SCCA EMod MGB GT V12 Build

DILYSI Dave wrote:

loosecannon wrote: Jeff Keisel's Sprite makes 340 hp and weighs 1830 lbs but it's twitchy due to it's 80" wheelbase and the engine is peaky due to it being a turbo rotary. My advantage will be a 91" wheelbase, bigger tires and the flattest torque curve you can imagine, shifting gears will be practically superfluous. Saying that, the priorities for the car are, in order: 1-fun to build, 2-fun to drive, 3-Is it cool?, 4-reliable, 5-competitive. So far I am having a hoot building it and by all accounts it's pretty cool.

FYI - Twitchy - Nope, responsive. The thing will flat out turn. Peaky - That's not how I hear it. Tires - I REALLY don't think you will do better than Keisel on tires. That said, I do like your 1,2,3,4,5, and I think the build is cool as all get out.

Jeff is on the D/E Mod group on Yahoo and he describes the car as difficult to drive in sweepers due to it's short wheelbase and has talked about needing a flatter torque curve to do better so I'll take his word for it.

loosecannon wrote:

DILYSI Dave wrote:

loosecannon wrote: Jeff Keisel's Sprite makes 340 hp and weighs 1830 lbs but it's twitchy due to it's 80" wheelbase and the engine is peaky due to it being a turbo rotary. My advantage will be a 91" wheelbase, bigger tires and the flattest torque curve you can imagine, shifting gears will be practically superfluous. Saying that, the priorities for the car are, in order: 1-fun to build, 2-fun to drive, 3-Is it cool?, 4-reliable, 5-competitive. So far I am having a hoot building it and by all accounts it's pretty cool.

FYI - Twitchy - Nope, responsive. The thing will flat out turn. Peaky - That's not how I hear it. Tires - I REALLY don't think you will do better than Keisel on tires. That said, I do like your 1,2,3,4,5, and I think the build is cool as all get out.

Jeff is on the D/E Mod group on Yahoo and he describes the car as difficult to drive in sweepers due to it's short wheelbase and has talked about needing a flatter torque curve to do better so I'll take his word for it.

Good call.

Upon the suggestion of others, I started a blog for the project and since some have already been contributing parts and money, I added a donate button if anybody wants to see this project completed in time for Nationals in 2011. I will remember contributors when it comes to ridealongs or co-drives ;) http://ultimatemgbbuild.blogspot.com/

In reply to monark192:

NIce!

Neat build. If I might offer some suggestion (as possibly the only other MG owner to ever try pushrod shocks on the front suspension), I'd take a look at where your rack is compared to the centerline of the front wheels (in a fore/aft plane). Looks like you have it well in front of the "axle" centerline, and even in front of the tie rod/steering arm interface. This condition will give you negative ackerman (correct me if I'm wrong) and will basically cause your inside wheel to turn less than your outside wheel when you turn. You want the opposite effect, as the inner radius of a circle is smaller than the outer radius- so you'd want the inner wheel to turn more than the outer. I'd think this was more important on an autocross course than a road course and wanted to point it out.

Believe me, I'm not an armchair quarterback- I've done a pretty intense MG Midget build wherein I tried many different designs

http://picasaweb.google.com/brust.roethler

shows some of it. Good luck, and I'll be watching your progress.

Looks like a great project thusfar!

I too went the 4x motorcycle shock route. I'm excited to find out how it works!

So over all are there more cars with jag V12's swapped in or out of cars. I feel like for every car that gets a v12, two jags get 350s. That guy is totally sick. I like it.

Kiesel's car used to be 20B powered, right? He stepped down and went faster. Peak #'s aren't everything (remarks a fellow E Mod driver).

drove the car for the first time, here's the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YJVj_tRh0E

Oh, and it shoots flames http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M4po-YcYp4

WAY too cool!

And I can not describe the jealousy caused by you having your own test track in the shop! I have to wait till spring to take a quick illicit drive around the block when I build something. You just fire it up and start timing laps!

EXCELLENT PROGRESS !!

And it didn't sound like any Jag i have ever heard.

Rog

emodspitfire wrote: EXCELLENT PROGRESS !! And it didn't sound like any Jag i have ever heard. Rog

It sounds a lot like the Jaguar V12 in this video of Tom Walkinshaw at Bathurst: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4N1Gm6av9k I'll have the car on a dyno in a few weeks, I can't wait for the sound it's going to make under load :)

NOHOME wrote: WAY too cool! And I can not describe the jealousy caused by you having your own test track in the shop!

Is that what that is?! I thought you rented out and indoor kart track. That is badass.

Great job on the car, BTW. Awesome to see it running.

gamby wrote:

NOHOME wrote: WAY too cool! And I can not describe the jealousy caused by you having your own test track in the shop!

Is that what that is?! I thought you rented out and indoor kart track. That is badass. Great job on the car, BTW. Awesome to see it running.

Thanks :) Owning an indoor kart track isn't all fun and games. Imagine building and maintaining a fleet of race karts, testing and testing to make sure they all run the same laptimes then have at least 30% of the customers who shouldn't drive anything faster than a shopping cart. Check out this video of just some of what we see every week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScgcVh3jjfs

In reply to loosecannon:

Tangent, but any thoughts on the electric karts at some tracks?

loosecannon wrote:

gamby wrote:

NOHOME wrote: WAY too cool! And I can not describe the jealousy caused by you having your own test track in the shop!

Is that what that is?! I thought you rented out and indoor kart track. That is badass. Great job on the car, BTW. Awesome to see it running.

Thanks :) Owning an indoor kart track isn't all fun and games. Imagine building and maintaining a fleet of race karts, testing and testing to make sure they all run the same laptimes then have at least 30% of the customers who shouldn't drive anything faster than a shopping cart. Check out this video of just some of what we see every week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScgcVh3jjfs

Yeah, people are funny aint they? Working retail or any business where you get a steady cross section of the general public, gives you an interesting insight onto our population make-up. Scary. That said, now that I am out of it, I miss "my" customers" ; these were the people who appreciated your efforts to proide quality and service.

Back when I owned the brewery, I also had to tell people that it was not all fun and games.But it was still a pretty cool way to make a living!

And I still wish I had a test track in my garage!

Boy that really is a build! Lot's of customizing going on. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Hey Mark, welcome to our little corner of lunacy in the world. We always love to have "mad skillz" fabricators posting; it turns some of us green with envy. Your project is really awesome.

This is fantastic! I love how smooth the V12 sounds.

Criteria #3 well and truly met

MrJoshua wrote: In reply to loosecannon: Tangent, but any thoughts on the electric karts at some tracks?

Yes, we have tried. The electric kart we built using a commercially available kit could never match the speed or endurance of our gas karts. The problem is my karts are so damn fast. I have taken a very large Honda engine and modified it by doubling max RPM, opening up the exhaust, run a bigger carb and using an alcohol/gas mix to make karts that get from zero to 32 mph in 150 feet. While the electric could match that acceleration, it could only do it for 3 minutes before performance fell off. I have built a reputation on being a racers kart track, our motto is "It's not like racing, it IS racing" so to have a karts performance fall off like that is unacceptable.

Interesing. The one indoor kart place I know of in PA uses electric karts. One reason is they have some interface that allows them to remotely control how much power the kart has. If somebody is driving like a jackass, they dial the power back. Yes... it's frustrating as hell when you carried speed perfectly through a corner, have the throttle pinned, and the manager's buddy goes flying past you like you're parked. Haven't been back in a number of years.

My auto-x region used to hold a winter indoor series at a place that uses gas karts, but it's way down in DE and difficult for me to get to. I wish I could have gone as it sounded like a lot of fun.

I want to put a diffuser in the car but there is no room under the 16 gallon fuel cell to fit one. I got a 5 gallon cell and installed it so I can also fit a rear diffuser. As a bonus, switching to the smaller cell dropped nearly 30 lbs off the back of the car. Here are the two cells:

Installed in the car:

With all the covers, vent and fuel filler tubes in place:

It's a sump style cell so even the smallest amount of fuel will still get to the pump:

I looked at a lot of tech articles on rear diffusers and there are a lot of opinions on angles, sizes, distance from the ground and effectiveness on different shapes of cars. I did my best to put all that together into one design of rear diffuser. I made the measurements for the rear diffuser and built it to the maximum of SCCA rules but it sure looks big on the car.

The front spoiler arrived today and I bolted it on, but it's going to need some trimming and a grille to look right.

See how I built the diffuser http://ultimatemgbbuild.blogspot.com

Built the spoiler today, and it's big to match the diffuser: