Project 1 Race Pedals | Project 2 Beltline Chrome Blackout | Project 3 A Little Style
Project 1 - Goin’ dancing.
I love driving my car but I absolutely hate the stock pedals. The gas and brake are way to far apart. It’s almost impossible to effectively heel-toe without massive feet. The rubber covers on the brake and clutch are squishy with dry shoes and dangerously slippery with wet ones. All of the pedals are to narrow for any sort of sporty driving.
I have been shopping around for some new pedals for a while. I didn’t want any of those clamp on one-size-fits-all kits. The custom pedals that I did find didn’t seem quite right to me. They were either to skinny or matched the styling of the stock pedals to closely. I was looking for a true replacement pedal with real grip and a usable size. After several months of searching I was ready to give up. Then I saw the post on NAM from OutMotoring about their brand new replacement pedals. After looking over the pictures I decided to take the plunge and ordered a set of the Race Pedal Covers. I threw in a chrome black out kit and a shorty antenna for good measure. (More on them below.)
Three days later my package arrived at the office. A couple of my coworkers gathered around me and we opened the package. I was stunned. The machining on the pedals is top notch and the design is a serious nod to true functionality. Finally someone who gets it! The set came with a nice looking dead pedal, clutch, brake and a much wider gas pedal. I work in the design department of a large TV station and my fellow jaded designers were really impressed with the product design and execution. Everyone marveled at how light the whole kit was.
In the kit there were several sets of self tapping screws and nut & bolt sets plus an allen wrench for the bolts. Once I started installing the pedals I was truly thankful for the extra screws and bolts included with the kit. They had a habit of disappearing or rolling under something really heavy when I dropped them.
Instillation was easy and is done with simple hand tools. (My step by step is below.) It took me about 2 hours to complete. I could have done it a lot quicker but I wasn’t in any hurry to get the job done.
The change in pedal feel is massive. The brake and clutch pedals grip my shoes much better than the stock setup. The extra wide gas pedal makes heel-toe much easier. The brake pedal is no longer squishy and unresponsive. You can really feel the brakes grabbing and slight modulations with you foot are much more responsive. The pedals no longer feel isolated from the mechanics that they control. The best analogy I can think of is - the car doesn’t shuffle through your foot commands, it dances.
OutMotoring.com deserves a big fat thumbs up for some solid, thoughtful product design.
How to install OutMotoring Pedal Covers.
A BIG thanks to Peck Motorsports for letting me use their garage and tools. Peck Motorsport’s owner / driver Todd Peck races the #50 car in the NASCAR Busch East series. These are some dyed in the wool V8 fanatics that support the MINI community so give them some love by visiting them at www.myspace.com/peckmotorsports or watching the races on Speed HDnet.
Step 1.
Read the included instructions thoroughly.
Assemble your tools. You will need a drill, a box wrench set, masking tape, a sharpie and a black oil based paint marker if you want to paint your stock pedals black.
The assembled tools
Step 2.
Pull the rubber pads off of the clutch and brake pedals and then clean everything. I used window cleaner and a shop towel. The pedals get really grubby. After they are clean you can paint the silver metal parts with the black paint marker.
These covers pull right off
Here are the rubber pedal covers up close
Step 3.
Organize the kit and pick a pedal to start with. Test fit the new pedal in place. Once you have everything lined up where you want it mark your drill spots with the Sharpie. Since everything is black I placed a strip of masking tape on the pedal so the Sharpie will show up. Double check your alignment.
Mmmmm… organized screws…
here you can see a taped and marked pedal, a mounted pedal and a painted pedal
Step 4.Drill your holes and mount the pedals.
Done!
-
NOTES:
- I used the self tappers on both the gas and dead pedal. Bolts hold down the clutch and brake. With all of the holes I started smaller than the recommend sizes, double checked the pedal cover alignment and then increased the drill bit size.
- The brake pedal is metal and is a pain to drill through.
- The clutch pedal is composite and really easy to drill through. Also the clearance for the bolts on the clutch pedal is really tight. So make sure you are drilling in the right spot. You could use the self tappers on the clutch but I wanted the mental reassurance of the bolt sets.
- Both the dead petal and the gas are metal over plastic. The metal is tough but the plastic drills out really easy. Take care because you can accidentally make the self tapping holes to big. Don’t over tighten the self tappers, it’s really easy to. It’s not a fault in the kit, it’s because the plastic wasn’t designed for self tapping screws.
- When test fitting the gas pedal I noticed that there was some wobble being caused by the factory tread strips not being the same height. I grabbed a Dremel tool with a sanding drum and knocked them down.
Step 5.
Go out for a drive
Project 2 - A black tie affair
I will never understand chrome on most cars. The MINI in particular seems to suffer from an excess of it. The first step towards getting Perkins dressed up in true Euro-sleeper style is to blackout the beltline chrome.
See! It’s ugly.
I bought 2 Beltline Blackout kits from OutMotoring.com when I ordered the race pedals. The OutMotoring website said that each kit would be good for one car. I figured that for the price it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra kit around. That way if I messed anything up I could still finish the project. Also I was a Cub Scout back in the day so I had “Be Prepared” drilled into my head from an early age.
The OutMotoring Beltline Blackout kit consists of a couple yards of blackout tape in a baggie. I grabbed a roll of low stick masking tape, a box of cutter blades and my favorite curved blade X-acto knife and got to work.
This is all you need. Well… fingers help to.
A BIG thanks to Peck Motorsports for letting me use their garage and tools. Peck Motorsport’s owner / driver Todd Peck races the #50 car in the NASCAR Busch East series. Go be his MySpace friend atwww.myspace.com/peckmotorsports or watching the races on Speed HDnet.
Step 1.
It is best to work around the car in sections. I worked from back to front but you can do it however you want. Pick a spot to start and using the masking tape, lightly tape the blackout tape in place. The pull out the length you will need by following the beltline. Trim the end with about an inch of runoff. Detach the masking tape from the car and blackout and proceed onward.
Step 2.
Peel about 3 inches of the paper backing off of the blackout tape. Starting with an inch or so of over run slowly press the tape to the chrome. Pull some more backing off & work your way across to the end of the panel. Be careful not to stretch the tape during this process. If you do it will pull inward from the ends over time. Give yourself some overrun at the end. Then take your X-acto and carefully trim the edges off.
I guess you could tape the hatch shut.
Step 3.
You will notice that there is a shiny plastic coating on the top of the tape that gets bubbly or wrinkles when you are pressing the tape down. Don’t fret! After you have your blackout tape securely in place carefully peel this protective layer off. The tape that is left behind looks exactly like the factory plastic.
Not quite as fun as peeling sunburn.
Step 4.
Stand back and marvel at how smart and attractive you are.
Project 3 - A little style
There is a standard list of essentials that every real driver takes with them when they go motoring. Good driving shoes, keys, polarized sunglasses and the radio controller.
Ahhh… Everything you need for a great Sunday drive.
The MINI gets enough flack for being, well mini. The last thing it needs is a boat mast antenna that makes it look even more like a RC car. Enter OutMotoring’s Stubby Antenna, an elegant solution to the problem. This is a well made aluminum antenna with an excellent anodized finish. It literally takes seconds to swap the antennas and it dramatically improves the profile of the car.
You will have no loss of radio signal strength. I consulted with my ICE buddy and he pointed out that unless you have a powered antenna, vast majority of the radio reception is in the head unit itself. You get more “antenna” from the wire that goes to the antenna than you do from the antenna itself. So stop being a ninny.
It’s just embarrassing to look at.
How to install OutMotoring Stubby Antenna.
Here is the step by step process, you can do this in less time than it takes to count to 20. Ready?
Step 1.Twist off the stock antenna.
Step 2.Pull the new one out of your pocket.
Step 3.Line up the screw threads on the bottom of the antenna with the factory hole.
Step 4.Twist the new antenna on until it is finger tight. You DO NOT need to twist it down until it’s super snug.
Step 5.Go give your kid back the RC controller, you won’t need it any more.
Upcoming project updates
Project 4 - Float like a butterfly growl like a bear.
Custom 1 ball exhaust setup
Project 5 - Get me outta here!
Improving the access to the rear hatch’s emergency release cable.
Project 6 - Hot, Hot, Hot!
Custom fire suppression system with remote mount fire bottle.
Project 7 - Gimmie a lift.
Custom lift straps for the back seats.