SEMA 2016: Nerd’s Eye View – Revolution Mini Works Project Mini
Every once in a while, there’s a vehicle that really catches my eye at SEMA. A vehicle that is something different than everything else at the show that year. A few years ago, it was Texas Dave’s Pikes Peak Evo. This year, it was the Revolution Mini Works Project Mini situated in the Dynapack booth.
So what is this thing? It’s a built-from-scratch tube chassis race car in the basic shape of a Mini powered by a Mini engine. Otherwise, there’s a ton of hand-built goodness with a lot of attention to detail. The result is a 1700lb, 500+hp, and RWD bundle of awesomeness.
There are a lot of little things which require extra effort but add up to improved performance. There’s a mounting bracket which holds the brake duct inlet. The duct inlet has a bit of a radius/trumpet on its entrance to enhance the airflow into the duct. The upper control arm and upper shock mounting point all have multiple locations to adjust the geometry and motion ratio. The vertical bracket sitting in the middle of the brake duct hose was dimple-died to reduce mass while improving stiffness. That bracket holds the cable for the adjustable front sway bar. The end tank of the radiator was done in two pieces. The overall geometry has a taper, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom where there is less flow. The lower half has a more rectangular cross section. The upper half transitions to conical. The taper should reduce mass of the end-tanks in both material and fluid volume. The conical upper section reduces volume further and may help a bit with fluid flow pressure drop. The sheet metal is well sealed against the radiator to prevent air from going around the radiator.
18” Forgeline wheels are shod with Continental slicks. The brakes are from The Brake Man. I think the calipers are the F5 model. The brakes don’t appear huge, but who needs huge brakes when the car only weights 1700lbs? It seems the brakes were specified with a balance of mass and thermal capacity in mind.
The fuel cell is located in front of the driver compartment, but still deep in the chassis. The fuel is pumped by Aeromotive goodies. The sheet metal duct in front of the fuel cell is for the air coming off the radiator to be vented out the hood.
The cockpit is a pretty straight-forward affair. A Racepak dash is situated in the middle in Mini fashion with an array of control switches underneath. The shifter is for a Sedev sequential transmission. The two lower levers should be for the front and rear adjustable sway bars. The fire suppression bottle sits down low in the foot-well of the passenger side helping keep the center of gravity low.
