Project Journals

1969 MGB GT V8

TVR Chimaera 4.0 V8 block
Peter Burgess Econotune ported heads
Stroked to 5.2 litre
Emerald K6 ECU
Crower 50 232
V8 spec alloy radiator
TVR T5 gearbox
Wilwood calipers
V8 spec discs
RV8 Headers (Clive Wheatly)

I want the ECU to be hidden but easily accessible, the ECU and terminal strip fit behind the standard 69´speaker console. Relays and fuses are going in the glovebox - I never used it anyway.



















NOS RV8 Plenum with SD1 throttle linkage - home zinc plated and passivated all the throttle linkage hardware




Surge tank with internal high pressure fuel pump fed from a lift pump in the stock fuel pump position. The return line feeds back to this small surge tank and an "overflow" pipe from the surge tank feeds back into the fuel tank using the original fuel pickup point from the early tank. A late model fuel gauge sender is the new pickup point for the lift pump.




Schematic for the new ignition/injection system. Hotwire loom is going to be cut down to the minimum I will update the drawings as I go with terminal numbers to expand on the block diagram.




Wilwood Midilite Escort Calipers and V8 discs.




Moss Coilovers fitted - I swapped out the supplied polyurethane bushings in the upper A Arms for V8 spec metalastic bushings. Just need to open up the inside of them to fit over the Moss shaft. Seemed to go together and line up pretty well. These are the biggest brakes that I can fit under my wire wheels. Not willing to swap to alloys.




Both sides of the front end completed. I ditched all the poly bushes except for the Anti Roll bars. Discs are now mounted on the correct sides....






Lot of prep work and head scratching preparing the combined anti tramp and front spring hanger re-enforcements. I am using the Moss anti tramp kit but the mounts will become part of the front spring mount and be tied into a channel running up to the crossmember. The side plates here are roughed out - still need some finishing work. I tried bending up a 1.5mm steel channel but my vice mounted folder struggles with large folds in 1.5mm steel so I have given the cardboard template to a local engineering company to make for me.


Drivers side anti tramp mount and brace mocked up- need to fit another closing panel
once it's welded in place. I ended up making and folding it by hand which meant it had to be done in multiple sections and welded together.





The swap has been a bit derailed after I found a badly bodged repair to the rearmost leaf spring hanger. Rather than remove the wing I cut an access panel through the rear valence and removed the whole rotten section as one piece and refitted the replacement as one piece. Using the valence as a closing panel seemed like a rust trap and didn´t add anything structurally so I trimmed the end off the box section and welded it closed. There was also a spot of rust coming from the exhaust hanger so I did the same - cut out from the boot floor and valence as one piece.








The good news is the 5.2 stroker kit from the Paul at V8 Tuner UK showed up.

















I´m ditching the Hotwire Injection and going for an Emerald K6. The old gauges will be fitted with small GM Style stepper motors and controlled from an Arduino (a micro controller designed for easy prototyping). The first programme I wrote was going to use an additional set of sensors to the hotwire setup. The next version will take the CAN Bus output from the Emerald K6 ECU and display all engine and road speed data on the mini OLED in the Smiths display.

Here is the link to the first version of the Smiths Arduino Gauge using Analogue inputs. I haven´t done any coding for CAN Bus yet.

[www.youtube.com]

Finished up the drivers side, initially I thought the passenger side was in a better state but looking more closely it was just as bad - if not worse. I ended up having to patch the rear corner of the boot and further work on the Valence. All of this is absorbing time and stopping me from moving on with the swap but the body has to be strong enough to cope.







Boot and rear end and valence all repaired - in hindsight it might have been easier to replace the entire valence and boot floor. Lowered the car and checked the rear ride height and tyre clearance - everything looks spot on which is a relief. I discovered more bad repairs to the front crossmember which need to be redone. I'm making the crossmember cutout a bit bigger to accommodate the return fuel line and extra wiring for the efi so it's not a complete waste of time.

Braised a return line into the filler neck - I'm going to attach a length of submersible fuel hose to feed through the baffles in the fuel tank and hopefully stop any noise or fumes. The swirl pot already has a restrictor fitted to the return line so there should be more trickle than flow.







Another bodged repair to deal with - no I didn´t drill out those plug welds - that piece of tin was glued on that edge with seam sealer.





Rear end and fuel tank in again, I got some "Strapping Lad" rebound straps instead of the rubber straps - great product highly
recommend them. I made the transmission tunnel brace removable to make the T5 propshaft removable without having to lower the rear end. Just welded some nuts onto the inside of the floorpan. The hex heads will be replaced with cap screws as its hard to get a socket on them. Can´t remember who I stole this idea from - someone on here.





Repair panel for the crossmember. I´m routing the rear wiring loom through the cabin instead of under the car - that way I free up a slot in the cable glands under the car for the return fuel line. I´m replacing the copper brake lines with Cu-Pro lines as I go - just got time to weld in the repair patch today.





Yet another botched repair on the other side of the crossmember - I made the exhaust cut out a bit bigger. Slowly getting towards the end of sorting out the underside of the car. Annoying that its taken so much time away from the actual engine swap but the shell has got to be as strong or stronger than it was originally.

Not much progress - house move and renovation has got in the way of progress. Finally got the car to the house so it’s much easier for me to work on. Cut away the firewall and welded in the new engine mounts. First test fitting of the engine- it’s a major milestone for me to see it in place. Need to remove 20mm from the plenum base but I won’t need a scoop or bulge in the bonnet.





I´ve used the thinner RV8 mounts from Clive Wheatley and moved the block mounts to get the engine as low and as far back as possible. I still had to rotate the steering rack a little. Made a jig to keep the alignment and as I'm adding EPAS I've added a web to the crossmember steering rack mounts. I only need to remove 10mm from the plenum base now.

I used an EPAS kit from MK2 Mania in the UK its the smallest model they have. Gives me a second U Joint and you can't really see the motor under the dashboard. I´ll keep the original UJ and shorten the pinion shaft from the rack to push the UJ back into the engine bay so its not sat right on the headers.










Edited 42 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2019 03:40AM by trewjohn2001.

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