MG Sports Cars

We made it home with no further problems.
Money: We got donations (thanks Rick and Kelly) and shirt sales ( thanks for buying) of $517.
After paying for the shirts we aill have $722.56 in the account.
We aint rich, but we're better off than before.
End of Treasurers report.
Steve

Citron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We made it home with no further problems.
> Money: We got donations (thanks Rick and Kelly)
> and shirt sales ( thanks for buying) of $517.
> After paying for the shirts we aill have $722.56
> in the account.
> We aint rich, but we're better off than before.
> End of Treasurers report.
> Steve


I spoke briefly with Steve and our BADASS Boss, Jim regarding the potential of selling shares of BADASS , NLC.

We would need to look at the legalities and limitations involved....but 10 to 20 shares at $250 to $500 per share would give the organization some good working capital for needed (but not yet donated) parts and services, as well as insurance, etc.

Think about it....

And, as Jim said in our meeting on Monday night, in addition to funding and donation of parts, MAN HOURS of LABOUR (other than Jim's) is also a necessity!

>Official Secretary's uniform:
He wouldn't look as good in it I'm afraid. Seems to me we need to fill a couple of other positions too, BADASS Webmaster and BADASS poster girl, uh, I mean, Marketing Director.

Well, I'll nominate Graham for Secretary, do I have a second? Any other nominations?

Thanks for the kind words. I'm just trying to help. And on that note, the FIRST order of business is the replacement body.

1) Joe Schafer are you here? If not we need to contact him regarding transport quotes.
2) Can anyone sign up for the trailer shuttle from LA should we decide to do it? What is the cost of a flight there, U-haul truck, and fuel to bring it back here? Fuel cost to drive there and back? Other alternative?
3) Steve, how soon can you report back to us on the condition and terms of the local car?

Next item, parts needed:
1) SBC mini starter (generic)
2) Box o' bends for the headers, probably 1-5/8" would be acceptable for the primary tubes, don't want to get too big.
3) Mini Alternator
4) Crank trigger wheel and pickup (allows more flexibility in radiator design. I seriously doubt the one Pete donated is going to be enough)
5) Flywheel/clutch/pressure plate/HTOB (If I get my car upgraded before the final build we can use my old HTOB)
6) Throttle body, maybe a large dual throat unit.
7) Injectors, probably a set of 42 lb port injectors would be fine
8) A/C? Something we might want to consider at least.
9) Water pump ('67 430)

We need to continue on the car while sorting out the body, and our timeline is short. There are some design decisions that should be made and parts fitted and fabricated before the new body is sent out for paint, above and beyond the present modifications. The most important of these are fitting the starter, headers, intake system, and radiator design and placement. For this we need hard parts, and some design assistance, particularly on the radiator. As much as I appreciate Pete's donation of the aluminum radiator and fan, the more I think about it the more I feel it will not be up to the task, and I really don't want to be redesigning that system on a freshly painted car. Does anyone have a formula for matching radiator to engine size?

Next item, continued t-shirt sales. Should we reinvest some or all of the t-shirt proceeds and continue to sell BADASS t-shirts online?

In conjunction with that thought, can we set up a web page (link) to order them, as well as post promotional information about the project like how to contribute, what items are needed, and a sign up sheet for work weekends? Does anyone have the expertise to set that up?

Title: I will hold off on transferring title of the present body but will check to make sure BADASS can hold title. Please nudge me if I'm overlooking anything else we need to do. Do we have anyone in the group who is an insurance professional?

That's quite a lot for one post, but I'm going to try to get in about one post a day to cover the necessary business, progress and such. At the moment we have a lot of ground to cover.

Jim

Jim, I don't have any magic formula for radiator sizing, but my experience with the Midget shows that good airflow is at least half the battle. I used a stock MGB radiator designed for an 1800cc engine with my 2.8 and it cools fine with a large electric fan for low speeds. Considering that the original radiator for the Buick had an engine driven fan which wasn't really well shrouded I think with a good seal around the fan we could do ok with a smaller surface area, add the fact that the core is aluminum and that it dissapates heat better maybe the unit Pete has will work. I can certainly get one of the large Bosch fans like I used on the Midget and MGA for the project and make up a mount with shroud.
The shifter is modified and will be on it's way back to you this week. Takes a stock MG Midget or B knob.

Jim.
Local car is worse than ours. Still looking.
I can get a rad made by Griffin Radiator, built for an MGB. Just found out about it. It will stick below the car and will need a sheild built to protect it from road debris. It is supposed to handle 600 HP. Very thick, 3.5 IN ? All of this is from the owner, I haven't seen it yet. It is not free. He said $380. I hope to see it in the next couple weeks.

Steve

Bill, that shifter looks really great, fast work too! Steve, thanks for the report. On the radiator, I have a couple of ideas for a more creative solution if we do need something oversize, I guess we can try Pete's unit and see how it works. I'll get dimensions on it later, it really is a slick piece with the integral fan, I'm just not sure it's big enough. I'm also giving some thought to a design that might not require the front panel to be cut on the new body, I'll give it some more thought, try to mock something up and take some photos.

Re: Rick's idea of selling shares, is this something we discussed back when we were deciding the organizational structure we were going to use? The issue that comes to mind for me is the problem of private ownership of a non-profit organization and I'm not sure how we'd get around that. I think it would have to be a private philantropic society of some sort. If anyone has any information about such a creature please illuminate us.

IMPORTANT! We need to decide how we are going to transport Bill's GT. We need information. Help me out here guys, this needs to be done quickly.
Here's one (very) rough estimate. I got 13 mpg on the trip to Port Washington and back, which roughly equates to 3 miles per dollar. I mapquested Bill's address, roughly 2200 miles one way, 4500 both divided by 3 gives us $1500 in fuel costs. Is this the best we can do??

Jim

FYI, I believe the first Griffin radiator for an MGB was built for my car back in 2001, it cost me $600.00. It does hang down a bit but I've had no problems with clearance or road debris and once I hooked it up with a 2950 cfm 16 inch "Perma Cool" fan and "painless" fan relay kit I haven’t had any cooling problems even in 90 degree plus temperatures.

I have a top shot of the radiator here:


If you want I can take a photo of how far it hangs down and post it later.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2008 10:56AM by MSDMGBV8.

Jim,
There is a GT in Alfred, MA for $650. That is about 1000 miles from you or me. Carl French has it and says the rust was repaired and then the car was stored.
If you want to drive to CA , I will ride with you, but cannot go until late August. Classes here start Aug 25 and now is the rush time for admissions.
Hopefully someone else will be able to get the car from CA.

Steve

Seems to me like shipping would be less than that, especially if there was a truck coming your way that was not completely full. John Riffe paid $350 for a truck to haul his TR6 to Milton from Kansas City about 4 or 5 years ago.

I hope we can do it for less than that. Don't guess anybody has heard from Joe yet?
Here's a few shots of the radiator:

In this shot the radiator is positioned as high as possible, limited by the hood latches and water pump pulley as shown below.


Here's a shot of the back side


The core is 13 x 18 x 2-1/2" while overall is 17 x 19 x 3 and overall thickness is 7". It is a Griffin radiator. Does this seem adequate for a big block engine with 400 hp+?

Jim

Shame it's not a down flow, if you turned it on it's side it looks like it would fit much better even though the difference is only 2" between height and width.

That is not the same radiator that I had Griffin build for my car, mine is a downflow, I'll get back to you with the specs, I probably still have the napkin that the original design was sketched out on.

It should be easier to manage the heat with a crossflow, the main thing here is whether the core is large enough.

I've sent out RFQ's for shipping Bill's car back here. So far the low quotes have been $1245 and $1125 all inclusive/no fuel surcharges. This is roughly $500 more than we have in the treasury. If we are going to do this we need some donations, at a minimum 6 or 7 hundred. It's time to pony up and bring out the wallet guys. Contact Steve DeGroat with your donations: sdegroat@truvista.net

I sent a private message to Joe but haven't heard anything from him on the shippers he has contact with. I also contacted Bill to ask him to give the car a close inspection. When I talk to him I'll ask if he can put a steering column in so it can be steered to load and unload.

Up to now we haven't asked for much from you guys, and look how far we've come. This truly has been an econo build. But you as a group decided to jetison the existing body in favor of one without rust and I agree with you. So now is the time to make it happen. We have the body, we need the money to bring it here. So please help all the other great guys in this group by making a generous donation now. One that will make a dent in what we're trying to get done.

I thank you, and all the great members of BADASS thank you.

Jim

There is no difference in performance between a crossflow and a downflow radiator - it is solely a function of chassis packaging. If running a WP mounted fan, it could be a matter of maximizing fan sweep over the core. However if an electric puller/pusher fan is used the rad configuration is immaterial.
Jim's right - it's up to the membership to advance this project - otherwise it comes to a halt and we miss next years deadline.
I'll have a cheque for $100 in the mail by the weekend!

Jim, I just sent Joe an email letting him know to check his PM's here. Hope he got home ok.

Joe's home...he got home in good shape, travelling through the UP of Michigan and surving a few really good thunderstorms.

He's posted over on the MGBE a couple of times.

We exchanged messages. Joe is going to see what he can find out today. The current low bid to transport the car is $1075 and there are a bunch of bids clustered within a hundred of that. I think Steve said we had seven hundred and change in the treasury, Graham's makes eight, so we need at least three more.

Consider it an investment. How often have you paid a hundred or more to go on a thrill ride? OK, maybe for you and someone else. And how long did it last, a few minutes? Maybe half the day if you count all the preparations. Here you're getting in line for a once in a lifetime experience, at the very least one that you will pilot yourself through the autocross course, and if you like, a thrill ride that will be sitting there at your beck and call for weeks at a time! Heck, you can't hardly even get a rental car anymore for much under a hundred a day, how can you resist an offer like that? Have I ever failed to live up to even one of my promises to any of you guys? You can believe me when I say that this car will be finished. Even if by some odd quirk of fate I wouldn't be around to do it, it's far enough along that it would be a travesty of nature NOT to finish it!

So come on guys, send in the dough.

Election of the secretary: Carl, Steve, somebody second Graham's nomination already. Then we can vote him into office. Got to comply with the formalities.

Headers: We need materials to build a set of headers and this SHOULD be done before we send the new body off to Terry for paint. Tubing bends, header flanges, collectors. You guys need to get us those parts. 1-5/8 tube is fine.

Here's an interesting bit of news. On perusing the TA Performance website I've discovered that their casting for the Stage II and higher heads have a shortened exhaust runner. Instead of the runner curling down beyond the outside wall like the stock heads do, they terminate at that wall in a similar manner to say, a SBC head. What does this mean for us? Not a lot. But for whoever builds the next BBB car it means a great deal. These heads leave enough room between the port and the inner fender to make the first bend, meaning a set of RV8 style headers can be built. Even better, the rear port will very probably clear the unmodified steering shaft! Someone who would build such a car, and pay the price tag of $2500 for those heads might also very well buy the aluminum block, and at this point a genuine supercar is in the works. Considering the end product, it would then seem quite reasonable to begin with a reinforced BMH shell, Ted's front end, the TA engine and end up with a car worth well over 100K. It's the car MG NEVER could have built.

So come on guys, get those donations in.

Jim

I'll gladly second Graham's nomination.

Since there have been no other nominations I declare nominations closed unless someone immediately protests. All in favor of Graham? Well I vote for him, that beats the other candidate. So congratulations Graham, barring any protest you are the new Secretary. We won't make you wear the dress though.

Jim

But at next year's V8 meet he should sit on the president's lap and take dictation shouldn't he? He's got my vote as well, sorry was late getting in on this ballot.
I'm about tapped for the time being, but when the personal treasury tops up again after paying the credit card bills from the V8 meet I'll try to at least come up with the cash for the U bends if nothing else. Don't know about buying a share though. I'm not through with my contributions to the cause by a long shot, but even if my total isn't up with some of the others it's still a bit on my car budget. So far it's been $200 in cash, one pair of Omni flares ($30 plus gas and shipping), a power brake assembly ($50 plus shipping), and the seats ($150). Someplace along the line that should be worth a share I guess.