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David Allison
United Kingdom
665 Posts |
 Posted - 22/11/2010 : 10:07:12
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Peter - many thanks for that - yes indeed NA-037 is now owned and run by my sister Jane.
She does still let me borrow it from time to time, problem is that the car has been a part of the family for so long now that we tend not to remember that not everyone knows.
Barry - as far as I know there was NEVER a plan to build a V8 engine by the MG works.
Such work would have been frowned heavily upon by the overlords at Cowley.
Indeed the MG works did have a 1500 engine in the racing shop in 1935 it came from Blackburn and was a twin OHC 6 cylinder unit.
2 reasons it didnt go further - 1: when Cowley found out about it they went APE S%$! about it because it was a non family product - 2: it was never able to show the power it promised.
As far as I know it was never fitted into a chassis.
Regards a MMM V8 it is pretty easy to scotch.
The bore and stroke of the 750 4 cylinder engine do not lend themselves to a V8 pattern very well and I doubt that a 3 bearing crank would have been ideal!
V8 engines were not a choice that many engineers this side of the "atlantic pond" considered - mostly inline 6 and 8 cylinder engines in Europe were the rule of thumb.
Small capacity V8 engines are a relatively modern piece of engineering thinking - the problem pre-war was getting the assembly balanced - small capacity engines are high revving and most V8 engines pre-war rev below 6000 rpm which is well below were a small capacity engine starts to produce real power. Modern electronics and complicated ancillary balancer shafts are now used to keep the whole thing from shaking itself apart.
The MMM 4 cylinder engine is advanced for its years and has a pretty short stroke - but to get everything fitted in place for a V8 the stroke would need to be ideally 1/2 the current amount.
Most modern small capacity V8 engines have a stroke of around 15% less than the bore diameter and rev to around 18,000-20,000 rpm. With a 3 bearing crank - I think NOT!
Apart from this the oiling to the cylinder heads is suspect at the best of times (especially on scavenge) and I dont think that the design would lend itself to the traditional 90 degree V8.
However there are a number of large capacity engines running at 1500 cc with 6 cylinder engines - these were never built by Abingdon though.
The largest capacity that the MMM 6 cylinder engine can get is around 1480 cc (the 1271 cc with 60 mm pistons) and MG did build 4 of those.
The 3 Musketeer trials cars - plus E R Halls sprint special all had the larger capacity engine.
Cars entered pre-war in the 1500 cc class were normally done so at 1100 or 1271 cc though - I was told by one entrant that the start money was better in the larger engine capacity class so he always entered his car as 1500 cc, when I asked him what the largest capacity engine he built was - he told me that it was an 1100 cc engine with maximum oversize pistons (which is about 1310 cc I think) with the original engine.
Current practice seems to be to stagger the bores along the block to gain extra capacity and there are now a few 1500 + 6 cylinder engines and 1000 cc + 4 cylinder engines.
These are sort of V6 and V4 engines - although at a rather less than conventional angle of V.
In short MG would NEVER have been allowed to go Grand Prix racing in the larger Voiturette class and those entrants that did so did it without support from the factory.
Bellvue Garage - Reg Parnell and Monaco Motors did further develop the MMM cars and engines - Geoff Monk went a stage further and developed his own chassis frame too.
However all of these were developments of the exisiting package and used lightly modified components supplied from the standard parts bin and none of them were really financed well enough to do any more than that.
Monks Q special was the most highly developed 4 cylinder engine - 500 cc unblown it was always too heavy - 750 blown it ran in early post war formula 2 but was again rather too heavy and underpowered as a result.
Post war in sprints and hillclimbs it was probably the fastest MG running in the VSCC and it was only outclassed in circuit racing by the Monaco K3.
The Monaco K3 was also pretty successfull - it always ran in international events at 1100 cc blown and did so with great distinction.
Shortened chassis, lower drive line and a highly supecharged 1100 engine the car was probably the fastest pre-war MG circuit racer until Richard Last sorted out the Parnell car.
John Webb told me that the Monaco car was always faster than the Parnell car (which he owned and ran) because it was lighter and that Monkhouse and Pitt were both better drivers than him.
It would be great to see the two cars race each other again although the Monaco car would need an engine transplant to increase its capacity to match the Parnell.
All good fun - and a very roundabout answer.
Regards David |
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bahnisch
Australia
674 Posts |
Posted - 22/11/2010 : 21:59:42
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| Good on you David. Nicely answered! You are truly a "chip off of the old block". My first car was a PA in 1955! I am an old bloke now but still enjoy my MG's, two of which are prewar. |
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JMH
United Kingdom
911 Posts |
Posted - 28/11/2010 : 11:39:57
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I spent a few hours yesterday just "pottering through stuff" mostly from the early days. Following on from Colins thoughts on V8s transplanted into MMMs, I found this in Dads' jottings:
"In 1958 I took my J2 to Prescott Hillclimb. I was approached by a spectator who claimed to own a J2 which "will do 95". I was skeptical but he assured me it was so, so much that I began to wonder if he might have a J4 after all. Spurred by this thought, I took the time to walk to the spectators' car park to see this marvel of tuning. hiding under the bonnet was a Ford engine, not the usual 1,172cc conversion but a Vee 8! The thing actually nestled under the bonnet quite well & the bulges in the bonnet sides quite modest"
He didn't mention if it was still on 8" brakes! I wonder where that one ended up?
JH |
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