MGB Roadmaster

BlownMGB-V8 · July 07, 2009, 09:54:07 PM

At this point I really don't care anymore. My own personal preference would be aluminum but that's $140 + for new. If anyone runs across a set of used ones that'd be dandy. Tin works, chrome works, we just need something that will let us run 'er up. Rick, you made a comment in regards to the chromed ones, but I'm a little dense sometimes. What were you saying?

Jim

BlownMGB-V8 · July 11, 2009, 05:59:32 PM

Great news everyone! Rick has a set of chromed valve covers for us. Now could somebody else get us a set of the spreader bars that go under the hold down bolts?

Jim

BlownMGB-V8 · July 14, 2009, 10:56:16 PM

More good news! Jeff Schlemmer (Advanced Distributors http://www.advanceddistributors.com/ ) has finished up the ignition system and shipped it, so it should be here in time for the weekend. Rick is going to try to ship the valve covers tomorrow so they should be here also. Steve is bringing the radiator.

So, depending on how fast we decide to work there is an outside chance that we may be able to start the engine. Sorry to say the shorter HTOB won't be here for a couple more weeks so test driving it isn't an option, aside from the fact that we don't have a radiator fan yet, but it would be great to hear the engine run.

Looks like we'll have a pretty good crowd. In addition to Steve, Max, Carl and of course me, Dan B might make it also. Looks like the downstairs bathroom is going to go online just in time!

Jim

mowog1 · July 15, 2009, 09:28:39 AM

Be sure to take video in case it does get started up!

MGBV8 · July 18, 2009, 12:56:28 AM

We are going to crank it. I will/would be in the driver's seat, but I plan to defer to Jim since it's his brainchild.

Plus, I just got home from a Peter Frampton concert & I gotta get up in 5 hours & drive 5 more hours to get to Gunpowder Road, Florence, KY.

mowog1 · July 18, 2009, 09:18:40 PM

We need an update!

ex-tyke · July 19, 2009, 09:24:58 AM

OK Rick, you asked for it! ....here's an update of Frampton

mowog1 · July 19, 2009, 10:53:59 AM

Thanks, Graham!

And now from his new album, "BADASS Comes Alive!"....

"Waaaaa...wa-wa-wa-wa-waaaa...wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-Waaaaaa...

I wonder how it's running.....there's ringing in my ears....."

MGBV8 · July 19, 2009, 10:20:02 PM

He was playing this gutar:

As for the Roadmaster, it's.......ALIVE!!!!

Dan B · July 19, 2009, 10:22:53 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OwKAwVElKk

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mowog1 · July 20, 2009, 03:36:01 AM

Fantastic!

ex-tyke · July 20, 2009, 01:35:41 PM

Good stuff gents.....great job!

CBV8 · July 20, 2009, 01:46:40 PM

Looks like your choice of radiator worked fine. Did you find a fan yet? If not give me dims and i'll scrounge around.

castlesid · July 20, 2009, 03:10:39 PM

Congratulations guys, a great job done.

Was expecting it to be a lot louder!

Kevin.

mgb260 · July 20, 2009, 07:28:18 PM

Great job guys, another milestone! I wonder if Peter Frampton knows he is involved in this project? LOL

BlownMGB-V8 · July 20, 2009, 07:54:26 PM

I'm hoping Steve, Carl and Max will give you their impressions of the weekend once they have rested. In the meantime I'll write up a report.

Steve came in on Thursday and for the next couple of days we busied ourselves with foraging and the braking system as well as properly securing the wheels. We got the correct lug nuts eventually, and Keyston/Marmon gave us some square tubing. There were modifications needed to mount the master cylinder that included a cut to the bulkhead shelf for brake arm clearance (we rounded the edge over for the 'proper' appearance) drilling of mounting holes, and fabrication of a new actuator rod and clevis, and while Steve worked on that I began on the radiator support structure. By the time Max and Dan got here Friday evening, Steve and I had put in a couple of full days and had just sat down with a cold one to relax and plan the next day. That didn't go according to plan.... I've noticed that usually once the beer is brought out that marks the end of the work day, but in this case that didn't work either. Apparently Dan and Max were just plain tired of sitting. Or excited at the prospect of working on the car, or both. Whatever the reason, we didn't knock off until well after 2 am, and it didn't get any better when Carl showed up the next day! I gotta tell you, these guys were so gung-ho about firing this thing up that I had to tell them when it was time to eat and time to quit. Now that's not a good thing. I'm terrible about scheduling, and if it weren't for Edith calling me and asking when we planned to eat, I'm not sure we ever would have. As a matter of fact, after she left Sunday to visit the family we kept at it until well into the afternoon with nary a thought of lunch, even though it was sitting there waiting on us. I'm not complaining, but if you're wondering how we did what we did, that was it.

We really kicked it into high gear. As of this point, the dashboard is wired and in the car (not bolted down yet) and most of the gages work. Most of the electrical system is sorted out, thanks to Max and Carl and we have notes on what still needs attention. This is with the old wiring system of course, which we will use until the car is painted, at which time Steve Carrick (Advance Auto Wire) will upgrade it. Dan and Steve got the throttle system up to snuff, making linkages, and sorting out a myriad of other details, such as spark plug wiring and on and on. There is no way I could keep it straight as to who did what, because it was like a well orchestrated game of musical chairs. I mean, these guys are talented, and it was nothing to see all of them working on any one part of the car at different times, and sometimes all at once. The key thing is that with the clear goal of firing off the engine and being able to do a sustained run for break in, every task needed to make that happen was accomplished by Saturday evening. And there was a lot. Fuel pump and lines, tank filler neck, hoses, coolant, surge tank, battery cables, and many other small tasks. At long last we stood in readiness, and as you can see from the video the engine fired right up! The run wasn't perfect, we have a serious lean condition and we glowed the headers rather quickly and shut down. A couple of quick changes to the timing smoothed out the engine quite a lot, and a change from #67 to #72 primary jets helped but there is still a good ways to go. The jet change took a good solid hour to accomplish, maybe more even with Carl's and Max's assistance, and after that I simply refused to endure that ordeal any more, so that was the end of our tuning efforts for this weekend. After seeing what was required to change QuadraJet main jets none of the others wanted to take it on either, and the only reason I did it the first time was to demonstrate just what a horrible task it is.

Steve had wisely called it a night before we tore down the spare Q-Jet he had brought along in order to get the jets, as he was rolling out about 5 in the morning. Sorry Steve, we didn't put it back together. The rest of us kept at it until the wee hours yet again, and put a serious hurt on the beer supply in the process. Sunday we were all up bright and early, and my great appreciation goes out to these guys for their efforts in tidying up the shop before heading for home. I know Steve and I had made a bit of a mess by the time the rest had arrived, and the shop was no showplace when Steve got there, so they left it much better than they found it.

As for my overall impressions of the startup, it was simply awesome! Kevin mentioned that he thought it would have been louder, but any u-tube video of a car running tends to be underwhelming and understated. I will say this, the exhaust note is as good as I could have possibly hoped for and much better than I had expected. Dave VanWyck didn't let us down. As a street car it will be quiet enough to be a comfortable driving machine and will bark when wanted. If the rest of the car lives up to this part we've really got a show stopper on our hands. Despite the poor initial tune the engine is very smooth. Oil pressure is great, in fact during pre-oiling there was so little drag on the drill that we had our doubts that the gage was reading accurately, but when running we showed a solid 45 psi and more. Regrettably we weren't able to sustain a run long enough for proper cam break-in, that will have to wait for proper carb calibration, and that brings up a thorny question. What to do about the carb? I will not do another Q-Jet main jet change. I simply refuse. I realize there are people who like those carbs but I am not one of them and I do not and never will understand how such a thing is even remotely possible. I'll happily change the carb, but if I NEVER so much as even SEE another Q-Jet main jet it will be several lifetimes too soon. Holley, Edelbrock, no problem, but no more of this. Now Dave Kirkman will be here next weekend and he may be able to get us special pricing on an Edelbrock replacement carb. My recommendation is to go with that and do the break-in run next weekend. What say you?

Jim

mgb260 · July 20, 2009, 09:48:02 PM

Not a Quadrajet fan either. There are other spreadbore replacement carbs that are better. Holley spreadbore, Edelbrock (has a Quadrajet clone). Pony caburetors has a Autolite spreadbore( Nice but spendy, plus Ford carb on GM sacriligous.).Then there is Summit's new carb(750cfm square bore,would need an adapter;only $259 with the best of Holley and Autolite features).It would be about 1" taller. Maybe they would sponsor and put the car in the feature section of their catalog.

Bill Young · July 21, 2009, 10:38:27 AM

Guys, how about another possible option that would save us both money and tuning time, use a GM Quadrajet throttle body such as used on the big block Chevy Pickups back in the 80s and 90s along with a closed loop controller such as this one sold by Holley. http://www.holley.com/534-27.asp We should be able to pick up an used TB pretty cheap. We'd need some changes to the fuel pump pressure I would guess and possibly a swirl can or return line, but it would solve the drivability issues in any part of the country and eliminate any jet changes. I'm not sure if this would work for us but if you think it's worth some investigation I'll certainly do some research and find out what would be needed.

BlownMGB-V8 · July 21, 2009, 12:47:07 PM

Bill, if that will fit a spreadbore intake and meter out enough fuel for a 1/2 race cam I'd say let's look into it. I'm guessing we'd need an O2 sensor, and will the Star-Wars air cleaner work with it?

Tom C, it appears the Mitsubishi alternator we used (with the 4 wire round plug) may use an external regulator. Could you see if the car it came from has one? There should be a simple 4 wire harness to link that to the alternator and 2 wires to connect to the car's wiring harness, I think 1 wire to switched power and 1 to the idiot light (Ign).

I think the radiator will work but we will need to have the lower hose neck angled inward at a 45 degree angle to clear the tire. Might be possible to shift the whole works to the other side a bit, I'll look into that. It'd be good if we could keep it an off the shelf item. Our core area is 27 x 17 with 3" of clearance behind the radiator (leaving about 1/4" to the water pump shaft). The core support on the car now will have to be cut off and re-designed as it interferes badly with the tires. In the process I think I can pick up another 7/8" of lower clearance. If we have to we can increase the rear clearance just a little but at the cost of losing the existing hood latch pin, so I'd rather not do that if we can avoid it.

Tom and Graham, we really need a fan package before the radiator support can properly be finished. I believe we have consensus that electric is the way to go, and the entire fin area should be shrouded. If there is a stock shroud that will accept an electric fan, or a fan package that is close to the right dimensions those seem to be the obvious choices. But we need to get that all done before September, including building the new radiator support structure, which will take several days of work and which we should really allow a couple of weeks for. So figuring in shipping that gives you guys only a couple weeks to get that part sorted out. Go with the above dimensions and I will see if we can shift things sideways any for tire clearance. It would probably have to go several inches and the rad neck mod may be the easiest fix but I'll look into it. We may also gain something with a tight bend section from a formed hose as the coupler and we need one of those for the top hose as well. None of that will affect the fan package.

Curtis and Graham, we modded the old recovery tank out of my roadster to use a surge tank. It's ugly, angular and not a particularly good fit but it will work until you guys can come up with something better. There's enough room for a pretty big rectangular clear plastic tank if you can find something suitable. The drain fitting on the radiator lower neck is 3/4" but we can make 5/8" work.

Jim

302V8 · July 21, 2009, 01:34:08 PM

Awesome job guys! Well Done!!!

Cheers

Pete

BlownMGB-V8 · July 25, 2009, 08:30:17 PM

WE DROVE IT!!!!

mowog1 · July 25, 2009, 10:23:17 PM

And.......

BlownMGB-V8 · July 25, 2009, 11:32:32 PM

Uh, better just leave it here... You wouldn't like it.

BlownMGB-V8 · July 26, 2009, 04:18:31 PM

mowog1 · July 26, 2009, 08:33:18 PM