Thanks to all who replied. I'm not going to mess with it, all your comments make sense. 

Fuel injected minis like to run warm. If im not mistaken both MPi and SPi run a 190f (88c) thermostat. I'd leave that all alone on an SPi for sure. If the ecu thinks the engine is cold it will overfuel and soot up the plugs and eventually the o2 sensor and rob power. *Yes* a colder intake charge is desirable for greater power density, but too cold and the fuel falls out of the air and power is lost. Port or direct injection helps to solve this, but on your throttle body injection setup, as with a carb, the intake has to be warm enough to keep the fuel atomized and suspended in the air.

On non fuel injected Minis some heat to the intake manifold is needed to assist in vaporization and to resist icing. The original siamesed intake/exhaust manifold did this by heat transfer from the exhaust to the intake by a bridge of cast iron. Early Canadian Minis also had an electric heater sandwiched between the carb and intake manifold to provide heat on cold startups.

When you come to a carb on an alloy intake manifold (and separate exhaust header) the intake casting has a water passage to warm the manifold. Probably not necessary in hot climates but useful most other places even if you don't drive your Mini in winter. Note: carb/intake icing occurs with higher humidity, not cold ambient air. At part throttle, the reduction in air pressure under engine vacuum make the intake charge temperature drop drastically.

Check out this website- gearstar.com   "5 symptoms of a bad coolant temp sensor" confirms what I was saying.

Trying to clean up under the hood. I know those hoses are hidden, but they are a bear to get to. I'll probably just put new hoses on when I put the engine back in. Never seemed like a good idea running hot water through the intake unless it was on a v8 or v6 that was used as a coolant crossover. Hot water= hot fuel and less power. 

There is a coolant temp sensor. I believe it is tied to the FI. If it is not reading something, the FI will not function properly. Why do you want to remove?

My 1995 SPI Mini has coolant lines running to and from the intake manifold. I see a couple sensors on the bottom of the intake also. Would there be any problem eliminating these lines from the coolant system? Will it affect the engine when hot? I'm assuming something is being read to maybe richen the mixture when the engine is cold. If it's just going to cause problems I will just hook them up and forget I ever had the thought. Any input on how critical these lines are? I won't be running my Mini in the cold.