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MG MGB Technical - MGB upgrade

Just purchased a 77B all original. In the effort of increasing performance and having a good reliable driver (short of major engine and head work)I would like to add electronic ignition (pertronix) replace the carb with a webber, and upgrade the exhaust system.
Looking thru a Brit-Tek catalog I saw a webber 38/38.
Any thoughts or experience with that set up. Is this the way to go?
Dan H.
Dan Hanson

You should have a look to BBS archive , some articles are relevant to your needs . Electronic Pertronix seems a good idea for reliability reasons and efficiency . Peco exhaust systemes improve exhaust flow. About WEBER it doesn't prove to be far more efficient than well tuned SU carbs.
Regards and good luck.
renou

Petronix is definitely the way to go for the ignition. Don't mess with the peco stuff, it's not as worth while as using the chrome bumper car exhaust manifold, and the regular exhaust system. The exhaust manifold you want is from a 1974 or older car. Lots of people will have opinions about dual SU's vs the weber, and the general conclusion is the SU's will provide more performance, but the weber is a "set and forget" system. No fiddling with balancing carbs, or setting floats, or anything. It's pretty much ready to go straight out of the box. Either way, it'll be a GREAT improvement over that zenith stromberg piece of junk on there now.

Has your car been COMPLETELY detoxed yet? If not, you should do that with these changes. That junk just robs power.

Justin
Justin

Dan, I have a 74 and went with the Peco complete system. I love it. I have the dual HIF4 carbs and love them, almost no adjustments once you get them right and that was easy too. Just in leaning how like most things. I switched to the Pertronix and I don't miss having to adjust the gap regularly. I tried to keep things looking stock under the hood but the exhaust was something I had to try. I am very happy with the difference performance wise and the deep tone is not too loud. If you want to take advantage of the bigger exhaust (Peco), find away to get more air into the carb system. With my duals, I too off the air cleaner covers. The filters are exposed and there is a difference. I could not get that with the old exhaust.
Do a search for air cleaners, peco, pertronix.. The archives really helped me get started. That was about 5-6 years ago. These guys here know their stuff.

kids1

I've got to echo kids1's comments. I'm quite happy with the Peco system, and it does give the feeling of delivering a little more power. It is a little louder, though.

I got rid of my 32/36 weber recently; gave the car all the character of a Nissan Sentra. I put on a pair of HIF4 SU's with _very_ leaky throttle shafts and still got a boatload of power over the Weber and much better low-end response. Properly rebuilt and set up, SU's need nothing more than the occasional topping up of damper fluid. IMHO, the weber is not worth the money.

The electronic ignition, OTOH, is worth every penny.
Brian

I have a 79B and recently went with the Weber "super kit" from Bob Ford @ Brit-Tek. I also did the Petronix etc and I think it's great. Good sound and runs much better. Technical support from Brit-Tek is exceptional.
H. Scanlan.

The Electronic ignition is a "must have" and I'm led to believe that the "Magnetronic" setup that I've got is the smae as the "Pertronix" over there. One thing it has done for me is to convert my SUs from something that needed tweaking every now and again to "fit and forget" (as in I've now forgotten when I last had to adjust them). This proves the old adage that most fuel problems are electrical in nature (or was that the other way round?).
Tuned exhausts do improve power. They also create noise. I found that a tuned manifold setup produced an effect similar to being in a saloon car at speed with the rear windows open at certain points on the rev band (bit like having somebody slap both your ears repeatedly with two fresh haddock). Since there are neither rear seats, nor kids to swear at to wind the windows up in a 'B roadster I went back to "standard".
T J C Cuthill

Thank you all for the responses. Very good feedback.
Another question on the same line. As I replace the carb, exhaust system and add the electronic ignition I also intend to remove the smog pump etc. Would I be better of with a different distributer other than the stock item. Again I,m looking for a little better performance.
Dan H.
Dan Hanson

Dan-
The Lucas 45D distibutor that originally came on your engine has an advance curve that's intended to reduce emmissions, not to acheive peak performance. You can get a late madel Lucas Eurospec distributor from Brit Tek that'll make a significant improvement while actually enhacing reliability. Click on this: http://www.brittek.com/
Steve S.

This thread was discussed between 23/04/2003 and 25/04/2003

MG MGB Technical index

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