Jared's GTS

[Francois]

Seems like all our Minis start out with the acquisition of an engine; this build was to be no different.

My son Jared is turning 16 this year and is very much involved with my builds as well as Mini events in Cape Town (when school work permits). He also works at Dennis Nathan (Killarney Race Track) during school holidays. Safe to say he is a Classic Mini enthusiast.

When a largely complete GTS engine became available from Brandon in Woodstock we put our hands up and parted with the cash. There was no urgency in this build but we made steady progress in spare time and in between my builds with stripping, bagging and tagging;

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Keeping in mind that this will be Jared's first car it was decided to keep the engine largely standard.

I used;

• 60 thou oversize pistons as I had a decent set on the shelf (no definitely not Mazda pistons) fitted with Hasting rings.
  
• The block was bored to 60 thou,
  
• New cam bearings and new welsh plugs fitted.
  
• The block deck had a slight skim just to make sure it is true.
  
• The head is a pretty stock standard and unmolested 12G940 fitted with new valve guides and valve stem seals.
  
• A GEG300 copper head gasket with new head bolts and nuts was used in this build.
  
• Standard GTS camshaft.
  
• Crankshaft was machined to 10thou/10thou.
  
• A new clutch was fitted as a matter of course.  
  
• Gearbox was checked out by Dennis Nathan and found to be in excellent condition; an unexpected bonus.
  

We started by stripping all the old paint from the block and head.






Nothing like a wire brush to make it really clean;







Nice and clean;







Gearbox pressure washed;