985cc Turbocharged Nova Sprint Car

[novarally]

I agree tbh, shame you cant write the rest of the season off then spend all year/winter soucring the parts and rebuilding.

The car is/was obviously very competitive in that class as it won it a few times iirc!

To be fair I could write the season off now and concentrate on the rebuild, I'd just rather be out there racing.

The car was competitive, of that there's no doubt. It used to win regularly even with 160-odd BHP.

Trouble is in the few years since then, things have moved on dramatically with the Minis, the best of which are making 200-ish BHP.

I have no doubt at all it can win again, but reliability is obviously the priority.

[novarally]

as the car was built using mini metro pistons, there is a really good probability that someone somewhere does forged pistons already for it, so they will cost less to obtain

Correct, they are apparently Metro Van pistons, although why the van would have had a different piston to a normal hatchback I'm not sure (lower compression ratio?).

I've spoken to John at Cambridge Motorsport who supplies custom forged pistons, and he can get me a set made to my requirements for around £500.

[Lewis.]

I think you would be best of sticking in the up to 1400 class, as then you can still be competitive.

and for the cost of a mental LET, i'm sure you could rebuild your engine with a steel bottom end and forged pistons. and if the brazilian engine is a goer, then a steel bottom end, forged pistons and a rather large turbo would be mental! and still cheaper i'd guess then an LET.

[novarally]

I think you would be best of sticking in the up to 1400 class, as then you can still be competitive.

and for the cost of a mental LET, i'm sure you could rebuild your engine with a steel bottom end and forged pistons. and if the brazilian engine is a goer, then a steel bottom end, forged pistons and a rather large turbo would be mental! and still cheaper i'd guess then an LET.

If I was going for an LET (or XE) I'd just buy a complete car, and by selling off all the other bits I don't need, it would end up being a cheaper engine.

[Lewis.]

ah good idea, on something with lots of fancy stuff you could probably make most of your money back.

but would an LET be competitive in the unlimited class?

[Pancho]

this thing deserves a 600bhp let.

[stt]

Correct, they are apparently Metro Van pistons, although why the van would have had a different piston to a normal hatchback I'm not sure (lower compression ratio?).

I've spoken to John at Cambridge Motorsport who supplies custom forged pistons, and he can get me a set made to my requirements for around £500.

are you still considering 16v head too?
have you looked into a custom crank etc, as it might be worth considering a destroked rather than a debored at this stage to give you more area for valves and a lot less strain on the bottom end too, the slightly less piston speed will mean less chamber fill but that can be overcome by boost!

[Southie]

Colin what's the cheapest option? A 1.0 rebuild or a revised 1.2/1.3 rebuild??

Personally love the fact this is a unique engine build and feel that if you took that away then it wouldn't be as exciting for you and you'd end up breaking or selling on eBay IMO.

[burgo]

16v head slips straight on a 12st block

[novarally]

Colin what's the cheapest option? A 1.0 rebuild or a revised 1.2/1.3 rebuild??

Personally love the fact this is a unique engine build and feel that if you took that away then it wouldn't be as exciting for you and you'd end up breaking or selling on eBay IMO.

This is half the problem at the moment, I've got no quotes to work from, hopefully BTEC will sort some numbers out for me soon. The possibility of destroking is certainly something I will discuss with them, I'm outside my experience zone with this level of technical stuff.

Yes, I would like to go 16v, but only if there will be a significant power advantage. I'm sure the 16v head will weigh a fair bit more, plus it would need new inlet and exhaust manifolds of course.

I have a couple of 16v heads and a complete 1400 16v engine. In fact the head from this one I've got would look rather good;