1968 MG Midget with Turbo'd BMW motor and trans

[MrSandman818]

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[MrSandman818]

I figured I should share my project here. Its definitly not a V8 but it will have no problem spanking them in the 1/4. I have a 1968 MG Midget with 7,466 miles on the ODO. I was halfway through rebuilding the stock 1275cc motor that had a few things done to it when I changed direction. I picked up a 1984 BMW 318i with the fuel injected 1.8 slant 4 and a 5 speed gettrag tranny. I cut out a crap load of parts to get it to even fit. If I were to do this build again I would definitly stay away from the slant 4! Its too wide and has many parts that shoot off into odd directions like the oil pan for insitance. Ive been cutting and re-enforceing the car for a while now to make everything work together ( I hope!). I also have a ebay universal 57 trim t3/t4 turbo that im stuffing in there and I currently have a nice small water to air intercooler in route to my house. Ill post many pictures soon. I gotta run to the junk yard for a few parts before someone else buys them, otherwise im stuck overpaying at ebay. I hope you guys will like this. I know I will when its all said and done!

I had to move the motor and tranny back 8"s so the oil pan would fit between the control arm braces and my footwell.

Heres where I had to trim and you can see what im talking about when I said the oil pan was weird. Damn Germans!

Heres pretty much where my turbo will live. Since I moved the motor back 8"s I have a little more room to play with for the turbo!

Custom tranny mount and braceing to tie in the frame re-enforements to the roll bar. Soon to be roll cage! And im not finished with the tranny braceing, Thats only temporary.

Heres how im re-enforceing the front of the car. Sqaure tube that will be plug welded all the way down to make the car stronger and since I cut out a lot of structural pieces.

I took the stock exhaust manifold and flipped it upside down. That way I'll be able to run the exhaust to the turbo in the front of the motor.

[TKMad]

Cool project!  I just finished rebuilding the motor in my '69 BMW 2002.  Great engines!

[HealeyRick]

This is going to be interesting.  Please keep us updated as you go along.

[MrSandman818]

Something about the sound of the BMW motors at the rev limiter is amazing. And im just waiting on parts to come in from everywhere. Then back to fabricating everything else myself since parts for this swap do not exhist in the real world. Best part is it will be a reliable daily driver if needed and will get 30+ MPG while spanking most cars on the road. The best part is that they wont even know what hit em'.

[MrSandman818]

Ok so heres a panned out view of the tranny brace. Im boxing in where each seat is going and tieing it into the roll bar in the back and the braces in the front around the motor. I gotta swing by the metal shop tomorrow to get some more square tubeing!


I got the parts I was looking for today at the junk yard! I needed the down pipe that bolts to the stock exhaust manifold mostly for the flange, but Im going to try to cut, change some angles, and re-weld the stock pipe to clear that tight space and direct it to the turbo. I also got a clutch slave cylinder because mine had a broken bleeder nipple.


I also got a custom hydraulic line to tie the stock clutch master cylinder on the MG to the slave cylinder on the BMW tranny. They just happened to have red line with black spacers at no extra cost so I just had to go with it. I also had them make the line a little longer than necessary just incase something was mis-measured or something changes. Worst case senario I have to have them take a little off the end and crimp on a new fitting. Cheaper than getting a new longer line.



And the first part came in today! Its the flange for the turbo exhaust and gasket. I have to drill a 3/4" hole in the flange and the gasket so I can run my blow off valve. For some reason no one sells it with the extra hole except one guy on ebay who overcharges, runs a pipe fitting, and it doesnt come with a gasket. F' that noise.
And don't mind the 7&7 in the backround.

[BlownMGB-V8]

You could probably go down a size on your wall thickness and reduce your weight a little without losing any strength. Nice project.

JB

[Bill Young]

Chris, ran across an article from another guy that was building a turbo manifold. He had a good idea on that, using weld pipe fittings because of the high temps incurred and also for strength to support the turbo. http://www.mcmaster.com/#butt-weld-pipe-fittings/=dorf7n He built his own manifold from some of the smaller size pipe, a 4 into one at the turbo flange.  Cut his flanges from steel plate, nice job when finished. Can't remember what the link was though.

[MrSandman818]

Jim-That was the thinnest wall thickness that they had at my local steel shop.  At least thats what they told me. If the car gets too heavy when im done then ill just turn the boost up till I start lifting the head off. Then that will give me the excuse to o-ring the head and get arp head studs.

Bill-I appreciate the link. And if anyone else thinks that theres something I should know for this product then please let me know. I appreciate all imput because I dont know about all the tips and tricks. Im mostly winging it. And for the turbo, I was going to build a support bracket that went under the turbo to hold it so I wont stress the exhaust. I was also going to either put a bushing so the turbo can move or more likely put a short bit of flex pipe between the exhaust manifold and the turbo to allow the motor to move and the turbo to stay in one place undisturbed. Im just going to have to get a flexible oil return line to go from the turbo back to the oil pan. Too many decisions to make!

[BlownMGB-V8]

Pipe works well for a turbo manifold. I built a 8-4-1 header for a 215 Jetfire using mostly pipe and weld bends. It did quite well. Your piping can be solid, just allow for some twist in the hangers for engine rock. Same with the oil return. It simplifies the plumbing a lot. Lots of places the return can go other than the pan. The front cover or the lifter chest for example.

JB

[MrSandman818]

Thanks Jim, I ended up getting the exhaust 85% figured out. Ill post the pictures soon. I got the stock BMW down pipe cut and welded to clear everything and go to where the turbo will be. Im just waiting for the water to air intercooler to arrive so that I can start mounting everything. Once I get the intercooler mounted then everything will get mounted afterwards. I dont want to have unnecessary bends in the silicone hoses and have any more restriction than necessary.

I picked up a boost and air/fuel ratio guage yesterday. Ill mount those soon too. Super easy to set up from what the manual says, especially since the o2 sensor has 1 wire. Not much to try and figure out there.

Shes really commin along, Its nice to actually make some progress from once. I had the poor girl on the back burner because I had a few dirt bike races. I was also doing a complete rebuild/restoration on my wife dirtbike and had to do a few things on my three wheeler. aaaand modded a few things on my dual sport. Basically I have too many projects and my a.d.d. doesnt help matters.

[MrSandman818]

So i've been a busy boy. I got 95% of the frame re-enforcements in place. I got the intercooler today and a few hoses and clamps so I installed them, I still need to make brackets to hold the intercooler and the intercoolers heat sink. I also finished the exhaust going to the turbo and I have part of the down pipe from the turbo on. Here we go.

Heres the frame with the bottom of the box cut out so I could insert the square tube

Heres the square tube tack welded in place. I started to plug weld it. Im going to wait till after the big move to Virginia to pull the motor and trans to fully weld everything

Heres the stock fuel pump from 1968 next to the walbro 255lph. Its going to get sent back because the yahoo's over at ebay sent me the wrong one. I asked for the external and I got the in-tank pump

Autozone gauges. So you know there accurate! I got a boost gauge and a air/fuel gauge. The boost gauge is clocked for a reason. All needles will point north when they are running at the correct levels, pressures, temps,etc. so when I glance down thats all I will have to look for.

Heres the heat sink for the intercooler and the water to air intercooler, Neither are actually mounted yet, just chillin'

The side of the intercooler and cooled side of the boost tube to the motor

Top view of the exhaust hooked up, the turbo to intercooler and boost tubes all hooked up minus the TPS. Im a bone head and competely forgot that I needed to hook it up because it was sitting in a box by the car. So I had to order even more silicone reducers and clamps to hook the tps into the mix

I still have more notching to do to the fenderwell that the cooled boost tube is comming through.

Since I forgot about the tps I was going to put the sequential BOV where the tps currently is. And that left a problem for me. Luckally the universal kit has 2 options for mounting the bov. I am going to have to drill a hole and tig weld the bov bung to the 45 degree boost tube thats going to the tps. Thats an adventure for tomorrow since I dont have a tig welder. But here is where she will live in the near future. And it wont be rubbing on the 90 degree hose once the fenderwell is trimmed a little more.

And the overhead view of the whole shabang!