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MG MGB GT V8 Factory Originals Technical - Chrome Bumper V8?

Hi guys

Hope you can help as I am getting mixed responses on this so this is my last point of call.

Right I have a 74 Chrome bumper BGT with the early dash and probably early front cross member. I have power tuned the B Series to 132BHP and am now getting a bit bored of it. So I recently purchased a TVR V8 this is the same block pattern as the SD1 just the more lary internals.

So what I would like to know is will my current cars config apart from the usual moving of the engine mounts and Transmission change etc take the SD1 V8?

Cheers

Nathan
Nathan

Nathan,
Suggest you start with Roger Parker's excellent guide which will answer your question far better that I can (and answer a few questions you haven't thought of yet!) http://www.mgcars.org.uk/v8_conversions/rogv8.html
The bottom line is that your car will take the V8, but there are a number of things you will have to do (steering column routing, bulkhead modification, engine mounts, remote oil filter etc etc).
Pete
Pete Green

Hi Nathan,
Here's some additional food for thought.
If you don't want to change the tranny tunnel you can use a Toyota supra box. Very small, very strong, light and very smooth (I have one).
The W58 version has a 0.78 on fifth gear; you need the 21inch or D version of the gear lever change extension. That’s the longest one. Dellow Automotive in Sydney Australia can sell you bell housing plus some other bits for around $600 Australian. You should set up your own clutch and slave (one inch), unless you can get him to sell you the one and one sixteenth size slave set up. The three quater inch supra slave is hopeless. He's on the net and ships world wide.

I saw a chrome car that did not bother to change over the chrome bumper steering to rubber bumper; which you might want to try. With the through the guards RV8 extractors it is possible to fit the engine exhaust around the chrome bumper steering. The car I saw (A super charged V8) had cheated a bit on the back pipe and bent it around/under the steering knuckle. They still had to lop off those back bulkhead corners, which is no real big deal.
If you have to changeover the engine mounting brackets on the body it might be worth considering mounting down onto the front cross member. One or two others have done this and I wish I had thought of it at the time. That way you can get the motor a bit lower.
You should use the SD1 harmonic balancer. This has a long neck that locates over the steering very nicely. If you use the cast pulley off the '80's air conditioned range rovers or rovers this lines up and then you just need to spacer the alternator bracket forward.
If you already have the round V8 type body mounts and don't want to change then I suggest you buy a set of engine brackets off Towery Foreign cars in America (he's on the net and sometimes posts here). These set the engine both lower and further back than most which helps with both bonnet and radiator clearance. Ask for the air conditioning type. I made my own brackets, not hard; just very time consuming with lots of trial fitting.
Fuel injection- you can keep your existing tank unaltered, which is handy if you ever need to change it. Use a very model late sender ($50), which has a fuel uptake line in it, which (via fuel line) connects to a large cheap filter (Kmart $18) , which connects to a high suction , high volume Feeder roller vane pump, which connects to a High pressure roller vane pump. This connects to the fuel rail and thence back to the old pick up point on the tank. No swirl pot/antisurge tank required, the filter acts as one. You can stash all this in the boot if you like. The feeder pump is made by Pierburg in Germany and is called an Auto-suction vane cell pump. Stock no. 12001. it can deliver 0.5 bar when used as a primary pump. It cost $95 Australian (apply exchange rate to get an idea what it might cost locally)
The main high pressure pump is a Bosh one pt no 0580464070 and cost $140. The reason for this set up is that the high pressure pump sucks very poorly and tends to cavitate, in hot weather especially.
For the plenum height reduction necessary for bonnet clearance. You should be able to get this all out of the trumpet tray. Particularly if you are using Glenn Towery's brackets. You get a shop to weld up the vacuum take offs, tidy up, then machine 15 to 16mm off the bottom and 10 or 11mm off the top (12mm at the most). Cost me around $100 to get done. You can get a further 5mm off the trumpet cover if necessary, which it shouldn't be. You need to take off the small water heater under the throttle and block the bolt holes. The trumpets need to be shortened appropriately AND so that their height difference is maintained.
You can shift your vacuum take off to the top cover somewhere. I used one of the idle control bolt holes on the back of the cover.
Your diff is strong enough.
Check the archives as well.


Peter

Nathan, that was my car that Peter was looking at and there are some notable differences. First, the engine sets further forward than is common these days (it was built in the mid to late 80's) meaning that the slam panel had to be moved well forwards for radiator clearance. The main reason was for steering clearance IIRC and to minimize trimming of the firewall. At that time I only had to remove one small corner, though later I removed the other for a turbo installation. Originally steering clearance was minimal to non-existant depending on engine loading but I improved that condition by doing two things: Stainless button head screws for the header bolts, and a late model U-joint on the steering. This required the splicing of a late model pinion shaft end onto the early model pinion shaft, making it long enough to make up for the shorter u-joint, and wallowing out the lower mount holes for the steering column to let it move outward and up a bit. It all worked out fine but I'm not sure how it would work with the engine set further back and with RV8 headers (mine are custom, the others weren't available yet). Maybe better, maybe not. As for the crossmember engine mounts, they have worked out great. Using Dan LaGrou's instructions to through-bolt the stock Buick mounts, there is no need for any sort of torque link to restrict engine movement and engine removal/installation is very easy. Fabrication is very simple, using black iron pipe of 2 sizes (one for the upright, the other for the bolt) and some thin plate for gussets. Mash one end of the upright to match the bolt tube, trim to length, tack in place, weld and add gussets. Very durable.

Jim
Jim Blackwood

Just goes to show what happens when you try to work from memory.
First, there is only one corner of the firewall modified and that is the one where I ran the turbo exhaust down on the right. Whether or not I had trimmed it before that I cannot say, but I can say that the accessory bolt boss on the left hand head is 5-1/2" forwards of the edge of the heater shelf and that side is still original. The head is 2" forwards of the corner on that side. I'm pretty sure the other side was not cut either because I have a good inch of clearance on that side behind the head, as one would expect. So the two things that decided engine position were steering clearance and gearshift location with a T-50 transmission.

With the small u-joint in the steering shaft there is an inch or so of clearance front-to-back with the headers, meaning the engine could go back another inch without hitting anything, but then I would have to relocate the swaybar.

Now if you are doing a RHD car, using the engine location I did and the small u-joint modifications, you might just barely squeeze it in without any other modifications, but radiator location is then an issue. I do believe the RV8 headers would work with no problems. I moved the slam panel forwards 2-1/2", which also necessitates moving the latch pin on the hood.

Jim
Jim Blackwood

I'm a half? way through a chrome bumper conversion. The above mentioned book is very useful but I would start with the older edition to get an idea of whats involved (v cheap on ebay), the latest edition might overwhelm you with detail. You will still need the latest edition at some point though - I think if I had picked that one up first it mgiht well have put me off!

I currently refer to both in equal measure.

Liam
Liam

Nathan, if you are bored then install a V6 in your B

Bill Guzman

I should say I've seen two supercharged cars that got around steering changes. I wasn't actualy refering to Jims fabulous road rocket but a more mundane variety I saw here in Melbourne at a concourse. Done by Neal at "Plus four" in Dandenong. He used a Vortec supercharger mounted in the aircon' position. He was claiming 300 BHP and was prepared to show me the dyno results to prove it. They had the motor more or less in the standard position forward/aft but set a bit lower, with a bit of pipe bending.
On my rubber bumper the knuckel is directly under the rearRHS pipe. Given that the knuckel on the chrome bumper steering is further forward than the rubber bumper then I think that you could possibly get it to locate between the two rearmost pipes. Even if you couldn't, I still think it might be easier to weld in a bit of a bypass around rather than change the steering. Certainly cheaper.

Try this link Naythan, It'll keep you occupied for hours

http://www.britishv8.org/British-V8-Website-SiteMap.htm
Peter

Should have specified

"If you use the cast pulley off the '80's air conditioned range rovers or rovers this lines up and then you just need to spacer the alternator bracket forward".
This is the water pump pully and that lines up with one of the pullies on the balancer. This is for a range rover front cover water pump set up
PS

"Nathan, if you are bored then install a V6 in your B"

Yeah, then you'll be really bored!

Sorry Bill, I couldn't resist. :)
Carl Floyd

This thread was discussed between 31/08/2006 and 02/09/2006

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