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63BlueMGB
Nick B
Kansas City, Mo.
(96 posts)

Registered:
01/16/2011 05:17PM

Main British Car:
1963 MGB

authors avatar
NB 1963 CB MGB 302 V8 EFI
Posted by: 63BlueMGB
Date: March 31, 2012 02:24PM

Owner: NB
City: Kansas City
Car Model: 1963 CB MGB

Build Plans
Engine:1990 302 V8 EFI out of a 1990 Lincoln MK VII
Heads: Aluminium AFR 185, 1.6 Scorpion roller rockers
Cooling: Champion 3 core Champion Aluminium Radiator (66-67 Mustang)
Exhaust: Custom headers, Dual flowmasters, custom X-pipe and exhaust
Transmission: 1990 T-5 Borg-Warner
Rear Axle: Shorten 8.8 with 4.10 gears
Front Susp.: Stock
Rear Susp.: Custom Fabricated 4 link coil over suspension, work in progess
Master Cylinder: 1989 Toyota camry
Front Brakes: 65-67 Mustang 5 lug, 11.7 Drilled and Slotted Rotors for a Dodge Interpid, wilwood 4 pot calipers (1.62 and 1.75)
Rear Brakes: 99 mustang Disc Brakes and calipers
Wheels: 17" Mustang oem torq thrust wheels(Custom fitted Knock-Off spinners from a 05 mustang)
Tires: 245/45R17 Kuhmo, custom made knock offs with MGB insert
Body Mods: Rabbit Fender Flares modified, Custom cowl hood, Frenched license plate, CBR gas filler nozzle. more to come
Lights: Custom made LED Tail Lights, Clear Front lens Covers
Interior: Custom, Custom made steering wheel, panels and others
Electrical: E-Z 20 Circuit Wiring Harness, meshed with a stock 1990 Mk VII Electircal harness

Interesting story on how I decided to convert the MGB to a V8. This MGB was originally my dads' that he bought after he got out of the service in california. This car made it's way across the country until one day it stopped running (I have never heard why) and ended up in his garage until he passed away. My brother took the car and then put it in his garage where it remained. This car to my knowledge has not been touched in any way. Fast Forward; I was at work, talking cars with a friend and I was telling him I would like to redo an old car and we where talking about different options and engines and somehow the MGB came up and he Jokingly said you could put a V8 in that! I asked if it could be done? Well obviously it had and that is how I ended up finding this site (thanks!), and looks like I am way behind on the curve. And here is the car after I recieved it. It was in pretty good shape. Interior was rough and very little rust looks like mostly surface rust but will have to look at it more carefully as I get things torn apart. If you are wondering what the white primed section is, the car got backed out of a driveway and somebody forgot to close the door and bent the door back into the fender and was fixed at a dealership but never repainted. I will have to look at that to, I already know I need to replace hinges door doesn't close very good.

resized #11.jpg
resized #12.jpg
resized #13.jpg

3/31/12
I am starting this journal late, I have already done alot of work but I will try and go back in time and post some pictures with what I have done and some of the things I have run into

Well first thing is first, out with the old
resized #15.jpg

12/20/12
I have done alot since my last post, well it seems like alot. I was going through my pictures and I am rather disappointed with myself and how many pictures I had taken to document my process. It is funny as I was going through them and thinking about all the work that I have done I could have sworn I have taken alot more pictures. So where am I at on my build you ask? Currently I have the car completely stripped and made the necessary tunnel and fire wall modifcations, rebuilt the front suspension, fabricated my rear suspension, fitted the engine and transmission for proper clearance and other odd and ends.

Firewall Mods- Just one thing to note for all these modifications I am not using any special tools. Using a SawZaw, 4 1/2 Grinder/Cutting wheel, 120V Flux Core welder and a Cordless drill. I know my welding could use alot of work
Firewall modifications.jpg
Drivers side foot well.jpg
Passenger side.jpg
Heater shelf.jpg
Firewall  and mounts .jpg
engine bay .jpg

Transmission Tunnel Mods
inside drivers footwell.jpg
Passenger footwell.jpg
Tunnel Hole .jpg
Tunnel covered.jpg
When I took this car apart and uncovered the shifter cover it was cut into two pieces and the tunnel had been cut further back, turns out they replaced the original transmission with a 3 synchro mesh transmission and it must have sat further back
Shifter Covered.jpg

Front Suspension
- I completely took front crossmember and suspension apart and sandblasted and repainted. installed new poly bushings
Front Crossmember.jpg
Front bushings.jpg
Front view.jpg

Front Disc Brakes and Rotors
-I decided to use the 66-67 Mustang 5 Lug Hub, 11.7 Intrepid Rotor, and toyota Calipers. However, it looks like my calipers and rotors are not working together and I am going to have to make a new caliper bracket. As of now I am going to leave this and will look at it later.
Front caliper and rotor .jpg
back view of rotor and caliper.jpg

Engine Placement and Clearances
- I went ahead and put the money out for the Mock 302 Shortblock. It turns out the company that sells these is local so i was able to pick up a block without the shipping charges and got a pretty decent deal on one. It has been well worth the money. I recommend them to any body who is doing a conversion
mock Block .jpg
-Crossmember clearance and modification
Crossmember clearance.jpg
-Motor Clearances and test fitting
motor view.jpg
Rear Suspension
-Once again out with the old
rear suspension removal.jpg
-New rear end out of a 1999 mustang with 4.10 gears
88 rear end.jpg
-Rear-end and axles back from the machine shop and shortened to 42 inches and and ready to be put back together with new seals
shortened rear-end.jpg

-Picked a set of alden eagle coil-over shocks for the rear end
rear shocks.jpg

-Rear-end put back together and painted, trail fitting the new rear end
new rear end.jpg

-Other odds and ends that I have been working on when I can't use a grinder or welder, or it is to cold to work outside

Steering Wheel- Cut existing steering wheel to fit to a 15 inch steering wheel that i got of craiglist for 5$, i really thought I was doing something new, but was reading a couple of weeks ago and I saw that geoff did the same thing to his
steering wheel .jpg

Started making the new interior for the car, the old had alot of water warpage to them and didn't go with what I had I had a plan on doing. The door panels have changed some and I still need to cover them, right now they just have headliner padding on them
rear interior .jpg
door interior.jpg

Custom made LED tail lights
- Started a thread on this earlier, Search homemade LED taillights in the search tool bar
[forum.britishv8.org]
led tailights.jpg

Coverting the old MGB Seats to BMW cushions ans seats
Old
old seat.jpg
New
[forum.britishv8.org]
new seat.jpg

Cutting Hood and making new hood scoop

hood scoope hole.jpg
front scoop.jpg
side hood scoop.JPG
new scoop.jpg

MGB back down on all four wheels, These are not the wheels I will be using on the car, but the spares to my daily driver( a mustang of course). I am working out of a one car garage so don't mind all the crap on top of the car I have to make the most of my space
drivers side view.jpg
passenger side view.jpg

Started playing with the fender flares for the car, I think they really are a good fit with very little cutting
rabbit fender flare placement.jpg
Bought a weld it yourself header kit from speedway motors for about 100$, It took me a couple of days to build the headers but well worth the experience to build my own headers!
Header starting point.jpg
Drivers side header fit.jpg
passenger side header fit.jpg
Closing the end on headers.jpg
I was really concerned about stripping the engine and painting and not wanting the engine to flake and look like crap! I started a thread on this asking the best engine and cleaning advice
[forum.britishv8.org]
Stripping engine and new paint.jpg
Front side of engine and new paint.jpg
While stripping the engine and painting checked the timing chain and it had alot of slack in it and decided to replace with a new one
Timing chain slack.jpg
New Timing chain.jpg
Engine fully dressed and painted.jpg
Started putting the fender flares on, These are rabbit fender flares and are very easy to adapt to the MGB Body
Drivers side fender flare.jpg
Driver side fender flare #2.jpg
Drivers side rear fender flare.jpg
Drivers side rear fender flare #2.jpg
Rear Passenger side fender flare.jpg
Front Passenger side fender flare.jpg
I started modify my fuel tank and installing an submersible pump for my EFI system on a stock MGB tank. Also started a detailed thread on how I did this application
[forum.britishv8.org]
Fuel and baffle with stainless tube.jpg
Mounted fuel pump.jpg

I was looking at my brake, clutch and gas pedal situation and with my current firewall modifications it left things way to tight so I modified it again and gained about three inches in the footwell hopefully this will give me the clearances I need
close up fire wall.jpg
New Fire wall #2.jpg
Inside footwell shot.jpg

While doing the footwell mods, decided to start stripping engine bay and priming, I have the engine pretty much done and ready to drop it in when I finish the fuel and brake lines. This is not going to be the finish product, Before I spend alot of money on paint, I want to put everything together and make sure the car functions as it should. So i am going to put everything together and drive it around testing it and then strip it back down for a complete and nice paint job. I know this sounds crazy but i have done everything on this car myself and dont know if everything is going to work as planned.
Primed Engine Bay.jpg
Painted Primer engine bay.jpg

I have really like the idea of using a motorcycle gas cap on the car and I have manage to get all my parts pretty cheap. So here is my first try with the cap, However it turned out pretty crappy in my opinion and I have another way I want to try that I think will work better. Not to mention the welding looks really bad and I want to clean that up. So I will cut it out and try again once I get the fuel lines ran
Gas cap first try.jpg

These are the wheels that I Plan on using on the car. I am really debating this, I think the 17" wheels are to much and think that a 16" wheel would almost be better but will not know until I get the car set with the engine and adjust my spring hieght
New wheels.jpg
Started running new brake lines to the disc brakes
Brake Lines.jpg
Making the alternator bracket and a couple of shoots of the engine almost done and ready to go in
Alternator pic.jpg
Engine 1.jpg
Engine 2.jpg
Steering linkage for the modified steering column
steering linkage.jpg
Making a new shifter from the t-5 short throw shifter with a little MGB flare
Shiter1.jpg
Shifter2.jpg
Startin gto put things back together, Polished foot pedals, way better than the rubber replacements
Foot Pedals.jpg
Rebuilding front cooling valence.jpg
Steering  rebuild.jpg
Steering Coulumn rebuild.jpg
Stripped cabin.jpg
Rear cabin removal.jpg
Okay, I am in a pretty good debate with my brother, about wheel size and the look of the MGB, There is quite alot to discuss but what do you think?
upclose bullit wheels.jpg

old wheels.jpg
Wheel.jpg
lizard skin.jpg
lizard skin rear2.jpg
husmat.jpg
Engine and tras.jpg
Engine and tras2.jpg
install1.jpg
install2.jpg
install3.jpg
install4.jpg
install7.jpg
install8.jpg
install5.jpg
Started wiring the engine and interior for first start to check engine and mods
ignition switch.jpg
engnine bay wiring.jpg
interior wiring pic.jpg
fuse panel wiring.jpg
engine bay wiring 2.jpg
Exhaust1.jpg
exhaust2.jpg



Edited 67 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2014 01:29AM by 63BlueMGB.


Moderator
Curtis Jacobson
Portland Oregon
(4576 posts)

Registered:
10/12/2007 02:16AM

Main British Car:
71 MGBGT, Buick 215

authors avatar
Re: NB 1963 CB MGB 302 V8 EFI
Posted by: Moderator
Date: April 21, 2015 02:16AM

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