Recently bought myself a Coupe from a nice Gentleman from Lincolnshire.

Having been into Minis for many years, I was aware of the vehicles from books and magazines.

Alas, my Mini is slowly being reclaimed by the soil from which is came, and having seen a couple of rough looking Coupes advertised, I decided to start looking for something to swap the mechanicals into.

Car came up, we went to look, we bought it (thanks must go to my long suffering girlfriend who drove my grown-up car home). Car was first registered in 1990 and has done less than 6000 miles since.

It came with 12 months MOT and some Tax. Work so far has been sorting out slightly scary handling and rattle hunting, and we have just swapped engine for saucier number out of Mini. So far I have been very impressed with quality of kit and obvious attention to detail during build.

Adventures so far have been the drive home (possibly the furthest its been in a while), a day out to Minisport for their 40th aniversary open day (nice parallel with Cox) and drive to Cumbria for engine swap.

The car grabs a lot of attention, with the most common question being 'what is it?', although one lady asked if it was a TR7 - must have been the door handles. I still flash Minis, as was the practice in Issigonis' box, but I tend to get puzzled looks back.

I'll try and post a few pictures of car and engine swap in due course.

Dan Ferguson[/img]

Welcome Dan.

Looking forward to seeing the pictures.

Can anybody give me any advice on suspension geometry and tyre pressures.

Car has adjustable tracking (obviously) and castor and runs on 175/55 -13s.

I don't think the car has ever really been set up properly - indeed, first check showed huge toe-out on the rear, which I have remedied before it stopped threatening and actually killed me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Dan.

A quick summery which would be a good starting point

Front castor i think i run 6 degrees was a little while since i measured it and cannot find my setup sheet
1.5 degrees negative all round
2mm toe in on each wheel on the front
2mm toe in on each wheel on the rear, but parallel is great fun for throttle controlled steering, start with 2mm toe in to start and slowly creep up on the parallel as its not to everyones liking. under no circumstances have toe out on the rear as this will be lethal and massive roll oversteer.

Make sure you bushes are good and no play etc as a Coupe will get very nervous if there is play/give especially on the rear.

Tyre pressures
20 front
24 rear a good starting point its what i currently run.

Also worth checking for bump steer when you get time but with the above set up there should be minimum to zero on the rear allowing for different tolerances on peoples cars etc if your using the locking bars, as these only work effectively for one camber/toe setting venture too far away and it all starts to go wrong.

I have tried 2 degrees negative on the rear but have now gone back to 1.7 as a happy compromise for my preffereed style

WEST

West

Can you adjust the rear camber on the standard setup? I was changing the oil on mine today and (whilst I haven't checked yet) it looks like the rears are running positive camber! I need to check and have a poke around in any case but it would be useful to know where the adjustment is if any.

Regardd

David