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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Peter Burgess tuning

Just a note to share my experience of taking my 1275 IOW Frogeye to Peter last Monday. Arrived at 8.00 for him to fit one of his Fast Road heads (I'd already got it a while ago) and some new Minispares 1.5 high lift rockers. He did a couple of runs on his rolling road to get the timing right and check fuelling from the HIF44 (BDL needle), resulting in 63.4 engine HP and 84.3 ft/lbs engine torque. Then drained, off with the head eventually - some of the studs were a real pain to get out, but these are proper engineers - and a clean up. Assembling the high lift rockers, Peter found 3 bushes which were not reamed centrally, so they fitted and reamed new ones (engineers...). Head fitted and leaks checked, another few runs, take out 123 distributor to reset, and a couple more runs. Result 93 bhp and 98.9 engine torque - incredible result. The engine ticks over happily at 700 rpm and pulls very smoothly. As Peter said, Mr Froggy has bulked up and not a steroid in sight.
I can't speak too highly of Peter and the way he operates: a really nice bloke who knows his trade backwards and charges a fair price for top class work. Drove home to Surrey with a big smile.

Nick
J.N. Williams

that's a healthy output, will keep an eye out for you as I am also in Surrey.
P Bentley

High end output figures are a small part of the overall picture the "engine ticks over happily at 700 rpm and pulls very smoothly" is the more important bit - still healthy top end figures and in my experience with Peter not ego (for either side) pushed/stretched (exaggerated) figures that possibly some other tuners might give.

I'd say Peter charges a more than fair price for his work in my experience.

Nick you'll be out enjoying your Frog even more now, great stuff.
Nigel Atkins

I keep thinking I need to take me 1500 in for him to sort out. I feel like it runs well but I'm sure he could get more out of it!
Karl Bielby

And there's enough of us here with similar stories too

Best of the bunch in my opinion

(I haven't tried the rest, I am ecstatic with the way he sorted my midget's 44HIF and don't expect to use anyone else)

Karl you surprise me, he's only round the corner from you


:)
Bill sdgpM

Peter is rhe man when it comes to british iron

But truth be told... he dosnt know jack sh*t about frontal lobe brain surgry and lobotomies.

Take your cars to him for an amazing high performance upgrades and tune up, but get a 2nd opinion for removing any brain tumors

Haha

Prop
1 Paper

Damn it man, you've just ruined my frontal lobotomy sideline evening job, I'll have to pull the multimillion TV ad campaign now!
The real pleasure for us up at our 'tuning shop' is meeting the really nice folk who own and run classic cars. Always a pleasure to meet and greet, talk rubbish, put the world to rights and make the cars go well as best we can.
It was enjoyable meeting Mr Froggy for a tune!
Peter
Peter Burgess Tuning

Peter, I seem to remember when I visited with my 1275 [long time ago...] that I talked rubbish and you talked sense and that bringing a bag of doughnuts helped the proceedings, too.
David Cox

A fast road head from Mr B. transformed my 1800 MGB many, many years ago now, without any carb or camshaft changes. I have run Econotune heads on my 3.9 BV8 for nine years now and it just keeps on working nicely. It's over 200 miles for me to get to his workshop, but it was well worth it. Top guy.
Mike Howlett

mmmmm Doughnuts :)
Peter Burgess Tuning

Peter, sorry I forgot the doughnuts. Mind, to get the road rolling you would have needed to coax another 10 bhp out of Mr Froggy.........! Next time.
J.N. Williams

I know Bill!

I keep flicking between wanting to clean the ports up and match them to the manifold, and not being bothered!

Not much point going till I'm happy with everything.

Also I'm waiting for my ignition system to stop working so I can go electronic. But it's ploughing on like a trooper! Won't give up haha. Thinking about swapping and keeping the old stuff as a spare...
Karl Bielby

Another vote for, in the Peter Burgess Appreciation Society!

Great guys, (Peter & Keith), good chat and a pleasure to meet with people who really know what they're doing.

Will also bring doughnuts next time. Jam or custard?
Jeremy MkIII

Another vote! I have had 2 A-Series heads and 1 B-Series head from Peter, and have been delighted with all of them. Plus a rolling road session on the first A-Series head, and now that I have fitted the Nodiz 3D mappable ignition system, I do need another session to fine tune the set-up.

Richard

Richard Wale

The excitement is better if the variety of doughnut is unknown, n'est ce pas Hastings?
If you bring the laptop and play with the advance settings while we test you are most welcome Richard.
Peter Burgess Tuning

Morning Peter

Doughnut roulette eh? Watch out for anyone sneaking in a Bath bun or Danish pastry when you are busy on the rollers!

Have you done any heads for 948 to 998cc engines? I am thinking of freshening up and warming up my 948cc MkII Sprite and have a spare 12g202 head and was pondering a rebore with flat-top 988cc Metro/Mini pistons, centre main strap, suitable cam for torque and twin SUs (1 1/4 or 1 1/2 - have an Alexander manifold for the latter) with a modded head. Nothing too crazy otherwise might as well go for a 1293 or 1330 with a modified MG Metro head and cam.

Cheers
Mike
M Wood

Hi Mike
Yes we have done loads of A series small bore heads. Did your 948 have a 12G206 casting on it?
Peter
Peter Burgess Tuning

Very good figures, makes my slightly breathed upon 1275 seem a bit weedy by comparison. Well, the torque fig specifically - only 81.6 lb/ft at 3700. Happy with the 85bhp.
I have 266 cam, bigger valves (inlet and exhaust), 1.5 rockers, but still the twin hs2 carbs, perhaps it's the hif44 in yours that's giving you that extra torque?
M Weller

M. It could be your valve timing is why you lack torque you mentioned you have 1.5 rockers...

Peter suggested i advance my valve timming a few degrees from 106 to 102 and it has some serious stop light grunt

Granted not exacrly what you wanted to hear ...as thats alot of work to do to move the cam a few degrees
1 Paper

But interesting none the less...
M Weller

You need to run cars on the same dyno or you cannot compare figures.
We are running in inertia mode and, with the slow speed cars such as Midgets you will be seeing flywheel torque and power at lower rpms even though it is at the wheels figure. Goes against the grain of folk who interpret graphs and figures but the transmission losses seem to be negligible at low speeds. Losses seem to be mainly dictated by speed, width of tyre and compound. Tyre losses are exponential, rising rapidly after 70 mph. 77 lbs/ft litre seems fine to me for a tuned 1275 on 10:1 CR. To be honest your twin HS2 carbs should make more lower rpm torque than the HIF44. We had peak torque at 3200 and peak bhp at 5300. The 266 is a stump puller what is yours timed in at? Do you know what CR you are running?
Of interest we only run std ex valve sizes with 1.401" inlet valves in our A series heads except in turbo or sc heads as we tend to find the larger ex valves lose torque at lower rpms and make the engine softer, what size ex valves are you running?
What plugs are you running? Folk tend to fit non projected plugs in A series tuned engines. These make a couple of bhp and lbs/ft less than projected plugs. The urban myth was created when folk ran very high CR A series engines with mega small chamber vols. The projected plug electrode could hit the piston if the electrode was in the wrong position when screwed in so folk had to use non projected plugs. This migrated to, the secret of A series bhp is non projected plugs!!!!! An example of a syllogistic argument.

Peter
Peter Burgess Tuning

I had to look up what syllogistic means, and I thought I had a fair vocabulary. Peter is obviously a scholar as well as everything else!
Mike Howlett

Hi Mike, no claim to fame I am afraid. Philosophy was part of our psychology course :)
Peter
Peter Burgess Tuning

Not sure on exhaust valve sizes off the top of my head, may have it noted down somewhere, will check. Likewise the timing and CR. Thanks for your thoughts Peter.
M Weller

This thread was discussed between 16/08/2017 and 28/08/2017

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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