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Any of you that have spent time looking around on the Mini Mania or similar A-series performance websites have probably noticed they sell a cam belt set up that repalces the timing chain and traditional cover. I'm currently working on a customer's Swiftune Road Rocket 1275 ( bored out to 1380) it has alot of bling and go fast goodies on it, one being the cam belt set-up. I never had any experience with the cam belt set up because they were deemed illegal in SCCA racing long ago, and most street guys don't won't spend the bucks this thing cost, so this is my first run in with this set-up. Ok with that being said, save your money this thing is junk. This Swiftune RR 1380 motor has a unique history, it was bought about 10 years ago by a guy to use na car he was restoring that he never ended up restoring, so my customer ended up buying it form him. Just to be on the safe side, he wanted to peek inside the motor, it need a oil pan anyway, because the one on it was worn form dragging it around on the floor of the garage. While everyhting looked good inside the motor, dyno time only, the customer wanted the horrid red paint Swiftune used on this motor to disappear, and wanted it painted big Healey engine met. green, so in order to do this properly we needed to remover the front and rear engne plates, than goodness we did! THis cheesy timing belt deal is held together with one not properly installed dial pin, that form dyno run tim only had almost sheared itself, it it had failed, the it would have been game-over for this motor. Upon inspection I found the 5/16 dial pin was allowing aout 20 degrees of cam timing slop, so we first redrilled everyhting for a 3/8th dial pin, but at the end of the day I just could get past the single hap-hazardly dial pin being the only thing that hold this unit together, and even after i got the dial pin to a drive in interference, there was still some slop, less than before in this set up. Now if you know me well, I'm one picky cuss ( have to choose my words wisely here 
) Bottom line nmo way was I going to procedd with this piece of junk on this motor, so I called my customer and told him we need to go for a vernier timing chain set up and a regular timing cover and that this timing belt set up was going to be a expensive paper weight. I've got to build a A+ series Mini engine, and this guy has brought me the saem thing which now I will not use on his motor as well. In closaing i wrote this post so anyone out there with deep pockets looking at the timing belt set up , to quit looking at this over ppriced piece of garbage, and look at spending their money on wiser things.
Over all impression of the Swiftune motor, being they are so famous in the UK, it's a nice motor, but I would never want to spend big bucks with them, the ports in the head are way too smooth. Also a big cost on this engine was to use a late model A+ seres block whcih was originally a FWD block and convert it back to RWD use, and I think that was a total waste of money, if we can't explode regular A series blocks at 15 to 1 compression turning 9000 rpm on the race track, why on earth would a street guy need such a block. In conclusion, I see Swiftune being a decent engine builder, but more into bling, than zing, I would race aginst them anyday with one of my motors with complete confidence. I've always said it, and I'll say it here again, when it come to all-out performance for these motors the Brit builders have nothing on the US builders, especially the ones with SCCA racing experience, the SCCA full prep engine rules have let us learn more than their racing rules ever let them play with, and US bulder have benefited from this.
At the end of the day I have to thank Swiftune though, for showing me what not to do
) Bottom line nmo way was I going to procedd with this piece of junk on this motor, so I called my customer and told him we need to go for a vernier timing chain set up and a regular timing cover and that this timing belt set up was going to be a expensive paper weight. I've got to build a A+ series Mini engine, and this guy has brought me the saem thing which now I will not use on his motor as well. In closaing i wrote this post so anyone out there with deep pockets looking at the timing belt set up , to quit looking at this over ppriced piece of garbage, and look at spending their money on wiser things. Over all impression of the Swiftune motor, being they are so famous in the UK, it's a nice motor, but I would never want to spend big bucks with them, the ports in the head are way too smooth. Also a big cost on this engine was to use a late model A+ seres block whcih was originally a FWD block and convert it back to RWD use, and I think that was a total waste of money, if we can't explode regular A series blocks at 15 to 1 compression turning 9000 rpm on the race track, why on earth would a street guy need such a block. In conclusion, I see Swiftune being a decent engine builder, but more into bling, than zing, I would race aginst them anyday with one of my motors with complete confidence. I've always said it, and I'll say it here again, when it come to all-out performance for these motors the Brit builders have nothing on the US builders, especially the ones with SCCA racing experience, the SCCA full prep engine rules have let us learn more than their racing rules ever let them play with, and US bulder have benefited from this.
At the end of the day I have to thank Swiftune though, for showing me what not to do
