There are hundreds of iterations done of the classic MINI Cooper, but none beats the one running a B16 Honda Type R engine. AutotopiaLA on YouTube featured this amazing swap on the tiny British car perfect for canyon runs on the weekend.
Shawn Davis of AutotopiaLA recently featured an amazing B16 Honda Type R-swapped Mini Cooper built by a guy called Sep.
Sep has an interesting but quite common story. Before the kids rolled in, he was an avid car enthusiast. He used to be a JDM fanboy, and the last car he had before turning into a family guy was a widebody Mitsubishi Evolution X.
“ I spent ten years building that car from the ground up, and it came a long way. But in California, with all these laws and smog and all that stuff. It was very difficult to drive around and not always be worried. I had to sell it,” he confessed.
Later on, looking to get back into the tunning action, he decided to get something unique that didn’t require a smog test. And that’s how he stumbled on the Mini Cooper. But there was a big problem. These classic tiny cars are extremely slow.
Fortunately, a guy in Colorado was getting rid of his built 80s-body Mini Cooper—and the rest, as you’ll soon find out, is history.
Lift the entire front end, and underneath it lies a VTEC engine from a Honda 2000 SI (B16 Honda Type R). Simply put, it is a 1.6-liter, 4-cylinder engine coded as the B16. This build makes 170 WHP, which is a lot of power for a rig weighing 1,700 lbs (771 kgs). The engine is mated to a 5-speed manual transmission from an Acura Integra.
But there’s more. The shifter is fabricated from a BMW E30 (Coolworks Shorthrow Shifter). The fabricator made mountings and brackets to make it work, and the impact on the car was ballistic. MiniTec did this conversion kit on this build.
It also features bigger brakes, wheels, and carbon fiber flares for visual aesthetics. We don’t want to ruin all the fun for you, so we’ll let you enjoy all the details in the video below.
