1972 Mini (MPI conversion)

Rescued from the scrapyard, this Mini was one of the inspirations behind the Canems Injection ECU and its ability to run a five-port head on multi point injection. The car is fitted with an MPI injection manifold, injectors and throttle body - fitted as standard on all Minis from '96 on. The engine is a mildly tuned 998cc.

As you can see in the image below, the three branch exhaust manifold is fitted with two lambda sensors to ensure correct mixture balance between inner and outer cylinders. This shot is taken with the air filter removed for clarity.

The MPI manifold was a good test-bed for developing the Injection ECU, because the fuel injectors are so close to the valves in the cylinder head. This minimises any 'wet manifold' effect and would normally cause serious problems with charge-robbing to the inner cylinders of the engine.

The cylindrical device to the right hand side of the engine bay (behind the throttle body) is a PWM idle valve. The ECU uses this for closed-loop idle control, so we can just program the ECU for an idle speed of 1000 RPM and the valve will be adjusted continually to meet this requirement.

Complete engine specification is as follows:

998 A+ bottom end
12G295 cylinder head (standard ports/valves)
3-branch exhaust manifold
Wasted spark ignition
Complete injection system from '96-00 Cooper

The engine in this form has been rolling-road tested at Bogg Brothers near Malton in North Yorkshire, giving a power output of 60bhp. Low down torque is vastly improved over original equipment.

After several thousand miles of successful and reliable testing, the MPI injection setup has made way for motorcycle throttle bodies. Click here to find out more.