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MG MGB GT V8 Factory Originals Technical - P76 truck cam specs?

As several of you know I am looking for the mildest cam I can find. Does anyone know the specs for the p76 truck cam? It has been suggested that it might be suitable.

Jim
Jim Blackwood

Jim, the P76 was never a truck ! It was quite a fast sedan & a few fastback GTs were made. The engine was, I believe originally designed for the P7 Rover sedan ,which never saw the light of day. In the UK, there is a Sherpa truck which uses the Rover V8. Maybe this is what you're after ? Barrie E
Barrie Egerton

I stand corrected. But wasn't the P76 the engine with a taller deck and larger displacement? I thought that had been built for use in a truck, but it doesn't matter. I'm just trying to get OEM cam specs in an attempt to find an extremely mild cam. I figured a truck cam would be a good candidate.

Jim
Jim Blackwood

P76's were never a truck...just handled like one!

(Dons fire proof flame suit and runs for cover!!)

Cheers, Pete.
Peter Thomas

Jim, P76 MOTOR was same in sedan & truck [Leyland terrier] except for compression & carb,. Cam ,valves ,timing chain are same as in early Rover v8.Cam specs same as early Rover/Range Rover & MGBGTV8. Crane &/or Kent cams would have cam spec milder than these cars but it NO GOOD over 4500rpm, you cann't get a better standard cam than early Rover or Rangie & go it goes to 5500rpm. Barrie, 4.4L motor was designed for Rover P8 but Jaguar objected due to new XJ6 coming out,so Aussie engineers got their hands on it for their all Aussie P76, and 30 years later handles as good as any modern day F@&d or H@(%den,[ P76 beat Porsches up Targa Florio section on 73 WORLD CUP rally.] & i will keep on Trucking, Pete.
Stephen Foldhazy

So now I'm confused. You guys are saying the P76 *IS* a truck and it outruns Porsches?? I don't think a cam out of one of those would be at all what I want. Sounds just a little too radical for my taste. Any idea where I could get the specs on that Crane or Kent cam? If it won't run past 4500 because it doesn't breathe well enough it may be just the thing, as long as the valves don't float. The blower boost will make up for that.

Jim
Jim Blackwood

Jim,

P76 is one very ugly leyland car produced in Australia during the 70's. It also happens to share a common engine with the "Leyland Trucks" of the era. The 4.4 is a rover/leyland derivative and the cranks are widely used to bore and stroke 3.5's. The heads are pretty restricitive as well.

P76 car :- http://webtrade.com.au/p76/contents.htm

Regards

Allan
Allan

Jim,

Try a Leyland Terrier V8 and see what you get. Rover derivative 4.4ltr truck motor.

Regards

Allan
Allan

the best use these engines can be put too..... melt them down and recycle as beer cans.
Russell

The P76 engine in stock form was probably stronger than the Rover. It was used in Terrier trucks and had bigger crank. I have an article at home about a guy who used the block bored out to 5 litres, fitted Torana? XU1 rods and pistons (I think), and used Terra Yella Rover heads with Aussie made production buckets (not from the P76). He swore the motor was amazing. As for the P76 not selling well in Australia, well, lets see any US manufacturer do better if they had both Ford and GM joining forces to destroy the car's reputation with what in my poinion was and is the most agressive negativeadvertising campaign I had ever seen. I know for a fact that considering what it was designed for (running around the bush and having heaps of room inside), the falcons and holdens were no match. Hey I give the point that it looked crap but it WAS indestructable!
mark mathiesen

Peter, can I borrow the fire proof suit? its humor time.
Whats the difference between feeling up a hippo ,and driving a p76?
you will feel a bigger #@$%!*!# in a p76.






Russell

Well that's not a bad looking truck at all! I don't know why you guys are complaining about it so much, I think it looks quite good, really!

I went to the Crane cams site, their mild cam has about .030" more lift than the stock cam. Don't know about the other specs as I still haven't found out what they are for stock 215. Does Kent have a website? I wasn't able to find it. So far haven't found any specs for the Terrier either. Still looking.

Jim
Jim Blackwood

Russell,
Great line...must remember that one! LOL.

Pete.
Peter Thomas

Jim,

The P76 wasn't a bad car as vehicles go and certainly no worse than the offerings of the day from the then opposition Ford, Chrysler and GM (Holden).

There was a coupe planned to supplement the sedan but it never saw the light of day beyond the prototype stage.
A sedan entered in the Targ Florio road race came home in first place.

Sadly the quality control was appalling and the attitude of the builders , British Leyland , was summed up as antagonistic at best.
They really did seem to hate everyone and had a real seige mentality for which they unfortnately paid dearly.

So far as I know the Terrier truck ws an Australian (and NZ too?) only item.
Great ads as I remember.

Cheers, Pete.

Peter Thomas

Jim, the Kent website.... http://www.kentcams.com
Pete Green

Don't forget you could fit a 44 gallon (Imperial) drum in the boot of a P76 and close it.

FWIW!
Ian Buckley

I thought the design looked pretty good. Handy to have 4 doors on a truck too. BL probably just hated it because they didn't think of it. That not invented here mentality happens way too much.

I sent kent cams an email. My conversion from inch to metrics made their specs look very promising. I don't know whether that was because of faulty math on my part, or just because american cam design tends to be way radical, but it seems worth looking into.

Jim
Jim Blackwood


There were quite a lot of differences between the P76 block and the UK unit-i should know i shipped a block and crank back from Aus. whilst on holiday there(found it under a tree on a camp site!). I didn't use it in the end as it wasn't complete and i couldn't rebuid it using UK parts.

The P76 runs pressed steel rockers and hollow steel pushrods for oil supply to the top end, as there are no oilways in the block supplying the head for the valve train like the UK/USA variants. The block is 14mm taller and uses only four head bolts per cylinder (in other words those 4 small lower head bolts are not used like some other versions).The conrods are around 10mm longer and the main bearings are much bigger.However the cam and chain look identical in set up to all other versions so could be a good bet.

As for a mild cam spec what about the Stage 1 v8 Land Rover (not to be confused with Series 1). 1981-83 , it made the grand total of 114 bhp at 3500rpm so might be the one you want.
John Maynard

This thread was discussed between 19/12/2003 and 30/12/2003

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