<What is the advantage of the MGA Twin Cam model over any other sort of
> engineering that BMC ever developed? How does it work? How does it
affect regular maintenance and tune-up issues? What is the impact on
performance?>
It was a totally different car than the run-of-the-mill MGA in feel and
performance. It had the Dunlop 4 wheel discs, which on a car of that weight
with the correct pad material will still outbrake just about anything within
a decade or two of it. My race car will brake from 130 mph or so into a
downhill hairpin, every minute and a half with 2 other less demanding braking
periods in between, indefinitely without any sign of fade.
It had a 35% power advantage, and ran to another 1000 rpm - a stock redline
of 7000 rpm was pretty unusual in 1958.
Aside from a few design problems that are fairly easily correctable, like the
fuel aeration that killed so many under warranty, and eventually killed the
model, and an end-float idiosyncracy in the rear hubs/brakes that gives
excessive pad kick back if you drive it very hard, I can't think of any
serious problems with them. They rev so quickly that you can easily break
them with your right foot, though!
If only the factory had sorted the piston burning/fuel problem early in the
life of the model, we might have had an MGB DOHC version with 125-130 bhp
stock. Think about how that would have boosted popularity of the B, even if
it were released only as a more expensive street/track version.
Sigh! Oh well. Too bad the factory guys rushed it into production without
sufficient development time, but that's history now.
Bill S.
2 Twincams, 1 Deluxe
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