Car Homologation process

For this year, after having two bad years racing more or less interesting and competitive cars, I decided to build car from scratch, hoping to get it accepted in the series.

As for the base I took group 5 base Mini used in british one make series Mini Miglia, which bodyworks was nicely produced and provided by James at No-Grip. With little bit of search found the most powerful BMC A-series based naturally asperated engine available today. bored and stroked 1275cc block makes up 1480cc and with KAD's 16valve dual overhead cam head makes almost up to 200bhp and over 120 lb-ft of torque. Of course this all needs strong gearbox, so 4 speed straight cut serves well. As engine screams rather high, very low profile 10" Avon racing slicks were selected for make the final gear ratios fit nicely close together. Not to mention amout grip 235mm wide slicks provide too. Having such powerful engine, calls for stiffen up quite few original Mini parts in drive train and that makes some more weight, but even with 740kg homologation weight, it's not that heavy car.

Kad Mini feels very good and handles beuatifully as soon as you get tyres warm up. As there's quite lot of grip, car needs quite front balanced brake balance and by having correct camber and toe in settings, it handles as well as FWD car can; going just where you point the front wheels. This is exactly what I targeted when constructed the car. For the nature of the races being longer, I equipped the car with biggest racing safety fuel tank I could find, unfortunately 60 liters ain't that much for KAD engine, which is thirsty for to start and rpm limit being in 9300 does not help the situation much.

Car got homologated for the series in time and right now Geoffers signed to race with it as well, so it seems to be competitive enough. Small technical problems have been found, but they will be fixed somewhere in mid season as they do not cause much performance issues.

We'll see in first race how well I can cope up with a lot bigger competition; There's 1600cc Escorts, 2 liter Alfas, 911S, 2.8 liter Opels and BMW's and even one monstrous 6.8 liter Mercedes signed for the championship.