Hi I'm Ben and new to this forum. I know this is a V8 forum but I have an MG Midget and I;m interested in converting it to a Japanese engine and transmission. I think the Midget with about a modern four cylinder would make a very nice driver. I would like to hear from other people that have done similar swaps.
Thanks,
ben
Ben
Over here (UK ) quite a few people changed their Midgets to the Fiat Twin Cam engine and gearbox ,apparently it slotted straight in with little or no body alteration. It is quite straight forward ,I presume you get Fiat in the States ,if not look on Ebay UK.
Welcome Ben, there are several Midgets and Sprites around with fours from Japanese cars installed. The best fit I've seen so far is the Suzuki, most of the others are a little too tall and require hood modifications to fit. I hadn't heard of the Fiat swap before Nigel's post, sounds like it would be interesting. would love to see some pictures. I've been checking the various MG boards for several years now and although there have been many posts from guys installing other engines, I haven't seen any of them as completed cars to tell you how it turned out. There are only three Midgets shown in the British V8 photo gallery right now, but there are some Sprites with engine swaps shown on the Modified Austin Healey registry http://www.ntahc.org/modifiedhealeys/.
The two most common swaps so far are the Mazda rotary and the GM V6, with a few others thrown in. The lack of a good supply of 5 speed Ford type 9 transmissions over here slows down the Ford Ztech and any Rover K series swaps which are more common in England.
Bill beat me to it, I was also going to suggest the Suzuki. I own one of the older ones, a Samurai and it's been darned near bulletproof and pretty peppy in what is a considerably heavier vehicle. It's very popular to swap the larger Sidekick (Tracker) engine into these for more power, so that engine should be a good choice for your swap. Best of luck with it.
Jim
Benjamin,
I am going down the same road and have been in contact with a fellow who has the Toyota 4AGE in his car. I beleive his is a 72 Midget. I am either doing the 4AGE or the 3SGE but as my fabrication skills are non-existant i am having a shop in Denver do the work.
If you want to see Ivans car at speed go to www.youtube.com and search 4AGE Midget and you can see several videos of him doing the autotest runs. Autotests are like an Autocross but a bit more technical, looks like fun.
My car is a 61, side curtain car and she is black with a red interior.
have fun
Jay
jay.hollman@wychey.ang.af.mil
All
How about some American engines? The 2.3 ford turbo, the iron duke pontiac, the old quad 4, the new chev ecotec 4, a lot of development work was done on these engines some in the past. It would be interesting to install a 250 HP engine in a Midget. I also at one time looked around for a detailed project on swaping a 4cyl into an Midget but could not find any. If you do, I would be interested.
Joe