My thoughts as well, the new hoops look "weaker" than the old style .

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

I haven't used the MIG much except for some tack welding and welding the cage mounting plates to the car. I use the TIG for everything else. I've bent the tubing using a JDsquared tubing bender.
I agree that the way they are now they do seam to be a bit weaker than the old set up, but I have thought of that. I hate to admit this but I will, I made a little mistake last night. I got a little to anxious with the TIG and the camera last night. I welded the tubes on more than I should have, and then it looked so cool I had to take some pics and post them. What I meant to do was test fit the tubes to check angles, height and fitment of everything to make sure it was going to work as planned. Then I was going to take those tubes off drill some 1" holes in the 1.5" horizontal tubes at the angle I determined. Then build some more hoops that and longer and extend all the way through the horizontal tube and then weld the hoops in on both sides of the horizontal tube. That should be plenty strong enough. So I am still going to do that, it's just going to require a little more grinding, so no big deal really. So I will do that before I make my tabs for the coil overs to mount to. I am also going to add some more gussetting when I pull the engine out and finish up all the welds on the subframe. I will probably avoid the strut tower brace, I don't really want another thing to take apart if I want to pull the engine out. As it is I'll have to remove quite a few things to get the engine out, including the intake manifold. A strut tower brace shouldn't be needed anyway if the hoop is attached firmly to the towers of the Mini subframe. I've already put in a piece of 1.5 in tubing between the two towers behind the engine.

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email - turbomini@gmail.com
http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/TurboOrangie/

67 Traveller - Needs restoration
www.victoria-chiropractors.ca

Awesome fabrication!! I also agree on porn!

You have some nice fabbing toys too by the sounds of things...

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Answer the Question....
BUT always Question the Answer

Thank you to those who questioned the strength. I shouldn't have gotten ahead of myself and done it the easy way, I don't do that very often, but I always regret it when I get lazy. So this evening I took about 3 hours and I made some new hoops, cut out the old ones, carefully cut some holes to drop the hoops through the 1.5" tubing so I could weld it top and bottom. Now they will be plenty strong enough. I will weld them in probably tomorrow sometime. Then I'll just add a little more bracing or gussetting when I have the engine and subby out of the car to finish up all the welds that I can't get to when the car is together.

What do you think now?

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email - turbomini@gmail.com
http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/TurboOrangie/

67 Traveller - Needs restoration
www.victoria-chiropractors.ca

Gotta love that JD2 bender Nigel, they are the dukz gutz in my book.

Cheers,
Tricky

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"Not Speeding Officer..........Qualifying"

Nice (as usual)! I also realised that strut braces are much more important on a macpherson strut, whereas this is just a coilover, so you're quite right - what you've done is (I imagine, as a bystander) plenty strong enough, given that the steering is controlled by the mini suspension arms.

This is like weekly episodes of American Chopper, without the familial bickering, celebrity posing and poor workmanship - I shall stay tuned for the next exciting installment.

Last night I welded in the new coil over hoop top and bottom, what I could do with the subby in the car. I also picked up my modified/rebuilt Mini radiator from the rad shop today. I placed one cut in the lower stock Honda radiator hose and flipped the longer piece end for end and it made the perfect lower rad hose in my application. The shorter piece that I cut off worked great at the top rad hose. How amazing is that! This Honda swap is practically a direct bolt in!

The Mini radiator was rotated 90 degrees, I had the inlet and outlet moved, the bottom left corner reduced to create some clearance for the grill, I had the filler cap moved, and the drain removed. It will be easiest to just pull the bottom rad hose. The core was replaced with a performance 3 core radiator. The calculations that were done at the rad shop indicated this radiator has twice the cooling capacity of the stock Honda donor cars radiator. Which seams good since it doesn't get the most direct air flow, and I will probably do some performance modifications at some point and I don't want to change radiators then. I will be adding some shrouding and an electric fan as well to help with cooling. I am not going to paint the radiator until I am sure I don't have to modify it anymore.

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email - turbomini@gmail.com
http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/TurboOrangie/

67 Traveller - Needs restoration
www.victoria-chiropractors.ca

Yeah sure I'm sure once everything is modified it will be a bolt it conversion
I never thought the mini radiator was that good if I was doing the conversion I would have assumed the mini rad would be the 1st thing binned. It dose look good all bare metal .
It doesn't really look like theirs much more to do is their

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

Kennomini - I know it doesn't look like much left, but there are plenty more small things to do. But I'm definitely over the hump. I don't think the rest of it should be too challenging.

Tonight I made my tabs for the coil overs, I made a couple then decided to go more heavy duty so I ran out of time to weld them in tonight.

Here are a couple pics.

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email - turbomini@gmail.com
http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/TurboOrangie/

67 Traveller - Needs restoration
www.victoria-chiropractors.ca

You are doing a great job mate, keep up the good work!!

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68 Mini
70 Moke

That's better than how I thought they were going to be mounted I thought the mount would've been directly under the hoops but this is much better, now i feel silly .

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

mate everytime i look at your progress on this i start drooling...that weldwork is pure PORN btw

nice work mate...you don't muck around!

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00' Forester GT

I am happy with where I welded the tabs finally, it took some thinking, but I've mounted them in a location that allows me to make and additional bracket/adaptor that will allow more adjustability if I need it. The car is sitting lower that it will be when I drive it.
I cut up the header I had and started using the components to build a new head that will fit the car better. No good pictures of it yet.

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email - turbomini@gmail.com
http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/TurboOrangie/

67 Traveller - Needs restoration
www.victoria-chiropractors.ca

I'm hoping to finish up the collector tonight and then I'll have to figure out if I'm going to paint the header or have some kind of a fancy coating put on it. I started with an aftermarket header that came on my donor car, however it just wouldn't fit nicely in the Mini. So I decided to rearrange the header instead of notching the bodywork. I spent a fair bit of time sitting and looking at the bends and figuring out what to do. Then I got busy with a sharpie marker, angle grinder, plasma cutter and TIG welder, I spend a few evenings and it's nearly done.

_________________
email - turbomini@gmail.com
http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/TurboOrangie/

67 Traveller - Needs restoration
www.victoria-chiropractors.ca

A nice set of Tri-Y's there Nigel - good work Ol' Son!

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"Not Speeding Officer..........Qualifying"