Posts Tagged ‘MGZS’

Full of hot air

Friday, June 11th, 2010

We do lots of development work on this customers track day car. Work is always done on sensible budgets so it’s enjoyable engineering solutions to a cost and often using parts which aren’t quite meant to fit. It seems more fun trying to engineer a way to fit a round peg in a square hole rather than spend 2 thousand pounds on a brand new billet aluminium square peg or a carbon fibre round hole.

This time we had to make a few adaptions up to mount a larger turbo. All of the flanges and pipes need making for air, oil and water. Next on the list was to pipe in the largest radiator we could squeeze between the chassis rails and not infringe on the intercooler. Once this was done we decided residual underbonnet temperatures would be no good for the air intake so it had to be moved. Fortuantely this car hasn’t been seen by an MoT tester for some time so lights are an unecessary luxury, and a perfect place to scoop up some cold air.

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Hot Oil Headache part 2

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

No sooner had we completed the ZR than a ZS needed a rather large oil cooler fitting in to help deal with the extra power his new turbo was producing. Unfortunately on this one the front was already full of radiators and intercoolers. The solution? Put the oil cooler at the back.

A tunnel was cut to allow the air up to the cooler and vents were cut to duct to the rear. Pipework was easy this time thanks to a standard sandwich plate and plenty of room to run the hoses through the car. It still needs finishing off and painting but we need to give it a run and check to see how it controls the temperatures first. If oil runs too cold it’s worse than having it too hot.

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Hot Oil Headache

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

If you had spent lots of thousands of pounds on a shiny new race engine you’d want to keep it safe.  When this ZR Trophy spec race car was fitted with it’s new 200BHP Janspeed built K series the owner was told he must be careful not to let the oil overheat.

Oil temperature has never been a problem in the past due to the oil/water intercooler fitted but now an extra oil/air cooler was required to satisfy Mr Engine Builder. Space behind the bumper wasn’t a problem but mismatched pipe threads, odd bore sizes and torturous pipe routes meant this job used a whole weeks worth of swear words in one day. It all went together in the end and now if the engine goes bang we know it’s the driver’s fault… Not that racing drivers ever make mistakes of course.

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MG Zedbits

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Ever Since the demise of MG in 2005 it has become increasingly hard to get hold of MG parts at reasonable prices.   Some of the models such as the ZS180 are fantastic cheap sporty cars which look great and are fantastic fun… until they go worng. Often the cost of parts can make small problems into potentialy fatal situations that can threaten to put great cars on the great scrap heap in the sky.

AA Silencers owner Mark Hammersley is an ex MG works driver and has a passion for these underestimated cars so AA Silencers has teamed up with Mg Zed Bits http://stores.ebay.co.uk/MG-Zed-Bits?_rdc=1 to provide cheap parts to the MG community.

AA Silencers already runs several MG’s and Rover race cars and has a wealth of performance knowledge. We are looking forward to developing improved parts for such items as week clutch systems, door handle repairs and overcoming other well known frailties. Also in development are performance mods for the KV6.

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