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MG MGA - DIY Turbo Kit on Ebay

So is this thing the automotive equivalent of "male enhancement" pills or will it really work?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/DIY-TURBO-KIT-T04E-MINI-CLASSIC-CLUBMAN-COOPER-S-MGA_W0QQitemZ260343499967QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item260343499967&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=65%3A1039%3A1240%3A1318
gerard hutchinson

This turbo "kit" fits nothing. There are so many pieces not included that it is funny. If you can engineer and fabricate a system you may be able to use some of these parts.
R J Brown

I can engineer damn near anything, but I'd have nightmares trying to figure out how to fit all this stuff into the MGA with original engine. I can imagine lots of metal chopping, almost as bad as cramming in a V8 engine (or maybe worse). With intake and exhaust on the same side, the high temperature turbine/blower with all four port connections, carburetor and two large intercooler pipes all have to go on the left side of the engine. No matter where you put the intercooler, I have no idea how to route the two large pipes.

During earlier days of turbocharging it was often done without the intercooler (although it can work better with). You may know that a lot of belt driven superchargers work with no intercooler. The turbocharger installation is much simpler without the intercooler. I could just about figure that on out for an MGA.

I have never seen or heard of any MGA with turbocharger on the original engine. If anyone has ever seen one, do tell.
Barney Gaylord

Barny has the right approach. The plumbing involved in adapting a turbo-charger is going to be a nightmare on an MGA.

I personnaly wouldn't touch anything but a pre-engineered kit with a proven record.

But why diddle around with a turbo. As Barny points out, under-hood cooling will certainly be a problem not to mention problematical plunbing problens in routing the exhaust. Why spend a lot more money trying adapt a turbo, when Moss has a slick kit that uses a supercharger that you can buy off the shelf.

Tne really redeeming feature of a supercharger is that torque at 0 rpm is thereotically infinite, while with a turbo, one has to wait for it to spin up high enough to generate manifold pressure to generate sufficient torque to provide for a noticable improvement in acceleration.

The down-side however, is that the supercharger must be driven off the crank and involves an auxillairy power take-off, but IMHO is a lot less complicated (and less costly too) when compared to the problems of plumbing and cooling a turbo-charger.

Gord Clark
Rockburn, Qué.
Gordon A. Clark

Barney and others, this reminds me of the turbo kits available here in Australia in the late 1970s/early 1980s for BMC engines. Think it was a Garratt turbo. They were quite popular with Minis and other BMC A engines and made quite amazing cars (in a straight line at least..if you could keep it straight and figure out the settings). I actually bought a 2nd hand unit with plans to fit it into another MGA I had but ended up onselling it to a guy with a Mini after I concluded the old MGA engine would not survive the "upgrade". As I recall no intercooler was used and the setup was quite primitive. As your aware lack of oil to bearings and incorrect boost are the big killers for turbos not to mention the need to rebuild the engine to suit the new stresses. I would imagine that with all the japanese turbo rice-racers around today getting someone to install would not be such a big task, but surely a nice supercharger would be more befitting the MGA, besides it sounds cooler
regards
Mark
Mark Mathiesen

Sounds funny to try a kit like that but there is a way to make a turbo work that sounds a bit strange:

Remote the turbo!

Literally replace the silencer with a turbo. It will muffle the sound, so no issue there, will not get as hot because the exhaust gasses are already cooling down and if the pipes going forward and back are size correctly, the system will spool up quickly at lower RPMs. Modern Turbos, so I am told, are far more responsive than older units. When they start to build power at 2,500 RPM, I say thats responsive enough and you can build them any way you want.

All that said, for an MGA/MGB, Supercharged setups are the way to go on a stock motor.

-BMC.
BMC Brian McCullough

This thread was discussed between 08/01/2009 and 11/01/2009

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This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGA BBS is active now.