There is a very interesting article in the March issue of Thoroughbred and
Classic Cars about a much modified MGA built by Brown and Gammons for a
Japanese client. I find it a quite interesting mix of sensible and silly, but
in many ways similar to one of my cars.
The body has some rather clever widening of the fenders (not allowed on my
race car - I use 185-70 Comp TA's on 5.5" Twincam wheels), to allow 205 x 60
tires to be fitted on 7" wire wheels. Neat work, but I'm not too sure how
effective - past a certain point, any wider just gets you lower top end and
scrubs off too much cornering speed. Looks very nice, though.
The windscreen looks a bit silly, IMO, as they cut down a stock windshield
frame, as I did, but then they put in a heart shaped plastic screen, rather
than a lower straight-across screen, similar to the optional competition
screen. Each to his own, I suppose.
They fitted ventilated front 1" discs and racing AP calipers, as well as rear
discs from a VW. Half right, I'd say. The rear discs give a better balanced
system for competition, but, again IMO, the front mods are totally
unnecessary. I still run the stock unventilated discs on my Twincam, now with
carbon-kevlar pads to replace the unobtainable Ferodo DS-11 ones, and I have
_never_ been able to fade the brakes, even when running lap after lap into a
130 mph downhill corner. Obviously, there should be even less need for
uprating the brakes for the street, so I suppose the customer simply wanted to
have neat brakes, regardless of whether they were really necessary.
Similarly, the customer sent a racing Hewland 6 speed trans to B&G, which they
fitted with a great degree of trouble. A lot of fuss and much money when they
could have used a close ratio OD box like I do, or perhaps a later all synch.
close ratio.
They seem to have been much more sensible on chassis mods, I suspect because
the customer left this pretty much up to B&G. They avoided silly-assed
money-wasting conversions like most of the tube shock set-ups, and simply
chose suitable springs and valving for the stock shocks, and a proper sway
bar. Works for me, worked well for them.
They fitted a Quaiffe LSD to the car, sensible given the increased power, but
watch it in the rain! (I know - the race car has one, and you have to
tippietoe around in the wet, or understeer off the road!).
The engine is a mix of good and silly. They basically built a fast street
pushrod B motor, with 1950 cc for added torque, and a '770' spec cam, which
tends to be a bit tiresome in traffic, (or a lot tiresome if you have a close
ratio trans). They run 10.5:1 compression (I'd probably use about 10 as a max
for the street given gas availability, though I use 12:1 on the track). They
also use split Webers, an affectation foisted on them by the customer, which
will have little if any advantage at the rpm's that the car will be used at.
This was a tweak first used by A series, mostly Minis, to get a straighter
shot into the port by blocking off one bore of each carb, and setting the
other open bore right in front of the port on a special manifold. Waste of
time and money below about 5500 rpm, where this car will no doubt spend it's
life, but I guess the customer is always right.
Personally, I'd have spent the money on a crossflow head and a couple of
Webers (I use this setup on my other TVR race car, and it works very well).
The net result appears to work well, with 152 bhp at 5770 (fair bit less than
my Twinkie, but lower down and with a lot less cam, so more drivable) and a
claimed 128 mph top end that seems reasonable (I don't know what diff ratio
was used).
The dash was rebuilt (why?) and holes for a roll bar hoop put in what appears
to be too far to the rear, but overall, the car is pretty interesting. I
recommend a look for those that don't subscribe to the magazine.
Bill S.
(2 Twinkies and a Mk2 Deluxe)
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