Look at the attention to detail!	Differential
Empty Engine Compartment	This is how the car looked when it showed up
Scuffing on the piston skirts tells us the pistons were "sticking in the bores"	The interior of the engine block had previously been painted with glyptal
The camshaft hardness has failed. This after only 500 miles.	The cylinder head after only 500 miles.
You can see the "chatter" marks on the bottom of the lifters which indicates the hardness has already failed.	/The original engine disassembled, cleaned, inspected and ready to go to the machine shop.
The engine compartment less engine	The interior less all upholstery and dashboard

The project started out innocently enough. We were contacted by L.L. who inquired if we would be willing to finish reassembling his 1977 MGB. He had stripped out the interior, removed the drive train, dashboard, suspension, and wiring harness. L.L. had the body, interior, and underside beautifully painted. He had rebuilt and reinstalled the suspension and then brought the car to us. We installed a new main wiring harness, sourced used ancillary wiring harnesses that are not available new and made all the electrics function properly. Yes, it is possible even on a British car! We reassembled the console, the heater controls and ducting for the heater. We flushed and bled the brake and clutch hydraulic systems. We rebuilt the windshield frame (boy was that a project!) We contacted several glass shops and no one wanted to tackle that project. We found out why! We applied “Waxoyl” a waxy oily substance made by the British to prevent rust to all painted non-exterior surfaces.

Then, L.L. brought the engine in. The engine had only 500 miles on it since it was rebuilt 14 years ago.

L.L. then dropped the bomb! He was planning on supercharging the car and installing a 5-speed transmission. My response was when!? That started the discussion about drive train options.

I did some thinking and some research. Talking to L.L yielded the following criteria: He wanted at least a 100% increase in performance and he wanted five forward gears for comfortable highway cruising.

I considered converting the car to a V8, which the factory did (only on the coupes known as an MGB GT V8) and decided it would be an excessively time consuming and expensive project. While a “bolt in conversion” there are a tremendous number of issues with this route. One is the exhaust manifolds. MG used some pretty restrictive ones. A common practice is to use headers and cut holes in the inner fender wells and run the piping through the wheel wells. As a general rule I do not like cutting up or modifying the structures of cars if I can help it. The intake system is another significant problem. The factory MGB GT V8’s used an intake manifold with 2 SU carburetors up against the firewall (again a hard to find and not a very (“performance friendly option”). Since the “Buick-Rover V8” was originally purchased from GM in the early 60’s (and used in Rovers well into the 90’s). An intake manifold that uses an American 4 Barrel carburetor and fits under the hood is available. An American 4 barrel carburetor wasn’t in the cards for this MGB. Another option was the fuel injection system and intake manifold from a TR-8 that was sold in California for 1 year only (if I remember my trivia correctly!) Another difficult to source fleet of parts.

Lastly, The Rover fuel injection system and intake manifold can be made to fit under the hood by shortening the whole intake set-up. Again more of a project than I wanted to recommend.

On to Plan B, the supercharged engine! Moss Motors sells a supercharger kit, as does a company in Australia. The two major differences were: Moss supplies custom cast intake manifold with their kit, the Australian kit bolts the supercharger to the existing intake manifold. The Australian kit uses an Opticon aka: Whipple, Sprintex, Lysholm commonly called a “twisted helix” design of supercharger. The Moss kit uses a Rootes supercharger commonly called a “screw type supercharger.” Without going too much in depth, my research from numerous sources yielded that the “twisted helix” design is much more mechanically efficient from the standpoint of energy used to create boost pressure and also it is more thermally efficient when compared to the “Rootes” type of supercharger to the amount of heat induced into the intake as tract as a byproduct of supercharging.

All that said, if you are planning on running 8 PSI or less of boost pressure the additional complexities, cost and possible future serviceability issue of the “twisted helix” type of supercharger was not warranted.

Okay so we had the supercharger kit picked out—on to the engine. As owners of Lotus Esprit (4 cylinder) turbos and Peugeot 505 gas turbos came to know cast pistons will eventually fail. It was not a question of if, but when.

I discussed all this with L.L. and offered the following options: bolt the supercharger kit on to the existing “rebuilt” but old engine and see what happens. If it self-destructs we could then build a proper engine that was designed with supercharging in mind or we could put together an engine initially that was designed for performance and durability using modern tricks and techniques.

L.L. thought on these options and had us partially disassemble the engine for initial inspection. It’s a good thing we did. We discovered several significant problems; all 4 pistons were scuffed on the skirts, the camshaft was already failing, 3 of the 4 pistons had seized or stuck rings. The camshaft bearings were badly scored. I don’t think this engine would have lasted long in stock trim, much less in supercharged form!           

Preparing a proposal for a drivable, durable MGB engine with 100% more power here’s what I came up with: running 8 PSI of boost on a stock MGB engine makes 160 ft lbs. of torque at 2700 rpm, which is the same as the factory MGB GT V8, so far so good.

To ensure durability along with good drivability my recommendations included: balancing all reciprocating and rotating components, “blue-printing” which means adjusting all internal engine clearances to nominal (middle of the factory) specifications, replacing all critical hardware (cylinder head, connecting rod and flywheel) with aircraft quality fasteners, larger stainless steel intake and exhaust valves, double instead of single valve springs, a custom ground camshaft especially suited for use with a supercharger, roller rocker arms with a slightly higher lift ratio for more efficient cylinder filling (read more power, since an engine is just an air pump and getting more air in and out is the goal), the pistons will be JE high silicon content forged aluminum pistons--which will be coated on the crowns with an aluminized ceramic that distributes heat more evenly and helps to eliminate hot spots which can lead to a catastrophic meltdown.

The skirts will be coated with a molybdenum disulfide which helps eliminate scuffing and friction. The cylinder head will be gas flowed, the combustion chamber, exhaust valves and stems, and the intake valve heads will be coated with a thermal barrier that will improve engine efficiency because the heat of combustion will be directed back into the engine rather than “leaking” into the cooling system. The intake ports and the intakes valve stems will be coated with a Teflon derivative for more efficient induction flow.

The transmission will be a 5-speed from a Datsun 280Z, which will bolt in, the shifter will be in the original location and removing the transmission for clutch service will be a cinch unlike the factory 4-speed or overdrive transmission.

While we are waiting for the first test drive we have a lot more work to do! Today, it’s off to the interior shop to have the interior put back in. The internal engine parts are at the machine shop. Boatloads of parts are on order. More to follow…