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Loving watching the build on this Jake, I wouldn't have the confidence/knowhow myself to take an engine down to the bare block and build it up again bit do love watching it happen. Hats off to you mate and keep up the amazing work! Any idea when it will be back in the car. Be interested to see what the differences are driving wise/any gains over previous build. Deffo my fav VTiS, such a stunner of a car in every way.

LOL I wouldn't have even got it past the door!! Be like "and where'd you think you're going with that? Garage is over there!

Finished now engines built.

Swiss cheese by the look of it mate!

Must admit I was wondering about that... I'd be getting proper grief ("I thought you said it wouldn't be long!") Nice one. Yeah, makes sense to be cautious.. After all that you've put into it so far.

Haha it hasn't been going!! But now it is. It's been in my dining room for ages which isn't going down too well. So time to wrap it up and move it to the garage. It's been difficult to determine the correct clearance to the head. No one seems to know. There's no figures online or in manual. But I do know the heads been skimmed twice and the blocks been decked twice, so err'd on the side of caution and ordered a custom headgasket 10 thou thicker than standard. Now that's arrived and in, crack on again

Finally!! Custom headgasket turned up. Couldn't wait to make some progress so soon as home from work got setup and fitted the ARP headstuds and the headgasket. Torqued in 3 stages to 80 ft lb. Recon can wrap this up over the weekend

Blimey that could have been nasty as ya say. With load on it cornering etc. Nightmare. What's it made from?

Fecks sake! Can't help with the question unfortunately, but what on earth is going on there to make that happen? Must be something not right somewhere for it to fail twice so soon?

Here's what greeted us! passenger side shows how it should be sitting....... Whole mount is sitting way too high, and deffo not right. Noticed they'd also put paint on all the bolts this time, I suspect so they know if it's been removed to be inspected. Decided not to use the car and took it to East Coast, a MINI specialist. They showed that the rubber mount wass taking the whole weight of the car (when car went up on ramp, the mount dropped right down!). They then took videos/pictures of dismantling it and removing the strut from car. This showed the following: Spring not seated correctly at top or bottom cups Grease cup missing from top mount (they had fitted a cheap sealed bearing mount whereas the BMW Mini part has a seperate cup). Mount is so weak you can push the rubber up with your hands. They concluded that parts have been fitted wrong (spring), and that a very cheap aftermarket mount has been used which is different from standard spec. They have now fitted yet another top mount bearing (from BMW Mini) and bought a replacement grease cup (again from BMW Mini) and have rebuilt the strut. Spring is properly located this time and mount looks like it did when she left the factory. They concluded that the mount they fitted, and the fact the spring wasn't located properly, would have failed very soon. Getting the shoddy work done by the little A-holes at ATS rectified has cost me a further £192. We are now in the process of getting an email drafted with our findings and photos etc and will be sending it to ATS HQ. We will be giving them the option to refund all costs incurred from them and also the cost incurred getting it fixed to compensate for the time we were left without the car. If they don't play ball, we're taking them to court. Absolutely disgusting company to deal with from start to finish. Just glad to get the car back on the road and in a safe condition to drive. Hats off to East Coast who have been brilliant throughout this whole thing.