[Dave Elliott]

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has attempted to do a 180 degree handbrake turn and try to drive off in reverse with an Auto MINI Cooper?

Apart from the difficulty in selecting reverse (and not park) this trick doesn't seem to work all that well.

There is a huge delay in before the transmission engages reverse and if the throttle is depresed hard, reverse is never engaged.

Has anyone else tried this? Or even trying to select reverse quickly?

There also seems to be a maximum speed in reverse...has anyone found this as well?

BTW. reverse flicks (reverse, 180 turn, forward) work reasonably well.


Cheers,

Dave
Fremantle, Australia

[jasonfields007]

ur going to kill your mini mate. i would say get a manual if you want to do those sorts of stunts!

[Cooper76]

Or maybe that's the exact reason he got a MINI, for the stunts!!!

[Dave Elliott]

Thanks for the replies guys.

To answer your questions:

It's not my MINI, it belongs to a local Building Society company. Actually there are three of them and we are trying to recreate a TV commercial they made (in the style of the Italian Job). The commercial was made with three MCSs. Rally Australia is coming up and as part of the crowd entertainment and as a promo for them, the compamy want their three MINIs to put on a show for the crowd.

Rather than drive around in the track in a boring fashion we were thinking of doing some autotest tricks.

Reverse throws are fine, but with handbrake turns the gear selection delay makes it very slow.

I have made up a gate that stops P being selected by mistake, put there is still a huge delay before reverse drive is engaged.

I have been reading up about the CVT and there is some valving that restricts the speed, but I haven't found out why there is a delay.


Cheers,

Dave

[Minnie Mouse]

Oooh blimey, I would not do that with my auto baby.......

[usaminicooper]

Make it easy for the Mini and you, lay some water spray down while trying those tricks. Then you will be able to do a 360%

[Dave Elliott]

It's a gravel surface, so stress-wise, the "tricks" shouldn't hurt the MINI, especially when there still running crappy factory tyres.

Even so, those that are still worried that we'll break the cars shouldn't be....it seems to look after itself in that regard....with computer control of everything.....too much so, IMO.

We might have to resort to driving bumper-to-bumper with a cop car chashing us to keep the crowd entertained.

We've got a couple of weeks to practice, maybe we'll be able to work something interesting out.

I posted to the forum in the hope that someone may have worked out how to override the electronic systems (ABS fuse was chucked first time we drove them).


Cheers,

Dave

[Cooper76]

I have an idea: why don't you run all three MINIs together in some sort of track whilst a few patrol cars follow with machine guns and small-arms fire a'blazin'???!! Of course, best be armoring the MINIs first and makin' sure that the clean-up crew removes quickly any spectators and Rally fans put down by stray shots. That would be a killer stunt and you needn't worry about the CVT being damaged!!!!!!

I'm proposin' this for Rally Detroit...




...erm...

[Dave Elliott]

Hi All,

Thought you might want to know how we got on with our Rally Australia display.

After a few hiccups during practice session (a 3-way simultaneous reverse throw that didn't quite work (bruised bumper and broken front indicator lens on one, bruised back bumper on another)), (3 or 4 knackered tyres) we worked out a routine.

For the Rally we had one MCS and 2 Cooper autos. Autos were struggling to keep up...suprise suprise !!....the MCS was such a diffrence to the Coopers that we were practicing in.

Felt fast when driving..the MINIs handle really well on gravel, although driving bumper to bumper over gravel isn't for the faint hearted...cracked windcreens and chipped paint could nopt be avaoided. Our reverse flicks worked a treat. Did our little show for the 3 nights of the super special stage. Got a copy of the Ch 10 coverage, but gee the MINIs looked slow compared with the World Rally Cars!! But, still we had fun.


Dave

[gazah]

x-post for those that are interested in a little more info [pix & all]!

http://www.mini2.com/forum/australia/75639-rally-australia-stunt-minis.html

[nonsequitur]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dave Elliott

There also seems to be a maximum speed in reverse...has anyone found this as well?

Park, Neutral, and Reverse are rpm-limited to 4000rpm on the motor. That converts to roughly, actually it's precisely (so Reverse may be speed-limited), 20mph in reverse.

[Dave Elliott]

Thanks for that.

It's what we found. I'm sure there must be a way of fooling the system, but we didn't have time. We were able to do reverse throws on the gravel, no problem, although it would have been better slightly faster.

By the time we'd done all our practice we were getting quite used to the autos...not bad at all....but give me a MCS anyday.


Dave

[nonsequitur]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dave Elliott

Did our little show for the 3 nights of the super special stage. Got a copy of the Ch 10 coverage, but gee the MINIs looked slow compared with the World Rally Cars!! But, still we had fun.

Do you have a link? I like to watch you three!

[Dave Elliott]

Hi,

I have an AVI file of the 8 minute run copied from a Channel 10 VHS tape. It's fairly good but I want to edit it to make it a bit less boring and then convert it to a reasonably sized MPEG. This will happen sometime between getting my race Mini going and giving my my road Mini some TLC. Hopefully soon I'll be able to steal some PC time at home. I don't have a website, so I'm not sure how I'm going to get it to you.


Cheers,

Dave

[nonsequitur]

You can upload it here! Paul Mullett may be able to help if the size turns out to be a problem when you try it.

[Dave Elliott]

Hi,

I have finally got a MPEG (and a WMV) file to GAZAH. Hopefully he'll be able to post them on MINI2.


Dave

[gazah]

alrighty here we go guys...

www.gazah.com/temp/HomeMinis.wmv

enjoy... IT"S GREAT!


i may need to relocate the file if bandwidth sky-rockets, but heh!

[miniman marshall]

I have done this!!! except it was on ice It doesnt seem to like to switch into reverse too well after though...I usually glide reverse for a little bit and then switch into reverse, get a little speed and then turn my wheel all the way and do a 180 and drive forwards again... DRIVING ON ICE IS SOOO MUCH FUN!!!

[lastblink182fan]

i dont get many opportunities to drive on ice, seeing as how im in sothern california, but i still can 180 the mini, skid around corners into parking spots, and, most importantly , 270 hydroplane(about 1/2 an hour ago) though a parkinglot.