Conference terri::cars_uk

    How are you going to keep the rear wheels on the ground to transmit the
    400 - 600 hp ? The rear end is rather light.
    
    Paul
    

what about using nitrous oxide injection  You mentioned drag racing as one of your 
persuits.  If in fact you are to drive it on the road with some reliability
then turning the tap on with nitrous oxide at the drag strip will cut your 
E.Ts considerably and reduce the need to modify the engine to the extent 
of being unreliable 


                        Regards Richard 
  
                               " drag racing fan in England"

    I agree. n2o is far more suited to dragging than a turbo. It's an
    instant grunt no matter what rpm your engine is doing.

    to .1
    
    good question. The rear end is quit light and traction will definitely
    be a problem. I realise that I'm never going to have as much traction
    as I'd like but them's the breaks.
    
    The properly laid out five link rear end will aid weight transfer
    to rear under heavy acceleration. Though there's a limit to how far you
    can go before the handling gets out of sorts. The upper lower control
    arms will/can be made so I can mount them differently to give different
    amounts of weight transfer. What is good for drag racing may not be 
    good for day to day driving.
    
    The shocks will be adjustable and whilst the springs do most of the
    work, putting the shocks on their softest setting will allow the car to sit
    down much more at the back. Good for drag racing but not so flash when
    you want to turn a corner. I may even buy a soft set of coil-overs for 
    drag racing
    The Australian touring car season this year had one contender this year 
    who would run the rear end ultra soggy and the thing would sit down heaps 
    at the back . Lots of traction but the co-driver wasn't keen and overall 
    the lap times were the same as the more normally setup cars. The team was 
    also accused of having a traction control since this suspension setup gave 
    them big advantages earlier in the season. The cars in question here are 
    5L V8 GMH Commodores and Ford Falcons. They weigh in at about 1300kg and 
    have about 550kg on tap.
     
    The rear tyres will be fairly wide (255-265) and will be the latest
    ultra-low profile ones..You get about 5000 to 7500 miles a set..nice
    and sticky , but rather short lived.
    
    The diff will run and LSD centre normally and a full spool(locks the
    axles together) for drag racing and hill climbs.
    
    The fuel tank may live behind the seats over the battery compartments
    for better weight distribution. 
    
    The best bit is that the MOTEC fuel injection system has inputs for 
    traction control . Front and rear speed sensors will detect difference
    between wheel speed and via computer controlled thresholds cut out
    spark/fuel until rear wheel speed returns to within x% of the front
    wheel. Obviously you can turn this off when you want to.
    
    All of this won't solve the problem but will help. TVR's , Westfield
    V8's etc all have the same problem, and they seem to cope. The 600hp
    configuration is for race purposes only and I will be running race
    slicks on the rear.
    
    .2 and .3
    
    Originally we were going to have a normally inducted 5L Rover motor
    and 450hp should have been achievable . This however incurred the very
    high cost of running a roller cam (A$1500) and expensive rods. Getting
    rods of the right length and strength was a problem. 
    The turbo route was decided because it would cost the same as the motor
    above but we could cut out the cost of the cam and the rods. The turbo
    motor would also be less of a dog around town. The high (9:1)
    compression is about what they standard rover ran anyway. We of course
    limit potential horsepower , but we can get away with one turbo.
    The motor won't have to rev as hard with the turbo and should be 
    very reliable. Rods and things which break at high RPM won't because
    we'll never rev the motor that hard.
    
    Why not Nitrous ??? good question. I like the idea of nitrous and for
    drag racing its perfect. But to put that on top of the normally
    aspirated motor above would reduce reliabilty even further. But I hear
    you say go for a more mild motor and then nitrous. That would work but
    I want horse power all the time ..I don't want 250hp normally and 500
    on gas. The turbo allows me to have the horsepower all the time.
    Nitrous is illegal on the street here..that is to say I can have it in the 
    car but not hooked up. I can have the turbo hooked up all the time so
    I have the horsepower all the time. Street racing is not something I
    condone , but I reckon it would be pretty embarrasing being seen off 
    by a Turbo Celica, because i'm not allowed to turn on the nitrous.  
    
    True the turbo motor may not be as quick at the drags , but I don't believe
    the turbo will be that much slower. The car will have more than enough
    grunt off the line and given a proper set of ratios should stay on
    boost all the way????. Nitrous is after all chemical super-charging.
    You don't have to weight for it to spin up though. The turbo lag should
    be negligble because the pipe runs will be kept to a minumum and I'm
    using the latest ceramic turbos from the good old USA. These turbos
    have rotors that weigh 1/3 of conventional turbos and spin up almost
    istantaneously.
    The other reason I'm not keen on nitrous is that its not very practical
    for things like hill climbs or road rallys . With the turbo I can 
    run big HP for a long time and not the short bursts the nitrous will
    give me.
    
    Another though of course is run a small amount of nitrous to cover
    those little points when your not on boost. Sort of like having a
    supercharger for low rpm and the turbo for high rpm. Thats something
    i'd love , but the expense is way out there.
    
    Thanks for the questions
    
    Byron 
    
     

    I can picture it now....
    
    MG cruising down the motorway a bit fast
    Police car comes up behind
    Chase begins
    hit the nitrous oxide button
    Bye bye ...

    I know this was all about arches, but hey you've got us all interested
    now....!
    
    Fair points made about nitrous (good for dragging but that's about it).
    So why not a supercharger, then? Cost?

    to .5 i can see it too , but I suspect the police radio is a fair bit
    quicker. The MG should be plenty fast enough in any configuration to say
    bye bye to most cops ...<grin>
    
    to .6 .....I mentally toyed with supercharging and as you know there
    are 2 sorts..the old style ones we see on drag cars etc and the new 
    screw type ones...they used one on an old TVR V8. and I think the last
    Aston Martin had 2 of them....
    The old style ones are too inefficient for my liking and I'd like to
    keep everything under the bonnet..bit of a Q car you could say..The
    road rules here don't allow much of anything to poke out of the bonnet,
    so i couldn't go that route.
    The new ones are super efficent (even more than a turbo), but they only 
    flow a small amount , so i'd probably need 2 of them..2 costs more than 
    one, and if my memories right "Sprintex" who manufacture these type
    locally won't sell you a supercharger without them fitting it...I'd
    rather do it myself.
    Cost isn't a big issue so I suppose the main reason we went turbo and
    not super charger is that the man who's helping build the car has plenty of
    experience with turbo's and not much with supercharging.
    I personally (non-logical biase) like turbo's more than super-chargers.
    I would however like to have a small sprintex for down low grunt that
    runs until the turbo's are on boost and then disengages. Koenig does
    that on his 1000hp ferrari testarossa conversions he used to do.
    
    The next question I suppose is why an MG???..Well I wanted a
    convertible , I rather like MG's, and a friend had the MG with the V8 
    already fitted. Originally we were only going to rebuild the motor
    which did , but only after boring and stroking it to 5 litres. It sort
    of went silly after that.
    The other big reason is that in oz the average person who builds a hot 
    car, builds a big V8 powered Ford or Holden (ie what they run at
    bathurst). Some of them are gorgeous , but stink when it comes real 
    speed, handling and stopping. Though of course a Ford or a Holden 
    will cost less than the MG. I wanted something different that would
    handle, stop and with lots of power go bloody quick. The words 
    "power to weight ratio" seem lost on some people, who think hey I've
    got a big heavy car , so lets put in an even bigger , heavier and more
    powerful motor, and that'll make it go. It may go straight pretty quick
    but by geez that 300+ kg lump of steel in the front turns the handling
    to shit..
    To be fair though I have seen some well thought out cars. Theres a chap
    in Melbourne Australia with a 8Litre all aluminuim Keith Black big
    block in his 4 door holden torana (An Australian classic that came with
    a 5Litre V8)....Puts out 700+hp , and in a fairly light (1200kg i
    think) body goes pretty quick . He does circuit racing so its got 
    big brakes etc....Cost him plenty ($A90000).
    
    I know this was about arches but who cares. 
    BTW I don't wish to flare the guards. I wand to keep the original body
    lines.
    
    Thanks
    
    Byron
    

	As the owner of a pedestrian MG BGT who would love to stick
	a V8 into it this beast of yours sounds wonderful.  I don't
	suppose that you're a member of the owner's club?  If you're
	not, they'd be interested in you as it sounds like you're about
	to have the world's fastest MG B ever.

	As for power to weight, the MG B is very heavy (about as heavy
	as most modern saloon cars) but it is nicely balanced being
	around 52% at the rear and 48% at the front.  Another plus is
	that it's very over engineered with lots of metal in it.

	Good luck

	Dave

    Did I here that jacking locations are a soft point (no pun intended)
    with MG B's ?!?!
    
    Well, so long as you don't mind us warbling on about anything else
    other than arches, super ..... continue!
    
    Well it sounds like a turbo is the route to go then. Some valid points
    made. Turbo's have always made good sense in terms of $/hp and, when
    looked after, are reliable too. On big engines which have a high rate
    of gas flow they make more sense than small, whiz-bang type 4 cylinder
    jobbies you find in your average hot hatch.
    
    Trying to stick to the question of getting them wheels under the front
    arches (and bearing in mind I know nothing of MG's) can you either put
    different hubs or a completely different steering/suspension combo onto
    the front so that the wheels sit 'inside' a bit more ? Maybe some
    different hubs? I think some cutting of bodywork (whether external or
    internal) is going to be required.
    
    This car sounds gorgeous. Shame it's in Australia!

	The MG B is a monocoque design but with chassis rails built
	in.  If you look under the car you'll see that these rails run
	from front to back and are about 6" in from the sides of the
	car.  The front "forks" bend inwards at the front.  The front
	metalwork was changed when BL brought out the V8, they had
	to change the inner wings and some other stuff around and so from
	then on, all MG B's could accept the V8 without modification to
	the bodywork.  The jacking points are only weak when this
	"chassis" is rotten.  Most MG Bs that you see around now are
	not rotten as they've mostly been restored.  That is, you used
	to see more rusty ones a few years back.

	By the way, next year is the 30th aniversary of the launch of
	the MG BGT which I believe was designed by Pinafarina...

	Dave

    
    I don't know about the worlds fastest, but it doesn't hurt to try
    8-). I'm not a member of the MG owners club here..I was/am going to
    join , but I was a bit concerned about what some of the purists would
    say. I had a bad time once when the local RS2000 club went to a hill
    climb day... I had a MK I escort with a very hot (it was then) 2L in it.
    I showed up to the hill climb, but due to snobiness about it not being
    a real RS2000 they wouldn't let me run...I know this is not quite the
    same circumstances, but I'm a bit wary.
    
    to .9 and .10
    As .10 says the later body shells are made to accept the V8. If I had
    to do this project over again I'd by one of those heritage body shells.
    I might get the chance if I crash it... The chassis one mine is perfect
    and never been in an accident as far as we know. Its been off the road
    since 1974. and was originally a 1967 model. We will found out how
    straight it is when its in to get the front crossmember done.
    The reason's for the front crossmember change are numerous , but the
    main on is that to get everything to fit we either needed to move the
    engine back about an inch (ie chop the firewall) or move/modify the 
    crossmember. As you all know the crossmember is huge..a smaller lighter
    one similar to what you can get aftermarket for hotrods will give us
    the room and other benefits..The crossmember is being done by a local
    race shop. The layout is based on some late 60's sedan racer and is
    currently fairly state of the art for this type of suspension. This
    shop use it on their 600hp chevy power sports sedan. basically a
    chassis witha fiberglass body. Its real nice, has adjustable everything
    and comes with magnesion spindles which allows the big brakes etc..
    This may/will allow us some more room for the tyres..though its pretty
    hard to guess what will fit and won't ..especially at the moment with 
    the original front suspension not on the car..
    
    BTW: how much does a MGG 1967 roadster weigh..I've foun different
    numbers from about 1097Kg to about 1200Kg...Anybody got a better
    idea????...we are removings stacks of metal
    Bumpers
    front crossmember
    steel fuel tank
    that huge chung of metal between the chassis rails just behind the
    grill and in front of the radiator. 
    Leaf springs
    and numerous other bits
    
    we are adding weight back in , but definitely less than we took out.
    
    thanks for the interest 
    
    i'll give an update of the current state of affairs if people are
    interested..to give you an idea of how far along we are
    
    Byron
                                                           

	I'll look up how much an MG B weighs in my Linsey Porter
	book.  I'd say off hand though that it's nearer 1200 Kg than
	1000 Kg.  I had a kit car (GRP and alumnium) and it weighed
	950 Kg all up and the MG is certainly more than that.  When
	I first got it I looked up its weight and it was only 40 Kg 
	less than a Cavalier SRi (whatever that is in Oz).  However,
	the rubber bumpers weigh a hell of a lot and the hard top adds
	weight too (and rigidity).

	As for the owner's club I've found everyone I've met to be 
	(mostly) of the very friendly dirty hands types.  I've only
	met one or two of the "I gave the garage lots of money and
	they built me this concours winner".  There's quite a lot of
	ordinairy people (like me) who happen to like the cars and
	are fairly handy with a spanner.  Although your car is heavily
	modified, it's still an MG and it does have the Rover V8 engine.

	I could ask for you and I would love to see an article on 
	your car in the owner's club magazine.

	Dave

    I'll stop short of saying I speak for all the members of this file but
    I would definitley like to see more about your "B"east.....  It sounds
    very intriguing.  
    
    I am planning a trip to Oz for next August/September.......where did
    you say you live????
    
    Brian Pituley
    Calgary, Canada
    

    I second that, go for it - join the club and have an article done about
    you. It's a great feeling.
    
    P.S. Anyone see the latest Which Kit? with Andy Gibson's K3 on the
    front?
    
    He built my car, he did..... :-))))))
    
    No, seriously......!
    
    ;-)

    
    I'll give the local club a ring and see what they say...I agree it still is
    an MG apart from the gearbox and diff.
    
    The article if possible will have to wait until its finished..There's
    a magazine here called street machine (similar to the one in England).
    Theres a pretty good chance I good get it in that mag...
    
    to .13 I live in Sydney Australia..The car itself lives in Perth 
    currently and some of the hard bits (front suspension) are being done
    by a friend of mine who works at a race shop. Due to strict regulations
    in some states I'm actually going to have to license it in Melbourne
    Australia..But I can still drive it in Sydney...The licensing part is 
    very complicated , but worth it to have it on the road and not just on
    a race track..
    
    Current estimates put the finish time at July-August next year. So it
    should be in Sydney by early September at the latest...
    
    The current state of play is:
    
    The motor is assembled...
    its an 1984 block....with the 4.4L crank from the local leyland V8....
    We had to remove some bits from the crank counterweights to make it
    clear the block. Bore is left at 3.5L size so we can retain rigidity
    in the block. The bottom end has a girdle that incorporates the main
    caps..Once again for strength....The rods are late model rover (89' I 
    think) . Pistons are custom made from cosworth blanks with gapless
    rings. The Valves are Chevy....I can't remember exact sizes , but their 
    as big as you reasonably can go...The valves, combustion chamber and 
    piston tops are all ceramic coated..This gives us higher combustion
    temperatures and means less heat escapes through the piston...meaning
    the oil runs cooler...cool enough to not need an oil coiler....The 
    rockers are Australian made Yella Terra roller rockers ...very good and
    blood expensive. The crank is some yank grind about 330 duration and
    about 500thou lift(excuse the brain fade)...This cam gave 430hp in a
    EFI 5L GMH V8 here running on hig octane unleaded. The motor still
    idles fine and has heaps of low down grunt....We were going originally
    as mentioned before use a roller cam with 350 duration at about 600thou
    lift...a nice wild cam...we could still use it but we had to get the
    cam made in the US and coupled with roller lifters blew cost by another
    A$2500...Redline will be about 6500 max...
    The bottom ends runs a 3 stage dry sump pump made by moroso...the sump
    is made by my friend...we are removing the original oil
    pump/distributor combo and running seperate oil feeds to the top if the
    motor...
    Induction is with a plenum chamber setup running into a hand made
    manifold with 8 throttle bodies and 8 injectors..coupled with the MOTEC
    system..This system is the same one used by the V8 touring cars at 
    Bathurst...Timing will be crank triggered.....
    We are removing the water pump housing and using an electric water
    pump. The water pump flows 30 gpm and with a thermostat allows quick
    warm up and cool down if required. Water will run in the reverse
    direction as is done on most new cars (opposite of normal)...
    A plate across the front of the motor will incorporate engine mounts ..
    This is like what the put on drag cars...The cam will come through the
    plate and we will be using a rubber belt to the crank like on the 2L
    escort motors used to have...This allows me to adjust cam timing very
    quickly...retarding both cam and spark timing will allow the motor run on 
    normal fuel...advancing both cam and spark timing will allow the motor
    to run on 104 octane and run much more boost....
    The rear of the sump will incorporate small engines mounts to take load
    off the bell housing....
    We have found a chap who will make us Kevlar rocker covers and
    a plenum/air box...The standard rocker covers are'nt high enough for
    the new rockers etc...These look very cool and I've seen similar on
    some of the local touring cars...
    The Turbo sits out front and will feed into the plenum chamber...
    
    The motor has not been dyno'ed yet...we are waiting on money for the 
    computer brain to run the EFI and for the turbo's to become available.
    The turbo's are only available in the US.
    
    Total cost of the motor is about A$16000-A$18000
    
    The bellhousing is being made and we are going to get the gearbox and 
    engine placed in the car before we go any further...
    
    Front calipers arrive at the end of this month..they're from a 944 
    porsche and are very light, and you can get a good range of pads for
    them.
    
    The front end is due to be constructed in Jan-Feb...I need to buy the
    wheels before then and the front disks...
    
    The rear end will follow in March
    
    By end of March all mechanical components should be in...
    
    The roll cage will be added
    
    The car will then have the interior fitted and the stereo positioned.
    
    The car will then be stripped and sandblasted prior to painting. Paint
    is being done by a chap who is Roll's Royce certified.
    
    The car will be painted and then all the stuff will be put back in/on.
    
    by Jul-Aug it should be ready to shipped to Melbourne for licensing and
    then onto Sydney..
    
    Thats all I have time for now...
    
    thanks for the interst...most people say I'm mad
    
    Byron
    

    
    Just found a very cool little device in an American mag called 
    Turbo and Hi Tech Performance....Its a motor thats sits on the cool
    intake side of a turbo and via a magnetic clutch spins
    the turbo at a speed of between 25000-50000 rpm..This keeps the turbo
    mostly spun and virtually eliminates lag...sounds interesting...could
    be damn handy...I will have a closer and if its good I'll buy one.
    
    Byron

    Sounds like a fantastic motor. I hate to think what the insurance is
    going to cost you though. I have always fancied an mgb roadster with
    the v8 engine after seeing one at a classic car show in Scotland. This
    guy had bought a new heritage shell and fitted a 3.9litre v8 with 5
    speed manual box. Various other suspension goodies leather interior and
    straight thru exhaust. With centre knock on chrome wires and painted
    tartan red it looked tremendous.
    	I couldnt quite afford something like this so I bought a Triumph
    spitfire mark 3 fitted with fancy suspension and a 170 bhp 2.5 litre
    petrol injection engine as found in the old tr6. The car handles like a
    dream and I regularly come well up in classic rallyes etc. Burning off
    your average boy racers and some power saloon cars in a 1968 none
    badged spitfire is pretty satisfying but even more pleasing is the
    insurance 125 uk pounds fully comprehensive agreed value with rac cover
    thrown in!
    	All in all it adds up to a car of your dreams which doesn't cost
    that much to run.Wish you luck with your project. Any chance of a go
    when its finished?
    		      	brian.

    
    Insurance is not too bad...There are groups who will insure legally
    registered "Street Machines"..They are underwritten by some larger 
    insurance group...This is actually very cheap...because people 
    who build such cars look after them and probably take much greater care
    than the average person (apologies to any average persons 8-) )....
    I am however limited to the value I can insure the car for..Its usually
    agreed value based on what you could sell it for. Realistically my MG
    is costing about $A60K+ ..I could only insure it for about A$30K.
    You do however get first option on the wreck if its written off....
    I have to say though that the expensive bits are the components.
    ie Brakes/wheels/tyres/diff/motor...The body itself is a small
    component. So I could probaly afford to rebuild if its was written off.
    
    They have different brackets based on KM's per year...some people have
    show cars that don't do more than 5K a year....
    
    Total cost of insurance will be about A$1000 per year which is pretty
    good...
    
    This of course goes higher depending on how high I can get the agreed
    value...I did see a concourse condition MGB roadster the other day in a
    prestige car shop and they wanted A$30K ...I'd never seen one priced
    above about A$20K before....Must be very original.
    
    My girlfriend loves Triumphs ..she doesn't have one now but had a
    series of TR3's, TR4A and a TR6 ...maybe soon we'll by a TR4A again
    (her favourite)...lovely cars...
    
    Byron
    

    
    An update if anyone is interested???
    
    I've bitten the bullet and gone with the 18" wheels on the front...
    they are 225/40 18"'s which are the skinniest 18's you can get...
    The 8" rim will stay however to give me the option of the 235/40
    later on if need be...that 10mm drop from 235 to 225 will help the
    fitment under the guard...we may have to flare the guard slightly
    but thats life.......
    
    The front suspension is to be hand crafted next month...
    We sourced Porsche 944 hubs/944 turbo calipers and a set of new steel
    ventilated disks from a 968...for not much money...this will sort out
    the what to do for hubs etc....The porsche hubs are magnesium which is 
    good...the hubs also have ABS wheel speed sensors built in, which will 
    make it easier to hook up the traction control....
    
    The motor/gearbox have been placed in the car and engine mounts etc
    fabricated...
    
    The electronic dash is being ditched (for cost reasons) in favour of
    some nice VDO guages...this saves about $A2k...The MOTEC fuel injection
    system can take up to 14 auxiliary inputs and will light up a warning
    light if preset limts are exceeded..this reduces the amount of
    instrumentation needed to a minumum...The MOTEC also has a hand
    controller which will give you detailed info on what happened and you
    can program the entire system using it...I can't imagine mapping out a
    full spark/fuel curve on it however...The MOTEC stores all of its
    telemetry info onboard and can be downloaded later...I'm not sure how
    much data this actually is...Also the MOTEC can do an action based on
    an input (sounds like Polycentre watchdog)...ie if oil pressure drops
    below a preset limit it will autmatically kill spark/fuel in a blink of
    an eye...Basically one big clever toy....
    
    2 other items of interest is some trick stuff they setup for the OZ
    rally champions celica.
    1) "Drag start" or something like that...You put your foot to the floor
    and when in "drag start" mode it will hold the RPM at the preset
    limit...as soon as you release the clutch it removes the restrictions
    on the engine and bingo your at full boost....
    2) "Flat change"...or how to break drive trains....When you hit the
    soft rev-limiter...the EFI cuts the motor momentarily, allowing you to
    pull the gearlever straight through to the next gear...you don't lift
    your foor off the accelerator...hence the name flat change.
    
    Interesting stuff that I may toy with...the Drag start could be useful
    the flat change may cost too much 8-)
    
    I've almost decided on what stereo to put in the car and will rabbit
    about that later...
    
    Thanks for your time
    
    Byron
    
    

    Dan$still_listening_and_interested_in_the_stereo_bit

    He'll never be able to hear the bloody stereo!
    
    Cheers, Laurie.

    So who would want to?  I'd be more than busy enough with other
    things...
    
    Brian from Canada
    

    
    The stereo....
    
    
    Because the cars got no roof ...the advice I was given by one local
    shop was to concentrate on getting the sound in the front of the car...
    rear fill is nice but its just going to go straight out into nowhere....
    They showed me a Mazda MX-5/Miata...that apparently has won a number of 
    "sound off" events...It had Polk MM3080's in the front doors and as far 
    as I could tell that was it..I don't know what head unit and it used 
    Precision Power amp(s)...The polk MM3080's consist of 8" sub,5.25" mid 
    and a tweeter...
    
    Anyway this influenced my decision and the equipment list is as
    follows..
    
    Alpine 7514S radio/cassete head unit
    Alpine 5960 6-disc CD changer
    
    Polk MM3080's in the front doors. Power rating 15-150 watts...4 ohm load
    
    Kicker F10a 10" sub in the back between the seats...power rating 300 watts.
    ..4 ohm load...
    The boot of the car has been moved forward to enclose the open area that is
    normally behind the seats...This means that the sub will be only be 
    about 5-7" behind the seats..to keep weight down this needs to be a free 
    air woofer...
    a dry sump tank takes up the room that would be required by a sub
    box.had 2 10" subs side by side...they would be playing straight into
    the back of the seats (which are kevlar race seats) and as such most of 
    the sound would be reflected straight back into the speaker....Thus 1 10" 
    should be able to play cleanly through the gap between the seats...
    
    To power this lot i'm looking at using a Alpine MRV-F400 amp...This amp
    is a 4 channel amp and in my config will give 2*40w (at 12V) to the front
    and 1*100w (at 12V) to the sub...at 14.4v it gives 2*60w and 1*160w...
    The amp has built in crossovers....and will give more power into 2
    ohms.

    I'm a bit concerned that there won't be enough power to the front
    speakers..a topic I've taken up in rec.audio.car..so we'll se what
    happens....
    Its Not a monster stereo either...because I want to keep the 
    weight down and avoid having to big an alternator/multiple batteries...
    
    The car will not be terribly noisy....the turbo kills most of the
    pulses and takes the bark out of the exhaust..so hopefully a couple
    of big straight through mufflers should keep it quite..
    
    I'm definitely not after a noisy boy racer car....quite'ish is good for
    me....(well I want to hear the turbo whistle 8-) )
    
    Byron

    
    Well...more than a month has gone and the front ends not done yet...
    Anyways the car is going in next week to do the front suspension
    the diff and rear suspension....
    
    The rear will be using AVO shocks at this stage and the fronts will use
    adjustable spax shockies....The roll cage will be added at the same
    time..
    
    The motor is in after massive delays associated with the bell
    housing...
    
    The seats have been chosen..they are single piece kevlar seats made by
    MOMO and have seperate driver and navigator ones...The steering wheel
    is also MOMO....
    
    I got the POLK speakers and will be installing them next week..
    
    The stereos changed slightly...same speakers...but I'll be using
    Kenwood gear instead of Alpine...I personally prefer Alpine...but
    a friend who works at Kenwood can get me stuff at cost price....
    
    I'll be using a Kenwood CD changer and radio/cassete unit....
    
    I've gone for bigger amp(s) since I can get them for the right price...
    There is now 2 and both put out 110w rms * 2...or 260w rms * 1.........
    I should be able to here them even with the exhausts off 8-)
    
    I don't have model numbers on me....
    
    Its getting closer....
    
    Byron
    

    And don't forget a new full stop key for your keyboard.
    
    Phil Gill.

    re.-2
    
    Sounds good! Keep us up-to-date on it, won't you?
    
    re.-1
    
    Arf!
    
    Cheers,
    Dan

    
    to -1
    
    absolutely
    
    I forgot to mention the clutch...we've decided to go for a Tilton twin
    plate rally/road clutch...Its a twin plate job that will take 600Lb-ft
    of torque...Its really a race clutch..but its got a bit of takeup so
    that its not so on and off on the road...
    
    Thanks for the interest
    
    Byron
    

    Gerroff 'im Gilly, don't you know that Aussie keybords have a special
    ... key for knockin sense into whingin pomms ??
    
    :-)
    
    Matt,.,,..

    
    Hi all,
    
    Its been a long time...well as with any car(computer) related project
    things are always overtime and over-budget...the MG being no
    exception...
    
    Well, all the suspension works been done, and the car is
    finally sitting on its own 4 wheels(thought i'd never see the day)...
    The drivers seats in and positioned...the car looks absolutely
    amazing..The wheels make the car look wild...speaking of wheels, since
    I went for the Porsche stud pattern all round, I managed to get hold of
    some space saver spares for use as spares...cost naff all 'cause nobody
    ever buys them...the cars going to look pretty daft with the spare on
    8-)
    
    The roll cage was also installed and extends to both front and rear
    shock towers...no scuttle shake in this baby...In order to make the car
    be safe and not look stupid I made the 2 bars that connect the rear
    hoop and front hoop together removable...This means I can cruise
    without it looking like a sedan with roof lopped off, and have a safe 
    car that will protect me when I roll it (this is not something I want
    to happen 8-) ).
    
    The front shocks are Traxspax(light rebuildable race shocks). the rears
    are AVO adjustables...
    
    The rear end got the full watss linkage and a proper(swivels in the
    middle) panhard rod...
    
    In April I put the speakers in the doors. man what a job....17hours 
    it took me with help...I reckon a professional could have done it in half
    ...but I saved some money anyways...
    
    Meantime....my mechanic friend who does all the really hard bits. Got 
    delivery of 2 race motors from the US...ones a 5litre Ford motor that
    goes in the local (OZ) touring cars...this motor has all the real nice
    goodies...Kryptonite crank and rods and wiseco aluminium pistons..these
    motors will rev to 8000rpm for 8hours plus with no problems...
    This coupled with (a) reading about the 7000rpm rover 4.3litre kit..
    (b)a lot of computations showing that more rpm means not only more
    grunt, but a faster car...because of the higher redline you get a lot
    more out of the car, even if you get no more HP...gear ratios will do
    this also...but they ain't cheap or easy to find...
    (c)stupidity and (d) this sort of work is dirt cheap in the US...ie
    $US4000 for crank/rods/pistons..all custom made and fitted...
    
    So the motor is on a slow boat to the US now and will be back sometime
    around october with lots of bulletproof internals....
    
    Kryptonite is some mega-strong alloy...stronger than forged steel and
    lots lighter...I can get a set of custom rods in kryptonite for the
    same price I can buy forged steel ones from Real Steel...Having seen
    the bent forged steel rods out of a turbo 944 race car my friend was 
    working on, made me go this route....The 944 rods bent because of the 
    sheer amount of grunt the motor made...500Lb-ft of torque at 5000rpm
    out of 2.5litres...It would have made more, but the torque was so great
    the rods bent..something had to give...
    
    The capacity will go up to 5litres again, and will have a longer stroke
    than before...meaning less stress on the rods/crank and since the
    motors even more oversquare..it should rev even quicker..
    
    Thats all folks
    
    Byron