fast MG Midget

[MGYoung]

Hi there,

I considering options for my next 'toy' car. This will be a second car, garaged at night and not used as everyday transport. I love the looks of the midget but would want to fit a modern engine, better brakes, etc whilst still keeping the car looking as orginal as possible.

Any ideas or suggestion as to what is achievable? I'm lookng at it as an alternative to a westfield / Caterham / Mx-5 with a max budget of around 8K.

Thanks and all the best.

Martin.

[wildoliver]

Hi Martin we build Mg's to customers requirements, just doing a midget as we speak, send me an email if you want a chat about your requirements.

Kind regards


Oliver

[Church of Noise]

Quite a few Midgets have had K-series engines put where you'd expect the A-series engine to be. If you look around, there are some up for sale most of the time. I've read about one with 190 horsies
Or, you could have one built for you. All depending on what you want of course.

[dcl5ah]

Best one ive seen is a Toyota 1.6 Twin cam 16v out of the early Corolla, they dont half shift with that in. Or a 1400 A series can be fun too.

Ash

[wadgebeast]

K series or Toyota engine 16v twin cam from mr2 / corolla gti fits in. The k series is more powerful and has more tuning kit. I had an MR2 which puts out about 122bhp in standard form, which in the mr2 means 0-60 in about 8 secs and flat out about 125. It had a very flat torque curve from 2000 revs, but the gearbox was low geared, so it buzzed on the motorway. 8500 rpm red line though.....

K series has snags with head gasket failure, but if you were sorting the engine out before it went in you could put a better gasket set on it.

[coco h]

Well as people have said the k-series is very popular. It does make a very good, very driveable car when the conversion is done well. Frontline do a good car.
If you want to know how to make a stupidly fast a-series I could tell you about my car - it's not the fastest but 0-60 times pretty good and relatively reliable. At the right track we can beat certain caterhams and I won't mention what happened at Cadwell....

[love machine]

Mg Metro turbo rig on +20 18cc pistons, whack it through a big intercooler, use SC gears in a ribbed box. I'd play around with the final drive as well. Go for about 150hp at the flywheel.

I had a few fast morris minors and the most silly one had a post van 5.3 axle in it and would wheelspin in 3rd gear

Stay away from sprint cams and that sort of thing. It just becomes undrivable, even if you are a nutter and use it 1 day a month.

[wildoliver]

I'm glad it isn't just me that went that route!

If you do turbo it it is very easy, my old midge had an engine using a variety of marina, mg metro and mg turbo components, what I will say is I wouldn't do it again, and there are better options, but it is a very cheap way to get more oomph.

I wouldn't use the a-series box though, get a marina A+ engine and gearbox, use the block, backplate, clutch, flywheel, sump and gearbox. Use a midget 1500 propshaft, clutch slave cylinder pipe, gearlever. Early MG metro head with big valves, mg metro cam, metro turbo rods and pistons, and the mg metro turbo oil pump, and a midget 1275 front plate, duplex gear and cover.

[coco h]

love machine said:

Stay away from sprint cams and that sort of thing. It just becomes undrivable, even if you are a nutter and use it 1 day a month.

I have no idea which cam I have in now in the Midget but it is too cammy afor me and you need to keep foot on more than I would like

[comdiver]

I still have the a series in mine, however, it has been worked on by Swiftune and now has 130bhp and 100ft/lb torque (set up on an engine dyno cell).
It breaths through a 45 weber, with omega pistons and an SW5 cam. It will happily tick over at 900rpm and when you hit the go pedal you know all about it. All this is pushed through a 5 speed box (toyota) and an LSD.
So who needs another engine.