two conversations, I went to my desk and had a look at the Mini Mania sight again.  I fingered out a way to cut a couple thousand bucks out of the conversion wish list.  If I forego the big 9.4” front brakes, and drop the big brake kit for the rear since I've already got the alloy drums, I won't need the 13” wheel and tire package.  That cuts the price down by… well, I don’t have the actual numbers on me, but I'm sure it was 3 to 4 thousand bucks.  Also helping to shave money from the budget is the fact that the “Cooper S” 7.4” brake kit comes with all the bits to finish out the front suspension… all the stuff the VTEC installation kit doesn’t include that is.  I sent John a text asking if he thought the 7.4” brakes would be adequate with the Honduh engine we have.  He was on board for that plan when I mentioned we could use 10” wheels over those brakes.  We also discussed how the fact that the Civic VX which donated this engine and transmission has really tall “fuel economy” gears which will be mitigated by the tiny wheels we’ll be running.  Anyhoo, I think we’ve talked me back into the Honduh engine for the Mini.  If I remember correctly, I'm looking at just shy of $6,000.00 for the whole kitten caboodle.  Now the question is: do I buy it now and run up a single credit card or wait and get it piecemeal hoping that the prices don’t escalate?  Well, I've got to go do some actual work so I'm going to shut down for a bit.  I may have more later.  Ok, it is now 1530 h and I have not been to my desk at all today.  I do not plan to go there now either.  No, I'm currently sitting in a store room across the hall from a room where a group is using one of my projectors.  As soon as they are done, I'm going home.  So let me see, where was I before I had to go do some work?  Ah, right.  Do I drop $6,000.00 now for a project I shouldn’t even touch until Lil' Wiggly, at the very least, is done on the chance that prices are going to go up or do I wait until I'm actually ready for the parts and run the risk of paying more for them?  It’s a dilly of a pickle, indeed.  The smart thing to do would be to wait, on the off chance that the project goes away for some reason before it ever gets built.  I can't really see a scenario where I would get rid of it, but Juan never knows.  Anyhoo, there’s all of that going on.  And I guess I'm going to call it a rant on that note.