MG Sports Cars

Scott, what is the exact issue on the pedal heights?

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Scott, what is the exact issue on the pedal heights?

Good question Mike. There are two things I want to change. Currently the throttle pedal is at about the same height as the brake pedal and I like it lower than the brake by 3/4" to 1". That should be fairly easy to adjust and I meant to do it before the Meet but time ran out. The second issue is when I put the seat in the most comfortable position for me I can't quite push the clutch pedal all the way to the floor so I want to move the clutch pedal pad rearward maybe an inch at the most. Those two adjustments should make the driving position much more comfortable especially on a long trip.

Weigh-in from Indy V8 Meet:

Scott' Costanzo's 1968 5.3L Chevy MGB = 2104 lbs.

Steve Carrick's 1974 302 Ford MGB = 2252 lbs.

That is fantastic, Scott! Scratching my head, wondering how that can be?!

Hey Carl
I think it's because of all the aluminum parts on these L/S engines. I know on mine the heads,oil pan, intake, front timing cover is all aluminum. and that's all factory.

Yeah, but an LS is not that much lighter. Steve has aluminum heads, intake, & a Fast Cars front end that is much lighter. I just don't see 150 lbs difference. A 2100 lb. MGB with a LS engine is outstanding!

How much gas was in it? 15 gallons of gas weighs over a hundred pounds.

Good point, Jim. I believe they both have stock 12 gallon fuel tanks. One empty, one full? I don't think that is all of the story.

Thanks Carl! I only had a quarter of a tank, roughly about 3 gal, when it was weighed. Another difference is I don't have a roll bar but that might be a wash with my car still having the stock front end. I tried to keep weight in mind as I was building the car so hopefully that helped too. I believe the biggest factor is earlier cars are lighter. I was very pleased, I was hoping to be in the mid-2100 lb. range.

FYI, Pete mentioned he weighed an LS and got, if I heard him correctly, about 360-370 lbs.

I know why Scott's car was so light......It didn't have the Artie Clark suspension lower kit in it at the time....... :)

Interesting to compare the corner weights:

LF: + 9 lbs

RF: - 12 lbs

LR: + 90 lbs

RR: + 62 lbs.

Well, we can't lay the difference to Artie, he'd been RR :-). Barney must have had some extra beer in the trunk the owner overlooked,NOT

Well, Barney may well have had a cooler in the trunk, but we all know that there was NO chance it would be overlooked. ;)

Overall, Barney is 3 lbs lighter in the front, and 152 lbs heavier in the rear. That's more than just a few cans of beer. Interesting.

Rear axle and suspension differences?

1) Marcia's luggage + beer cooler? :)

2) Let's see; he has a 9" rear with aluminum pumpkin, a 3-link with panhard rod, a top crossbar to mount the coilover shocks, 225/50-15 tires & wheels, & whatever is in the trunk (see #1).

I am jazzed that the front end weight of Scott's MG w/LS4 is right there with a 302 Ford w/ a Fast Cars front end. That is something!

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I am jazzed that the front end weight of Scott's MG w/LS4 is right there with a 302 Ford w/ a Fast Cars front end. That is something!

Your winter project, Carl?

I wish! Right now my winter project is looking like two ChumpCars.

Overdue for an update. Things have been too busy lately. First, let me mention a few things about the weight-in results. Although I'm very please with the total weight of my car, you can see the weight distribution isn't very good at the moment. When I'm done making changes to the car I'll take steps to improve it. The weight most certainly will go up from here and my challenge will be to minimize it. I do daydream about the Fast Cars front end....don't think I could ever swing it though. :(

I'll go into the sorting out process a little now. You will see it's a story of ignorance, bad decisions, and defective parts. Like most of you, I absolutely HATE leaks! So I think you can imagine how overjoyed I was to discover that I had coolant, transmission and gas leaks to deal with. About the only thing that wasn't leaking was the engine, as far as I can tell.This first picture shows the source of the transmission leak.



Pretty obvious as you can see. :) This one I consider a bad decision. I was hoping to save some time in my quest to get to Indy and I guess it worked because I did make it there and back. The transmission output shaft pushed the plug out of the yoke. I had a half inch of the yoke sticking out of the end of the tail shaft housing and really thought I had enough clearance. Oh well. Here's the shortened drive shaft. I had an additional half inch removed from it.



The first yoke was an ebay special, the new yoke is a Spicer and there is a huge difference between the two. The ebay special was a little loose on the splines of the output shaft but the Spicer is nice and tight. Also, the yoke seems to go into the tail housing a bit more than the ebay special did...I wasn't going to take the chance but I bet it would have worked with the longer drive shaft but I'm happy I don't have to worry about it now. This was a lesson hopefully well learned!

The next item was a gas leak and I consider this one a result of ignorance. I imagine most of you wouldn't take this approach but I used a bulkhead fitting through the front side of the tank for my supply line when I did the in-tank pump about 8 years ago and it didn't leak at all during that time. When I updated the fuel pump I redid a few things in the tank which disturbed the seal and the result was seepage when the tank was full. Wonderful. Anyway, as I was looking at my installation I realized it was less than optimal as I had a nylon seal only on the inside and it wasn't as "solid" in the way it was bolted to the tank as it needed to be. I added a washer and an additional seal on the outside which made a world of difference. It's much more permanent now. Here's a bad picture showing what I'm trying to describe.



Last thing on the leak list is the thermostat housing. This one turned out to be a defective part. This one was a frustrating problem because it seemed like it was fixed about a half dozen times. Here's a picture of the housing.



I'm using one of those swivel thermostat housings because of the angle I need to route the inlet hose. It actually solved that issue really well. We first noticed it was leaking when Artie came in about a month before the Meet. We tightened the clamp at the housing and it seemed to fix the problem. Waited overnight and the next morning it was dry under the car. We started it and let it warm up and the f&%#er started leaking again. I kept thinking the hose was cocked on the inlet and it wasn't sealing properly. Then I was convinced the swivel part of the housing was leaking so I pulled it off and used some sealant behind the O-ring. Thought that would for sure fix the problem. Put the housing back on, filled it with coolant and the mother was still leaking!!! I ended up pulling the housing, clamping a piece of sheet metal to the O-ring side and kept the hose clamped to it, turned it upside down and filled it with water. It only took 5 minutes to figure out it was leaking where the inlet fitting was screwed into the housing. Luckily, I purchased it from Jeg's and they happen to be located in Columbus so it was a matter of taking the defective part to them and getting a replacement. They were great to deal with. I looked the replacement over pretty good before installing it on the car and discovered that they are now using thread sealant on those threads. Not sure if the original just didn't get the sealant or if they discovered an issue and started to use the sealant on the new ones. Bottom line the leak is now fixed finally!!

The last thing I'll talk about tonight is the tach. So I'm using one of the Theo Smit circuit boards in my tach and have been really happy with it. When I purchased it from him he modified the circuit to use the signal generated by the GM DIS I was using on my V6. I figured that it would be a no brainer to adjust it to the LS1 PCM. I was a little disappointed because I had a terrible fluttering problem with it. I figured that the circuit would need some tweaking so it went to the back burner before the meet. I researched it a little and the common theme that caused this problem was a bad ground. Keep in mind I've been using this circuit for over 10 years with no issue. I pulled the tach out of the housing and I'm looking at it and I don't like the way the ground is looking so I added an additional ground wire directly to the tach housing and suddenly I've got a stable tach! I was able to adjust it finally so all is good now.

I still need to do a few things before the Fall Get Together. My wife will be going so I'm going to add some insulation to the firewall at least on the passenger side and I still need to adjust the throttle pedal. I've decided I don't need to adjust the clutch pedal after all. To summarize, the car should be more reliable now but I still consider it "rough" at this point. I've got a driveline vibration I need to troubleshoot, my crank pulley needs attention and there are about a million other things I want to do yet. I'm in the process of deciding a realistic list of things to do this winter. This post ended up being a novel so I'll shut up for now! :)

Looking forward to seeing everyone in a few weeks!

Sounds like good progress Scott. Not terribly bad on the "weird problems" list.

Jim

Scott, Does the starter work good? How about the clutch?