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It has just occurred to me that some of you guys might be interested in my other project ....She is a 1972 GT with the Abingdon fitted ST pluspac `S` tuning kit, i rescued this car from the back garden of a friends house about 8 years ago, she had been in dry storage for about 16 years prior to being left in his garden for two years before i got her.
The shell was in remarkable condition but scabby, i had to replace the boot floor, both sills, rear valance, bootlid, door skins and one A panel, other than that the shell is original, even the wings!
The engine was a completely different story though , the car was fitted with a 998 cooper in the late 70`s because the original modified GT engine began to rattle and smoke badly, he did however have the sense to keep the original engine under a bench in his garage...this luckily came with the car when i got her and is the main reason she still sits at home in the garage some 6 years after i had finished restoring the bodyshell ! The engine in this car was uprated to `S` spec at Abingdon in `72 along with a few other optional ST parts...Twin tanks and an engine stabiliser, the Pluspac was a great way to get `S` performance without breaking into the engine too much...however it obviously put a lot of strain on the bottom end, which if it had been an `S`engine would of course had a decent crank to match the power.
The reason this car still sits where she does is my search for a reasonably priced `S` crank, i just could not justify spending £1,000 on a crank, especially with a daughter at University!...still, things are now improving a bit so i might be able to get her on the road in the next year or two
Anyway a few pics for you of the shell as she is.....

Very nice.

Great stuff, there's soon going to be a 1275 GT section in the Mini Cooper Register and not before time.

Very nice hope you get a crank, so you can finish this nice project




Jens Christian

Pete wrote:Great stuff, there's soon going to be a 1275 GT section in the Mini Cooper Register and not before time.

Hear hear agree

That looks fantastic. I don't think you can blame the "GT" crank for not taking the extra power from the S pack though. That is just plain rubbish.

Quality!!!

Vegard wrote:That looks fantastic. I don't think you can blame the "GT" crank for not taking the extra power from the S pack though. That is just plain rubbish.

I came to the conclusion the crank was probably at fault because apart from the crank and rods the engine is virtually an `S` lump anyway, if the standard crank is perfectly capable of putting up with the extra performance from the pluspac why were the `S` engines fitted with EN40B cranks? surely this was because the bottom end needed beefing up to cope with the extra top- end performance .
The pluspac `S` actually boosted the performance of the GT to more than a standard 1275 S !, so to my way of thinking the weakest link between a 1275S and the GT is the crank and rods, but then i`m a body man not an engineer

Stunning quality of workmanship.

COOPERMAN wrote:
but then i`m a body man not an engineer

Ahh - THAT explains the quality of the car

Is there such a thing as sex on axle stands.?
Your 1275 GT answers that question without fail. Nuff said.

Cheers guys, perhaps i should try and get her finished next year

The standard crank will take a lot more abuse than the S pack can throw at it.
Doesn't matter, what does is that the car is absolutely stunning

OK then Vegard...what crank do you reckon i should go for instead?, any ideas greatfully accepted

Back in the 80s when I was stage rallying I had a semi short stroke 1300 motor that had an offset ground 1300 crank with S rods fitted and on a good day was good for 94 horses at the wheels.
The crank was cross drilled, hardened and obviously balanced. I can honestly say that I never had any problems with the crank at all considering the thrashing it had.
I suppose the secret is good preperation and frequent oil changes.
It depends what sort of use the engine will be put to at the end of the day. Horses for courses etc.
A series crank preperation has improved greatly over the last 30 years though.

Really like that car, i have a soft spot for the 70's cars as they are the one i remember best from my youth

I like the garish colours of the 70's cars, i also remember we used poo poo the gt's as they were the poor mans S back in the day.

But i would now eat my words from yesteryear and have a early 10" wheel gt in a flash

hello cooperman , a beautifull shell .
crank wise , over on turbo minis i think a fair few people run stock a plus cranks ,at far higher bhp than a s. personally i run a stock 'a+ turbo crank and rods and omega cast pistons , this engine revs to 7200 ,max power rpm is 6800 and it makes well over 220 bhp .its been together since 1998 ,and no problems regarding the crank or rods or pistons.

regards
robert.

Cheers for your comments and ideas guys, i may go down the route of getting the original crank reground and tuftrided instead of the elusive `S` crank solution i was going to go for

COOPERMAN wrote:Cheers for your comments and ideas guys, i may go down the route of getting the original crank reground and tuftrided instead of the elusive `S` crank solution i was going to go for

Please do, and get this nice car OUT of the garage for all to see, and you to enjoy

The 1300GT, Riley/MG 1300 and the Midgets/Sprites all ran with 70 odd bhp and a standard EN16T crank - that's why BL made the big ends larger. The best crank is probably the 1275 Metro A+ as they're just about unbreakable. The S stuff is nice, but it's so very old now.

Lovely restoration - I do like an early GT. I had one 20 years ago, LHK497J in VW Marsa red with a black vinyl roof, white GT stripes and the correct RoStyle wheels.