How To Clean Slot Car Track Rails

I'll start this with don't ever buy a Mini Cooper. I love this thing, but working on it is an absolute PITA. Bought this 2006 Mini Cooper S (supercharged, manual 6-speed) in October 2020 as a daily driver to keep the miles off the truck but I have a problem keeping things stock. The car came to me from an elderly lady who was the only owner and put 82k miles on it.
Short of a steering wheel vibration on deceleration from 50 down to 30mph, the car ran like a top. Had a small coolant leak from the overflow reservoir that's notorious for separating at the seams, but that didn't bother me.

My overall plans is to "TRY" and keep it as reliable as possible for the short term, but that 300hp mark is looking pretty appetizing right now and I don't have patience. Potential plans are to port it, upgrade the supercharger, drop in new cams, and really just send it.

As it looks today:

Over the past few months, I've done the following:
-Canton coolant and power steering replacement tanks
-NGK spark wires (OEM had been chewed on by a mouse)
-Painted the intercooler diverter
-DDM air intake box with new silicon hoses
-VIP crossbar strut and top plates
-Full paint correction and headlight restoration (was previously "buffed" by someone with a rotary that didn't know what they were doing)
-Made my own wireless charging phone holder ($100 for a non-charging piece of steel charged by companies seemed ridiculous)

Rotary swirls shown here:

After the correction:

As to why I wanted to start this thread, I figured it would be nice to share the misery of working on an older, Northeastern car with other folks.

2/14/2021
To resolve the vibration issue, I decided to upgrade all front end suspension components as I assumed they would all be worse for wear anyways. This meant all new OEM inner and outer ball joints, OEM sway bar bushings (poly's are known to cause squeaking issues here), Powerflex poly lower control arm bushings, and a Powerflex poly steering rack bushing. The downside to this, the front end of the car has to be removed and the entire subframe (referred to as a K frame) had to be dropped. What should have been a 2 hour job turned into 6 hours. Rusted and seized bolts all over the place, accompanied with raising and lowering the engine constantly to reduce tension, and the original lower ball joints were rust-welded to the knuckles. Some heat and coercion by 10lb. sledge solved that.

Swapped all bushings out except for the LCAs. Come to find out the company I bought the LCA bushings from (prepressed as I don't have a press) sent me two passenger side cores. The K frame is still on the ground and it can't be bolted back until the new one arrives tomorrow.

2/15/2021
240-ish HP in a 2500lb car sounds fun....so to begin that process I decided to reduce the supercharger pulley, throw in some colder plugs, and swap for a smaller belt (exhaust and headers to come in the near future). Boost should be in the 11-12psi range now.

A special pulley tool was required as well as a special serpentine belt removal tool (thanks BMW). No real issues here. Tore apart, replaced the pulley, strapped on the belt, and went to button everything back up. Then a 10mm bolt decided to snap inside the aluminum block when replacing the tensioner...oh shit. Time to extract.

5/64" drill bit with my trusty extractor bit ready. Start drilling...and snap. Cheap Ryobi bits for ya. Hit the hardware store, grabbed two 5/64" hardened steel drill bits, and went back at it. Lucked out with the extraction. A Grade 8 replacement bolt from the auto store was sourced. Unfortunately it was too long (bottomed out on the aluminum block, the other bolt option was too short). So I had to cut that down to size and clean up the threads. What a headache.

Passenger side of the car is bolted back up. LCA core arrives tomorrow and I will hopefully get everything back together and the car back on the road tomorrow evening.

Last edited: Feb 15, 2021
memario1214 Hotshot Offroad Staff Member Vendor

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Colton

Missoula, MT

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'21 Limited MGM CrewMax
2/16/2021
LCA core got overnighted so got a chance to put everything back together. 15% pulley and colder sparks are letting me hit 16psi under boost. The car is unbelievably quick for being a 4cyl because it is so light. Steering is insanely precise and it rides on rails with the poly steering rack bushing and all new inner/outer ball joints. Poly LCA bushings removed the steering wheel wobble at decel. Have a slight brake pedal pulsation when decelerating from high speeds, but from tearing it apart I could tell the car needs a brake job all the way around. An R56 brake conversion kit (the poor man's big brake kit) with drilled and slotted rotors are in my very near future. Car is a bit dirty but it's in the 20s and garbage weather out here in MD right now.
2/5/2021
Got some more done on the car. Exhaust hangers were rusted and the stock resonator was pitted from salty winters. Picked up a good condition JCW exhaust for only $200 (new they're $800+). Decided to delete the resonator with a simple 2.25" straight pipe. Broke some studs off (expected) when removing the old exhaust so chopped them off and welded new studs in made from threaded rod I had laying around. Replaced all hardware with 10.9s. Need to source some tips for it, but it sounds mean (for a 4 banger). Quiet in the neighborhoods but opens up hard on the highway.
Ooooooh, nice, always wanted one of those Mini Coopers awhile back... wife thought I was trying to hit on the cute neighbor across the street with a white one and manual... I'll follow your build though..
3/17/2021
Started the process at the end of last week of updating my brake system. Booster is solid and the master cylinder has some life left in it so those were left alone. "Upgraded" to larger R56S front calipers (common for a poor man's big brake kit for track cars meant to get trashed). Rebuilt those as well as the stock R53 rear cals with all new seals and hardware. Ran stainless steel lines and painted all four corners black. Printed up some custom Cooper S decals for the front calipers with the wife's Cricut (that thing is awesome) and cleared over them. Upgraded to Stoptech Powerstop slotted rotors and race pads. Bled the system and went for a ride to bed the pads and rotors in.

Unfortunately, with updated stainless hardware and thicker pads/rotors creating a very solid pressurized system, the right rear hardline sprung a pinhole leak. Further digging revealed a large section of it was pitted and rusted to all shit. Surprised it hadn't blown before now. Discovered the rear left is not far behind from exploding. It's not a constantly leak, only when the vehicle is running and compressing the brake pedal. So she's back in the garage waiting for an all new fully prebent with hardware stainless steel line system. I tossed around the idea of buying a solid bubble flare tool, spooled line, hardware and bending my own lines. But the absolutely mad 28 3 dimensional bends in just the right rear section alone made me want to puke. I will fix both rears first with the kit lines, then update the other lines as I find the time. Even with a small pressure leak, the pads and rotors feel solid. Unfortunately, my charcoal canister now has to be removed and fully cleaned as it is soaked with brake fluid at the moment. But, this confirmed the rear rotors were indeed warped. No more brake pedal pulsation upon decel. More to come!
Poor man's big brake kit is always a positive, you can always add them fu ds for a more appropriate part, or much needed maintenance.. I'm also in line for those poor man's big brake kit... may have to stealership it, since Craigslist and Ebay want 600+ for both of them, while stealership is less than 350 new for both... go figure..
For a R53? I got mine from a guy in Ohio who breaks mini's down. $160 shipped for a set of 60k calipers. Rebuild kit was $12 and surprisingly easy for such a small piston with tight spaces. And my R53 funds are accumulated for a RMW Jesus Head, Shorty headers, 550cc injectors, and a solid tune from hopefully a local shop. Similar setups on other people's R53s are running about 260bhp with that setup....which is solid for a little car lol.
Lol... sadly no, it's for my SC400, lol... man 260hp will be a rocket... the Elise and Exige appear to be track monsters with 190hp and 220hp respectively... but small and light weight chassis make it happen..
Ahhh haha yeah can't help you out there. (Un)fortunately, these cars get broken apart quite a bit because people don't want to work on them so parts are a dime a dozen. And that's the plan! Power to weight ratio with some solid handling makes it happen on the track.
Yeah, so I've heard... I got 1 too many projects at this moment, otherwise I'd join you..
Tell me about it. Between house stuff, the R53, the Tundra, and me looking at a 2018 Honda CBR1000RR (don't tell my wife), I can't keep up. Then I have my '65 Mustang just collecting dust in an old barn on my family's property. I can't keep up.
3/24/2021
Finally got around to swapping some hardlines out. With the rears being the worst as it's a puzzle piece of bends, I simply got some sheers and cut those out. Removing the charcoal can was a PITA as whoeever installed it put red loctite on a steel bolt through a threaded plastic washer...so it just spun. One came out but I drilled the head off the other and left enough as a stud to slide it back into the slot. It has 4 connection points so it won't go anywhere without that bolt (hopefully lmao).

Laid both rear lines in place. Passenger side hooked up to the OEM fittings perfectly. Driver side wouldn't work hardware wise. So I ended up having to run the other portion of that line from the new kit from the ABS through the firewall. A plastic retainer piece was in my way and would have required an insane amount of dismantling to access, as well as losing the coolant and power steering fluid from the reservoirs....so I just cut the lip out to squeeze that line through. Will make future line replacement easy too and it is mostly covered by a rubber grommet that lines the firewall once it is put back in place.

After almost two hours of running that 3 foot section of line (prebent line in a tight space is absolute garbage), the connection was made. Buttoned everything up and went for a drive after a bleed. Still had a soft pedal so I thought I had gotten air in the ABS module (a big wtf moment). Luckily it was raining so traction control off and 50mph brake lockups stiffened the pedal up (I believe whatever air may have crept in didn't fully penetrate the module and was sitting at the connection lines). Pedal felt decent, no fluid loss, I started with the bedding process. These are slotted Stoptechs with their accompanying race pads so the bedding process was a bit sketchy at 80mph in the rain. Even with a less than desirable pedal, this thing STOPS. Went home to let them cool and didn't notice any drop in fluid at the reservoir or any leaks from any connection points. I'll take it back out tomorrow to hit #2 of 3 total bedding processes. Then rebleed the lines to expel any excess air that I think got pushed out of the ABS module when locking it up. Well on our way to track season at Summit.
4/2/2021
Got around to brake ducting. Used the faux fog light holes in the bumper to dump a volume of air into the well. Made inlet piping out of aluminum downspout outlets, cut them in half and riveted back together to form to the shape of the front air dam. Some rubber 2" to 1.5" tubing and a shop vac hose directing the air directly to the back of the rotor/caliper. Waiting for actual brake duct piping to ship and I will extend them to the back of the rotor and creating an adaptor to plug up to the dust shield and end up dumping air directly to the center of the rotor.
nb_nielsen New Member

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I use to have a r53 back in high school. Borla catback, intake, and a smaller pulley on the supercharger in a 6 speed.... I loved that car.
Nice work with the build, I'll be following!
Its a fun project. Next up is replacing the brake MC and booster to hopefully finally fix my brake issues. Then H&R rear sway and some track coilovers. Then ill be ready for the track.
Audiolust New Member

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Steve

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Nice build! We pretty much run the same two cars. Wife just got into a 2010 JCW and loves it. Great little cars, minus the PITA servicing.
Love this thing! I've actually done quite a bit since my last post to it I'm just insanely busy with life atm to be able to update stuff. Didn't think anyone would care about a little Mini on a TUNDRA forum lol.