MG Sports Cars

Here is a photo with some nice looking flares for bigger tires. It just so happened that the "How it was done" sheet was in the hands of the owner of this MG. I will post more photos later. There was a one off car at the show that I was tring to get him to do a "how it was done article". This car had a 215 olds engine and weighted 1440 lbs. I handed out probably 10 or so "How it was done sheets" + talked with these people about their rides.

More later!

Calvin





Sorry! It was a fast post this morning before work. The ONE OFF car is not an MG. It was a British car that used a 215 Olds engine and was made in the GT 40 erra. I will post this car in the motor sport section. It is a race car!

For more photo's of the MG above with some great looking flares, I have a few more. The owner was a low voltage electrian by trade. So all his wiring had quick disconnects, a very clean looking job. I believe he used a 3.4 V6 for his conversion. The front suspension had negative camber. The rollbar was built with a halfway disconnect to put on a hard top (for clearance) that he said he never used. He doesn't drive it in the rain.












Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2009 12:09AM by 74ls1tr6.

That's incredibly awesome Calvin!

(And I can't wait to read how someone cut that much dead weight out of an MGB.)

By a "one off" I assume he means that it was a scratch built car of some sort. You can get a Locost type of car down to ~1,100 lbs but it is pretty spartan. I hope you have some additional pictures of the flares shown above.

1440 lbs for that MGB?!

I think he weighed it without the engine & tranny... & maybe the rearend!

I edited 3 more photo's in on the first post above!

This one is the engine 3.4 chevy V6.


Interior!


The removable rollbar at the halfway point.
This owner I talked with for awhile...I sure hope he turns in his "How it was done article".

Here is a wild MGA?? ...It looks like one. I handed the owner a "How it was done sheet" It took 3 years to complete this car.





His lady has the "How it was done sheet in her hands", I wonder if she will get him to do it.







The owner is sitting under the umbrella!

Here is a MGB GT 3.4 V6 chevy FI conversion that I couldn't find the owner to hand the "How it was done sheet" too.

A very clean interior!




OK what's up with this engine? Maybe I have just never seen this before. Hehe , I know it's a 4 cylinder but the exhaust only has 3 pipes coming out of the head. Does the center pipe share exhaust for two cylinders??? The owner wasn't around for my unknown question to me. If there was someone whatching me,....I was scratching my head on this one. It was the first time I saw that Hmmm! At first I thought it was a 3 cylinder Nah! there is four spark plugs.

Maybe someone here can answer that for me?

Great looking engine bay though!

Nice looking cars Calvin, thanks for advertising the British V8 Newsletter out there. As far as the three exhaust go, most of the MG engines shared the center exhaust port with cylinders 2 and 3. With the normal firing order there was 180 degrees of seperation between those two exhaust pulses so one pipe would suffice. It's not the best performance design, but the engine was really designed for use in more mundane sedans so the sports cars had to suffer with some of those design issues. That head is an aftermarket crossflow aluminum job though, but they kept the same exhaust port configuration so that a special header wouldn't be needed. For most MGBs you hardly notice the center pipe as the intake pipes are on either side and take your eye away a bit.

Bill's answer is right on the mark. Folks refer to those exhaust ports as being "Siamesed". Someone probably spent a lot of money on that aftermarket crossflow head... Doesn't it seem like they could have justified better manifolds on either side of it!?!

Here's where I think maybe the Healey guys have a better idea. Westlake head for a Healey four:


An interesting detail about the Westlake head... notice that to use it the distributor has been moved to the left side of the engine. That makes it very unusual for a British car - the distributor rotor spins the opposite direction!

Thanks Bill and Curtis for cleaning that one up in my mind. It's kind of what I thought but wasn't sure.

Curtis,

The photo that you posted looks just like a TR4 setup and TR6 setup. Carbs and exhaust are on one side(passenger side) and distributor on the other side.

So in the engine above does the distributor rotor spin CCW or CW direction? I believe in the TR4 and 6 engine the rotor spins CCW.

The silver MGB belongs to Greg French, the rear flare fenders were done when he bought the car in boxes.
The engine has a few mods and makes decent power, very nice car. Greg drives his car daily.

Very nice gentleman.