MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGA - Trouble in Paradise

After 3 years of trouble free thrashing of my mk2 race car, it has developed what I believe to be a fuel problem. During very hard cornering left or right the car stalls, completely dies, until things straighten out again, when it takes off. I'm running standard SU's, an aftermkt facet fuel pump and electronic ignition.

I haven't been too far into investigating what it might be hoping you all might point me in the right direction.

Thanks!
J Bries

J, if you're still running the stock fuel tank it sounds like part of your fuel pickup tube has broken off and you're not picking up from the very bottom of the tank so vunerable to slosh fuel starvation at the pickup. Since the pickup is made into the tank assembly and would need to be heated to melt the solder or brass it's not going to be easy to repair. If you're running a fuel cell then forget what I jsut said and just remove the plate and pull out the pickup and repair.
Bill Young

If a float chamber floods it can kill an engine pretty quick, especially with low throttle, off throttle, or low engine speed. Over pressure fuel supply and certain resonance vibration frequencies can do that.

Fuel starvation usually takes a least several seconds to happen even under full throttle because of the capacity of the float chamber, not likely to happen in a single turn.

Otherwise remember the old adage that 90% of all carburetor problems are electrical. A broken primary wire inside of the ignition coil can kill spark in a hard turn. A broken flex wire in the distributor can also do it. Any loose wire connector in the ignition circuit. Perhaps (on outside chance) a loose wire connector in the fuel pump circuit or a failing fuel pump. My most recent find and fix on a friend's car involved a badly done in-line wire splice with intermittent contact.
Barney Gaylord

Had a 74 dodge dart with a slant 6 back in the late 70's. When I went into a sharp turn or up a steep hill the engine would cut out. Had the carb rebuilt and never had another problem. God I hated that car.
R Egge

My parents had a 68 white Dodge Dart that I drove alot in high school. We called it The Invisible Car. You could park it in a parking lot and never find it again! When it flooded, which was often, you had to stick a screw driver or pocket knife into the throat of the carburetor to keep the choke open. I suppose it was a fairly safe thing for teenagers to be driving around in, though.

I'll never forget that classic Chrysler starter sound:

"Riiii-niiii-niiii-niiii-nii... Riiii-niiii-niiii-niiii-nii... Riiii-niiii-niiii-niiii-nii."
David Breneman

a fellow in our club had a jeep with the same problem. It seems that the insides of the coil had come loose, and when cornering they would short out to the metal can. It looked OK on the outside and tested good when not cornering. It took a lot of trial and error to find, and there was much rejoicing when it was finally identified.
Ed Bell

J. I just thought of something else, has your tank recently received a dent in the bottom? That might have pushed up the pickup tube a bit also. I still think the problem sounds like a fuel pick up problem, especially on a race car subject to much higher g loads than most street cars. I get a similar loss of power with my car due to the modified pickup in my tank for the V6 high pressure fuel pump when it has less than 1/2 a tank and in a hard right turn.
Bill Young

Many years ago my Fiat Strada (the first car built by robots??) had a sheared earth strap from to the battery. If my memory serves me right the earth to the battery was from the engine rather than the chassis. When the engine was on over run there was enough engine movement to brake the earth contact. The engine would cut and pick up as the car slowed.

As with Barney's comments, my vote always tends to the electrical rather than fuel.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Colorado is a long way from Paradise - by Google Earth it is about 8,700 miles to the south west. LOL.
Mike
Mike Ellsmore

I've found that one of the float's (a new one) was about 1/2 full of fuel. So that has been replaced. I'm going to go ahead and replace the coil since the one currently in the car is of questionable origin and age. The electrical system is very simple and I "wiggled" all the connections while the car was running with no adverse affects.

Bill, I am running a fuel cell and would think that the engine may stumble but not completely die if it were a fuel pick up or filter issue. I will investigate these further to be certain.
J Bries

This thread was discussed between 29/04/2008 and 09/05/2008

MG MGA index

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