MG Sports Cars

The list of really sweet TR6s is getting quite long!

Glad y'all like the custom anodizing, I think it really adds something to the appearance of the engine whether the green eco does anything or not. Now that I've figured out how to do it there is quite a temptation to go back and anodize a lot of the smaller parts that were custom made for this upgrade but there are limitations. Cast parts do not generally take well to anodizing. Different alloys take the dyes differently, and welds are very likely to become more visible rather than less. So something like anodizing the body of the scoop would most likely be problematical because of the welds, yet with a large enough tank and power supply even the wheels could be anodized and dyed. (I could handle both of those limitations but am not eager to dismount the tires.) But it is more important to get the car back on the road. The apple polishing can wait until next winter. However, if for any reason I have to remove any of those parts, they are very likely to get anodized before they go back on.

Now some may ask, "why anodize?". I find people are not that familiar with it. Anodizing creates a fine layer of extremely hard oxide known as corundum which is just below diamond in terms of hardness and which seals and protects the aluminum beneath. It can be grown in thickness up to about 0.003" and with the right conditions can either be thick and hard or thin, transparent, and capable of holding colored dyes while still providing excellent corrosion resistance and good abrasion resistance. It is generally far superior to any available paint or coating. So for those who didn't know, now you do.

The process is simple. Hook a battery charger to the part and hang it in a bucket of battery acid for an hour, dip it in dye, then dunk it in boiling water to seal the dye in. But in reality, this is electrochemistry in application and the details will make or break the job. If anyone wants to try it I can set you on the right path, I have around a hundred bucks in it so far not counting the battery charger. There are better, easier and more expensive ways to do it but this does work.

But as much as I like the anodized bits I am far more happy with the metal shaping which got me to this point. Take note of the compound curves and organic shapes of the throttle linkage arms and the bracket that holds the TPS. These are billet pieces that show off the hand shaping that brought them to their finished condition. Small pieces of artwork in their own right, they are the jewelry pieces that put the finishing touches on the engine.

Jim

Here is the oil pump drive:





You can't really see it but the blade at the top is brass on one end and steel on the other. That lets there only be one blade that the sensor can see but gives balanced contact on the brass washer below and also doesn't throw off the balance. The sensor is a Ford part used on most engines between '96 and '08 so it is pretty common. It costs $25 but it doubles as a sensor and a cap which I thought was pretty slick, so I used it. Soon as I get an o-ring for it I can install that part and seal up the thermostat neck.

It has become necessary to recreate my injector test bench so that will take me off task for awhile but the new bench will be a vast improvement on the old cobbled together affair and will be capable of testing from one to eight injectors simultaneously with an easy set up in both full flow (saturated) and cycling mode with commercial grade graduated cylinders for measurement. Then I suspect I will get to negotiate with the guy I bought my injectors from but in the end I expect to have a balanced set of injectors one way or another and button up the fuel system.

In the meantime I have ordered a radiator filler neck to weld to the surge tank that is yet to be made. However I have at least decided on the design. It will be a not-so-simple rectangular box with radiused corners. Luckily I have a source somewhere for the pieces where the corners come together. Digging for that source is the next assignment. It very likely is in this thread where I made the air scoop, but if not maybe I can find it in my bookmarks.

Jim

A ratty looking MGB with a 340 in it in this issue of Hot Rod.















Just kidding about the Ratty part!

Sorry it was just an MG with a Buick engine. :)

Rumors, rumors.

Jim

Jim, there is a picture of the Roadmaster in the latest Hot Rod I got yesterday! Check it out. Mike

Cool! We're famous!
Funny though, you'd think from Longmont I' be able to see mountains.

Jim

At least they got the "sickos" part right.

Haven't received my copy but will be looking for it now.

I think more people should submit their projects to Hot Rod, Car craft, etc. Readers get tired of Cameros and Mustangs. The editors are constantly looking for cars besides Cameros and Mustangs.

I think a group of say 3 cars submitting variations would be cool as well.

My copy was at the house when I got home. It's on pg 18. So who submitted it, Jim or Curtis? They have a bunch of other pics - one of the Hot Rod photographers took some pics at an overlook stop between Stillwater and Arlington on the last leg of the Power Tour.

I just sent them a short email to let them know it was in the power tour. Anybody recognize the photo? You know, we could do the power tour again...

Jim

There has never been a Camero in Hot Rod Magazine, Gary. ;)

HA, the spell check didn't like it either! I always said I could build a rocke-ship----I just couldn't spell it!

I've been working on the new injector test bench and have made some good progress. I now have eight toggle arms mostly made up which will mount on a hollow shaft sort of like a very large rocker shaft assembly. The arms have a socket for the top of the injector and the opposite end will have a cross pin holding a pivot block that will lock the arm down with the injector in place. A small hole runs from the injector socket to the pivot where the shaft will be fitted with an o-ring. In this way if an arm is pivoted upwards it will shut off the flow into the arm so that the arm acts as it's own shut off valve. In this way the test bench will run anywhere from one to eight injectors and each injector has a 250cc graduated cylinder positioned below it in a straight line. A simple relay set to operate as a buzzer provides a cycling test which flows about 1/3 the rate of full saturation and another switch gives full on for maximum flow testing.

I expect to make up a new frame and control box next week so maybe be the weekend will be able to test the injectors. But the problem I expect is that my set of injectors have two different flow rates when cycling even though they all have the same max flow rate, suggesting that this set of eight injectors came out of two different four cylinder engines. If so, that is clearly a problem I will have to fix.

Jim

Looks like the photo was taken at Stillwater, Oklahoma after Rob picked up the car from Bill D and myself. Glad we got some coverage in Hot Rod for all the guys that took part in the Power Tour. Jim good information on the injector tester, something I would never have thought of myself.

My first injector tester was a relay and a fitting made from brass hardware store tubing that let me spray carb cleaner through the injectors. This was back when I built the first blown and injected 215, about the time of the first Champaign MGB-V8 meet. I learned how to clean and backflush injectors with that rig and later built a sinple test bench using a junkyard Ford fuel rail that let me do flow comparisons and measurements on four injectors at once, but it was a pretty hokey setup. Safety wire held the injectors in the fuel rail, or sometimes not. As you might guess it tended to make a mess.

So aside from learning that you can change out the o-rings and inlet screens and that poor flowing injectors can be backflushed and cleaned, probably the most important thing I learned is that there can be quite a bit of variation in the fuel delivery and every set of injectors should be tested as a set. And not just for full flow but for flow under part throttle conditions.

My new bench will do that but to improve it I may at some point upgrade the driver circuit so that it will deliver any desired pulsewidth which would allow testing of the entire fuel delivery curve. Obviously for best performance you want to try to get the same amount of fuel and air to all cylinders and if you can know that the fuel delivery is exactly the same that is a big help. I believe the runner design in the intake for this engine will also give even airflow.

Jim

This guy has done some interesting fuel injection test:

[hem.passagen.se]

The spray patterns of the domestic injectors that I have looked at so far, mostly Ford and some Delphi and Bosch have mostly been quite good if the injectors were clean and flowing correctly. Ofcourse I have seen some bad injectors...

Jim

Presently I prefer the 4 hole injectors and the newer small body GM injectors seem quite good. Bear in mind though that perfect atomization is not everything. In a BOP/R engine it is nearly impossible to get a straight shot at the valve opening and some of us are not yet running sequential so either way the shot is going to hit metal at some point. This is not bad if the metal has enough heat to boil or even "fry" the shot off and in fact can be a very good thing for economy and emissions. So with the right configuration a condensed or pencil shot pattern can be the best. Of course I think that usually means impinging on the back of the intake valve which for us would be very difficult.

JB



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2012 01:17PM by BlownMGB-V8.