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I recently purchased a 1959 Morris 850 that has been a racecar for the majority of its life. The car came with a 998 Cooper engine (thin flange) and an 1128 gearbox. The engine and gearbox had been sat in a barn with the clutch housing removed and it had been a good home for all the moths in the barn. Needless to say I needed to disassemble it all and make sure it was clean and ready to go. This was a great time to rebuild the gearbox and replace bearings and shafts as necessary. I went with the upgraded Layshaft from minispares and a new main shaft and all new bearings. The box has the standard ratio, I may look to swap for a close ratio in the future. Right now my main objective is to get everything back together and have a running car. The block and head seem in great shape with flat top pistons (+0.40) and Kent 544 cam. The head is a 12g202 that has been worked considerably with oversized rimflow valves. The compression ratio works out to 10.95:1.

On to the body. The shell had a poorly designed bolt in cage with 1 3/8 erw tubing. I cut out the old cage and have designed an 1 1/2” .095 DOM roll cage that I will weld in. I do have a few spots of rust that I plan to address before I weld in the cage. Once the cage is in I’ll be mounting a Sabelt X-pad seat.

I appreciate any input or advice from you seasoned racers. I am most interested in making the safest car I can, and will then work to develop the car for more performance.

Cheers

A few photos of the project so far.

Looks like a great project!

Glad to see you are thinking about the sensible stuff before making it go quicker.

A welded in cage is certainly a good start, a well designed cage will make the car safer & more rigid which will pay dividends when it come to handling. Of course a good seat is a must, make sure the subframe, like the cage is welded in & Very secure I have seen a few seats pull out of the floor before today. It's always best to mount the seatbelt harness shoulder straps directly to the cage & make sure you use large spreader plates on the bolts that go through the floor.

I am sure that there will be loads of stuff that I have missed, but I guess that's a start.

Good luck,

M

Thanks for the advice, Mark. Much appreciated and I’ll definitely do a solid mount for the seat tied into the roll cage structure.

I’ve always felt the brake pedal was a touch small on the mini. I wanted just a little larger pedal pad to spread the load so it’s not such a pressure point on the bottom of the racing boot. I cut original pad off the pedal and then cut out and shaped a new pad that should be a little better.

I also wanted a little larger pad on the throttle pedal and I had some spare flat carbon fiber. I flattened out the original pad and drilled holes to mount the carbon to the throttle pedal. Covered in grip tape for traction.

Nice work.

If you want ispiration for your rollcage build then search for Urchfab on Youtube and his MiniMiglia build.
Never seen someone building a cage to fit that well before.

Mini Mad Swede wrote: ↑Wed Feb 16, 2022 2:10 am If you want ispiration for your rollcage build then search for Urchfab on Youtube and his MiniMiglia build.
Never seen someone building a cage to fit that well before.

Thanks for the recommendation! I just watched the build all the way through and it has given me some ideas. I won’t be getting my cage as tight against the shell as he did, he is quite the craftsman.

Been trying to make some progress. I mocked up the seat placement with some wood so I can make sure I fit. I’ll need to make some adjustments as the shoulder bolster hits the b pillar.

The modified pedals are painted and ready to have some grip tape applied.

I also recently ordered an intake manifold from maniflow for my 40 dcoe but the piece that showed up was 2” short.

I also have a ultra light flywheel from minispares that will need a balancing with the crank assembly before I put the engine back together.

I was searching through the local photographers website and found a photo of the 850 being raced by the previous owner. This was taken in 2011 at High Plains Raceway in Colorado.

The mounts for my seat angle slightly under the seat so you can get it a bit closer to the tunnel.

Oneball wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 6:27 pm The mounts for my seat angle slightly under the seat so you can get it a bit closer to the tunnel.

Thanks for the photos! I will likely use a solution like this as well. Does your seat have the large shoulder bolsters as well?

Yes it does.

Thanks for the photos. That gives a good reference to work from.

I cut some new templates and tried a few different seating positions. I also had to take out the hand brake for now. Hopefully I can fit it after the seat is fully mounted.

I was able to move the seat far enough towards the middle of the car that I’m no longer hitting on the b pillar. It’s more comfortable and more in line with steering wheel and pedals now as well. With my helmet on I have 3” between the top of the helmet and the roof. I believe regulations for the local racing club require the top of the roll hoop to be 2” above the helmet. So as long as I keep my main hoop within an inch of the roof line I will be ok.

Rolled the 850 out into the driveway to work on stripping more of the bed liner material out of the interior. Lots of work still before I can weld in the roll cage. Took advantage of the nice light and took a few glamour shots.

I like the wheels. Is your headlight feeding the carb?

Oneball wrote: ↑Sat Mar 12, 2022 10:58 am I like the wheels. Is your headlight feeding the carb?

Hey Oneball,

The Compomotives are some of my favorite wheels. These actually came on my other racecar, but I felt like they went better with the blue than the BRG. I do also have the 10x6 Minilites as a second set for the 850.

That is a great idea about feeding the carbs with the headlight buckets. I will double check the regulations for both clubs I’ll race with to make sure there is no issue with that.

My new manifold has also arrived from Maniflow. There was a bit of a mixup with the shipping and my manifold was shipped to a racer in the PNW and I received his. Luckily we were able to sort it out and send each other the correct manifolds.

On to the next project. I have a swiftune oil catch can and I needed to adapt a rocker cover to work with the setup. I found a 1” mandrel bend 90° for the back takeoff. I think it turned out well. Now just to figure out where the ST badge needs to go.

Started working on the new roll cage. This is my first time building a cage and I’m taking my time and making sure I get all the measurements right. Took me a couple hours to get the main hoop bent, but it’s within an 1/8” of what I had planned for on total width.

Spent some more time in the garage getting the roll cage bent up and tacked in. Still need to work out the rear diagonals and door bars and a few other pieces.