In article ,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
Unlike you, I had loads of early Minis.

My first car was Mini, I have had three in all.

You are remarkably ill informed about them, then.

Later Minis with larger engines and more torque put more strain on the
largely unchanged 'box. Racing ones use a highly modified one.
Synthetic oils didn't improve things at all over a properly serviced
one using dino oils.

That is total nonsense. Oil in a Mini, or 1100, could be degraded
seriously after 1,000 miles. Using pure synthetic the oils stays
undegraded.

More ********. Mini engines lasted just as well as any other A series if
serviced by the book - which didn't include 1000 mile oil changes. And the
gearboxes were pretty well as reliable as in other A Series applications.
I ran several very secondhand Minis into the ground, and it was rust which
killed them, not mechanics.

Only when the beefier drive shafts on the 1100 came did the Cooper come
about, both in 1962 - using the same shafts. The 850 shafts could not
handle a powerful engine, as many boy-racer DIYers found out when doing
a DIY racing head change - the original shafts could not handle the
extra power.

Sigh. We can add basic engineering knowledge to your long list of things
you know little about. It's torque that kills such components, not power.
And 'tuned' engines rarely increase maximum torque - especially home
modified ones. For that you need to increase the capacity or use some form
of forced induction.

--
*If horrific means to make horrible, does terrific mean to make terrible?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.