New HIWD: Kurt Appley's 1965 MG Midget w/ Nissan A15

[Moderator]

As seen at BritishV8 2013!

How It Was Done: <a href="http://www.britishv8.org/MG/KurtAppley.htm">Kurt Appley's 1965 MG Midget with Nissan A15 Four Cylinder Engine</a>

[BlownMGB-V8]

That is SO close to having a stock appearance. It wouldn't take much to be at the point where nobody would notice that it says Nissan on the valve cover!

I once put that engine in a Cub LowBoy lawn tractor. Well, that engine's predecessor, an 1100cc Datsun. My sister had burned up the 4 cylinder flat head engine and I went to a local junkyard and paid the man $40 for  an engine, put it in the tractor, mounted twin SU carbs out to one side and put a belt drive on the governor. Had to swiss cheese the bobweights to get into the power band and then the blade tips went supersonic. I wasn't sure whether it was cutting the grass or shearing it with the vortex off the blades! What I did know was that if that ungodly howl ever stopped and you didn't push the clutch right in it'd turn the drive belt to jelly. Dad traded it in on a bigger tractor and the guy who bought it called me up one day because he wanted to rebuild the engine. I recommended that he just go get another (and larger displacement) junkyard engine and go with it. I should have kept the guys name and phone number but I didn't. It was one of my first engine conversions. Probably the first one I did was a push mower when I was a pre-teen.

Jim