Happy Face is now legal.  Although it took a while to get here, its no guarantee she'll run, but at least my chances are better.  Here are some shots that kind of paint the picture of where she stands now and what is left to be done.  Oh, and tomorrow she'll participate in her first autocross.  I'm hoping the drive shaft won't fall out.

There's been minor work on interior refreshing.  These used Recaro's are an improvement over the mismatched stock seats the PO put in.  They are a little more comfy too.  That's a Momo Monaco steering wheel over there.  That was probably the first thing I did three years ago when I got the car.

In the engine bay there's a new strut tower brace, the Weber carb got a complete tear down and rebuild a few months back, and I've installed a nice Crane electronic ignition along with upgraded plug wires and plugs and a nice Bosche Red coil.  You can't see it but the wiper motor and pump were replaced as well.  I can drive in the rain now! 

The motor runs really well, or at least a lot better than it used to.  At some point, it will get an upgraded cam.  That will give me an excuse to tear into the motor a bit more (is this really such a good idea?).

That's the new master cylinder, installed as part of the complete brake system rebuild a few weeks ago.  It concerns me that I still see brake fluid on that line.  Not sure where its coming from.  My guess is that the reservoir is overfilled and its leakage coming down the line.

Dry-rotted rubber is commonplace on this car.  I've bought most of the replacement pieces and am just waiting for the right weekend and state of mind to come along.

One of the biggest PIA's on this car is the hood.  That gap shown in the picture is the source of mucho vibration and sound coming from the front of the car.  The vibration emminating from this seam is in the key of D-flat.  Its loud and its irritating.  I've bought some hood insulation pads from BMP Design, but they won't fix this seam.  I guess I'm going to have to figure out a way to glue that down some how.  Ok, the next question is why is there vibration enough coming out of the car to cause this metal seam to make so much noise.  Its either the engine or maybe a bad engine mount.

The other thing this car needs are new headlights.  I've got a new pair of H4's sitting in a box ready to go.  Also note the paint dust on the back of the headlight housing.  That stems from the cheap paint job this car got by the PO.  There's stuff like this all over the car.  It will all eventually get cleaned up.

This is pretty typical of the chome on this car.  This particular piece is going to go away, but the bumpers aren't much better.  I'm going to gradually replace all the chrome on the car with new or decent used pieces.

This is Happy Face with  her kid brother, Little Chili.  Believe it or not but the MINI is a bigger car in all ways when compared with the O2, with the exception of the trunk.  Little Chili is now retired from autocross after two seasons (we took 2nd-place in B Class last year).  If its not too late, Happy Face is going to make a run for the A-Class title this year.  Having missed four events, its going to be a challenge.  We'll see.