We Put The CHEAPEST ENGINE In Our Broken Mini... Will It Start?

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]We are back with the project Mini Cooper S, the cheapest Mini Cooper S in the country with anote. So for any of you that are new around here, basically we bought this car with a misfire and it's turned out to be worst case situation.

[00:00:11]Here's a little recap for you. The worst case situation is this. As you can see, cylinder number one has a massive hole in the piston. Now, obviously this is not good news at all. This is not what we were expecting. That is what we found in episode 1. Today we've got a new engine. Now this engine is completely ruined. We can't actually do anything with this. And if we were to fix it, it would cost a lot of money. What we have decided to do is buy the cheapest Mini Kooper S engine in the country, too. So, it's going to be quite an interesting video. We've got to get this absolutely knackered engine out of the car. Then, we've got to go and collect the new one, which is still in the car, and take that out. We've got the engine crane, so hopefully life will be pretty easy. I would say a good 80% of the progress has already been made to remove this engine, but let's get it out. And I want you guys to place your bets in the comment section right now. Do you think the engine that we're buying, which does run, is actually going to work, or are we going to get scammed? It is now almost 1:00 a.m. in the morning. This has taken us 6 and 1/2 hours, but the engine is out. It's over there. I'm not going to let you guys see it because it's it's horrible to look at. But this is what we have to deal with. I mean, like Carl said, this looks like one of your bad AI generated images cuz there's just so much stuff. It's just so bad.

[00:01:15][laughter] I mean, like look look at it.

[00:01:17]Like look look at this. It does.

[00:01:19]>> But you see, the thing is this car in our minds is too good to scrap, which is why we want to put it back on the road and actually enjoy it. But to obviously do that, we can't do it in its current condition because it has no engine. Now, me and Kyle spent about three hours picking up something yesterday. Let me show you what we've bought. And here it is. We've bought a secondhand engine which is supposedly running. We don't actually know yet. We're really hoping this thing is going to run. We're going to get it into the car today. Hopefully, it's going to run. We're going to give this thing a clean up now. Then, we're going to get it in the car. And by the end of this video, you guys are going to see if it starts. You'll have to let me know your bets in the comment section.

[00:01:50]Right now, quick update on exactly what's going on. So far, we fitted the best turbo out of the two engines onto the current engine, as well as we fitted the flywheel and clutch, which is the best out of the two engines. So, now we have a pretty good turbo on this engine, as well as the clutch is also ready to go. So, the next part is basically getting the gearbox on, ready for this engine to get inside the car. Carl wants a copper washer. Tell us what you're doing, Kyle. Tell us what you're doing.

[00:02:11]>> Well, we're going to fill this gearbox on now with brand new fluid. And I'm just making sure if I can get a copper washer on there, it won't leak anymore.

[00:02:19]But guess what? As always, I bought a whole pack and none of them going to fit. Scrap that idea.

[00:02:25]>> Otherwise, pretty much the engine is ready to go. All the wiring has been fitted. Carl is currently going to sort out gearbox oil and the clutch fluid cuz he had to drain them to remove the engine. And for all the viewers at home, Ben would like to let you guys know what exactly he's done on today's episode.

[00:02:39]Just bear in mind, he's very pleased to tell you guys this is very important.

[00:02:42]So, >> you broke that dipstick >> and I put the new one in.

[00:02:45]>> Well done, Ben.

[00:02:47]>> Yeah. To be fair though, getting the engine in was very easy. It slipped in with amounts a piece of cake. Drive shafts went in after which made life a lot easier. And now it's just timeconuming stuff like doing this gearbox oil. The wiring was a little bit difficult. But every plug can only go in one plug. So you can't actually get it wrong. I have to get my hands dirty again to figure out exactly where Carl wants me to put this gearbox oil. The current situation is Ben's supporting the car. Carl has successfully done all of the gearbox oil. So we're going to crank it over soon. We're going to put oil in. That's it.

[00:03:12]>> That's it, mate.

[00:03:13]>> Oil filters. Filter change is done.

[00:03:15]Let's get the oil on. Engine oil is on the bench. Here we go. Watch it all pour out of the bottom now.

[00:03:21]>> Only the best for this engine. Off you picked up a car.

[00:03:23]>> It's total energies quartz, mate. BMW LL4.

[00:03:27]>> Here we go. Even though it's a Peugeot engine or Citroen or French, but it's made in Brazil, so [laughter] >> many different things. There going to be any weird noises when we crank it over, >> mate.

[00:03:36]>> Cuz cranking it over by hand is really slow. So, we don't know what it's going to be like when you actually crank it over. Cuz when we actually picked this engine up, it had no high pressure fuel pump and the car was flat, etc. So, we couldn't actually start it. It's been about half an hour and Kyle's still here. No oil has leaked out yet.

[00:03:50]>> He's still going still. All right, we'll be 5 minutes. This bottle is like Mary Poppins's bag. It just It never ends.

[00:03:56]>> We're good. We're good. We're good.

[00:03:57]>> You got another liter to go.

[00:03:58]>> Another liter. All right, I'm going to sit down in case you guys are wondering.

[00:04:00]He's still going. Stopped. Finally. We do have no leaks. That is good news. No leaks. We have a little issue with the engine. Let me explain. Now, off camera, when Carl was cranking the car for the first time, we got quite a serious warning on the dash. That warning looks something like this.

[00:04:17]And the warning that we got was a low oil pressure light, which is never a good sign. Now, this could be many things. It could be quite a serious issue, but we're going to start off with the simplest and easiest fix and the cheapest. Now, before we put this engine in the car, we decided to obviously put new oil and a new oil filter in the car.

[00:04:33]But I have a theory. I think the oil filter that we put in the engine is the wrong one. Now, like you can see on screen, it's not a traditional oil filter. There is a metal one that screws onto the block. This oil filter sits in an actual casing and it has a plastic cap that goes on top. So, it's what you'd call a fabric oil filter. Now, the issue with this is there's certain diameter holes on either side because they have a cartridge inside and I think the sizes are wrong. So, I'm on my way to town now to actually pick up a new oil filter which then we can hopefully put in which will be the correct one.

[00:05:05]I'm really hoping and this will solve our issue. I do apologize for cutting into the video, but it was quite an important thing to talk about because that's quite a crucial part when it comes to buying a cheap engine. And even though we were trying to do the right thing by installing a new oil filter and new oil in the engine so that we know we've got every chance going for us to get this thing running well, it didn't really work out. So, I'm going to go to town. I'm going to get a new filter.

[00:05:27]Back to the video. Right. I've got a few more things to actually tidy up. We've got a few other bolt on wires, etc. Then, we're going to go for the first crank. See what happens. And when I say the first crank, I mean the crank without any coil packs in. So we just build up the oil pressure. [music] >> Don't ask Ben to change your battery.

[00:05:46]>> And >> why is this not tight enough?

[00:05:49]>> We're leaving the coil packs out. The fuel pump is primed and there's no leaks.

[00:05:52]>> I'm getting more um camera time than I thought.

[00:05:54]>> Oh my gosh. I'm going to put a blur on his face, so you guys focus on me. Apart from everything else though, Carl cleaned up the car today and the body work, the whole rest of the car is really nice. Next thing we got to sort out is the interior. When you look in the interior of this, you can still see we need to fully clean this thing because there's plants growing in the gear shifter there. The floor looks like it's been well the floor actually looks like a farmard. So, we need to clean the inside of this. But the rest of it is a piece of cake and the car is looking good. This engine hasn't run in about a year, but it did run. So, car's going to crank it. We're going to build some oil pressure up and then we'll see what happens. I was stood here in the last episode when we found the catastrophic damage from the last video and this time I'm hoping that's not going to be the case.

[00:06:34]You >> I found the problem.

[00:06:37]>> If this starts, Ben, you got to eat these old nasty nuts.

[00:06:40]>> I'll have one from the bottom because they're they've been touched by last year.

[00:06:43]>> Eat the hairy one at the top. You don't want to see what else is in this car.

[00:06:46]>> No, I don't want to see top 10.

[00:06:48]>> Two. One.

[00:06:54]>> It's beeping.

[00:06:57]>> Is your foot on the brake? Oh, >> foot on the brake.

[00:07:00]>> Clutch.

[00:07:01]>> No, there it's clutch. Clutch handbrake only.

[00:07:06]There we go.

[00:07:11]See, >> it cranks. Any leaks? We're going to check for leaks. Are we looking underneath?

[00:07:15]>> The exhaust is wet, but I don't think that's from anything we've done.

[00:07:18]>> That's brake cleaner.

[00:07:19]>> That cranks over really well. I'm very impressed. I'm very impressed.

[00:07:22]>> Isn't this coming out tonight?

[00:07:24]>> No.

[00:07:25]>> Let's go. Let's go to Scrapyard now.

[00:07:26]>> Yeah.

[00:07:26]>> Yeah. We're going to get Scrapyard first start up. It's going to be loud. No exhaust.

[00:07:31]We're not going to start it today.

[00:07:32]That's going to be in the next video.

[00:07:33]So, if you guys want to see that, then you're going to have to subscribe. And if you want to see the first video on this, it'll be in a playlist. You guys can go watch them all. But it cranks over. The bet on Carl if it's going to start.

[00:07:41]>> What's my bet?

[00:07:42]>> Is it going to start?

[00:07:43]>> It It will start. I'm really confident it's going to start. And if it does start, Ben's got to eat those backing nuts.

[00:07:50]>> Is it going to start, Ben?

[00:07:51]>> Is he being weird?

[00:07:52]>> So, if it starts, Ben's eating those old peanuts. If it starts and it knocks, then obviously I think we're just going to go for a long >> giveaway then. Yeah. No, [laughter] >> one subscriber can win the car.

[00:08:02]>> Yeah, if you want to see this, subscribe, like the video, and then you guys can comment and I'll personally answer them.