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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Mystery timing gears

Hi
i enclose a picture of the timing gears for my midget. It is a 1275 GAN5 car and should I think have duplex timing chains ? I wonder if a PO has changed this the cam end is marked KC MD226 and I was wondering whether this might be a Kent Cam reference or am I just indulging in wishful thinking ,as usual !!

Any thoughts appreciated

Regards Mark


M Teal

Is it 226 or 266 ? - MD266 is a reference for a road cam.

Is the block a Midget or Marina/Ital ? do you have a pic of the oil filter area ?

R.
richard boobier

Hmm are you sure it does not say MD266?

Sounds like it is a kent cam although the 266 is a pretty mild cam.

I think you should have a dual timing chain are you sure this engine is a 1275??

Does it have tappet covers under the exhaust manifold?
Robert (Bob) Midget Turbo

I was wondering the same Bob!
Is it a 1275?
Why do you think that what are the identifiers?

But any A series benifits from good camtiming and can use a set of duplex gears
Onno K

Hi,
There are no tappet covers under the exhaust manifold.The marking on the cam is MD266 not 226 as I posted earlier.The engine block has 12G1279 marked on the bottom right corner on the manifold side of the engine and the cylinder head has 0E65 18CC stamped into it

Regards

Mark
M Teal

12G1279 certainly sounds like Midget, although I'm not sure what numbers Marina engines had.

The OE on the cylinder head could be Oselli Engineering. 18CC is likely to be combustion chamber capacity.

As to why it has only a single row change...no idea.
Dave O'Neill2

That is definitively a 1275.
My old oselli head (now door stopper) had oselli written fully on it, but they might not have been consistent with that.

With a 266 (nice cam) it would certainly be good practice to go to a doublerow chain setup.
Venier gears to be able to get exact timing are no waste either.
Minispares sell an affordable setup
Onno K

Definitely an Oselli head, but 18cc is a bit small for the combustion chamber. They did the same to me by mistake about 10 years ago and I have had to be very careful to get the CR down below 11:1!!

Do make sure that the ignition timing to set accurately to avoid any possiblity of detonation - low/mid range is audible, but high speed is not and just burns away the top of the piston.

Richard
Richard Wale

On my Osselli head they had stampted the tappet clearance (they built the engine also had a 266 cam - although they called it their own number).
18 sounds to big for a 266 - I will check but seem to remember 16thou.
richard boobier

Marina timing gears - possibly a Marina engine with a Midget front plate fitted? Any benefit gained by fitting an MD266 would be lost with the floppy single chain...

The head capacity is affected by the pistons - I have a 1293 race engine with only 14.5cc in the head - but the pistons are Omega Metro Turbo forged race pistons so have a big dish in them...

Don't refit the single chain setup - get a duplex vernier kit and time the cam in properly - If it were my road engine I'd Ebay the MD266 and go for a Piper 285/Kent 286

JB
James B

This thread was discussed between 11/12/2011 and 17/12/2011

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