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[transam]

Ken Costello converted many rides, but the nice men at MG put the V8 O.E. in at the Factory.unless Google is as wrong as well.,

BL put the Rover in the MGB themselves to replace the 6 pot in the MGC, called MGB V8. They also put it in the Triumph TR7 series, the TR8.

Edited March 5, 2014 by transam

[Kwasaki]

Well done that man

MGB had no humps, MGC had a long bulge and the V8 had a shorter bulge in the bonnet. I know cos had my head under all three...

Apart from 4 f/gears and reverse what else did the MGB have. ??

Option of overdrive.

Don't think it was an option it came with it, well my did.

[transam]

Well done that man

MGB had no humps, MGC had a long bulge and the V8 had a shorter bulge in the bonnet. I know cos had my head under all three...

Apart from 4 f/gears and reverse what else did the MGB have. ??

Option of overdrive.

Don't think it was an option it came with it, well my did.

Mine never, but it was a 1964..........Good fun ride though eh......

[Jitar]

Name today's Cars that have Left and Right Hand N/S- O/S wheel nut threads.

Sorry Ace don't know modern versions but some old Chryslers had left hand thread wheel nuts on the left side.

I had a Lotus Elan with knock off wheels that were left hand threads on one side. I assume many other 60's British sports cars and the modern versions with center lock wheels would be similar.

A lot of trucks also used left hand thread wheel nuts before the hub centered wheels become popular.

What is the modern car you are thinking of ?

[wilcopops]

It ended its life as the MGC GT V8, and not with a 3000 Healey Motor, but a Rover/Buick one. .If you check carefully,cant remember the Tyre Pressures off hand though. .Prince Charles had one of the last ones,then it was dropped for the MGB GT V8.

MGC GT had a 3 ltr straight 6 British Leyland engine, same as the Healey. MGB GTv8 had a Rover engine.

Rover made under licence from Buick

[wilcopops]

Overdrive was usually the option on 3 speed boxes, 4 speed didn't get that........ so better to have a 3 speed with O/D as this gave you 5 genuine ratios.

[wilcopops]

so...why "GT"?

Austin Healy 3000 Motor i suppose.

As I asked earlier - where did the concept "GT" come from?

[wilcopops]

Ken Costello converted many rides, but the nice men at MG put the V8 O.E. in at the Factory.unless Google is as wrong as well.,

BL put the Rover in the MGB themselves to replace the 6 pot in the MGC, called MGB V8. They also put it in the Triumph TR7 series, the TR8.

Costello did it first.......BL or whatever they were at the time didn't think of it until they saw the Costello car which they were supplying the engines for.....then they decided it was a good idea....it was lighter than the MGB!

They put the V8 in a lot of vehicles (e.g. the Alvis mid-engine) but when the fuel crisis of 197? came along BL and all British manufacturers got very scared of producing "large" engined vehicles. In the end it was pretty much restricted to the Range Rover and other L/Rs

Edited March 5, 2014 by wilcopops

[Ace of Pop]

Except Jaguar with their V12 !. Costello never matched Broardspeed,for race engines imo.In those days Tweakers were like Thai Phone Shops, tooooooooooooooo many.

[transam]

Except Jaguar with their V12 !. Costello never matched Broardspeed,for race engines imo.In those days Tweakers were like Thai Phone Shops, tooooooooooooooo many.

All Jag engines were in house. The Jag V12 was a disaster..........

[Woodsie888]

Except Jaguar with their V12 !. Costello never matched Broardspeed,for race engines imo.In those days Tweakers were like Thai Phone Shops, tooooooooooooooo many.

All Jag engines were in house. The Jag V12 was a disaster..........

Yep, very uneconomical, not as much power as you'd expect, prone to overhearing, Lucas ignition was disaster and leaked oil like a sieve, particularly from the rear main seal which conveniently entailed dismantling the motor completely to replace. How clever was that?

[transam]

Except Jaguar with their V12 !. Costello never matched Broardspeed,for race engines imo.In those days Tweakers were like Thai Phone Shops, tooooooooooooooo many.

All Jag engines were in house. The Jag V12 was a disaster..........

Yep, very uneconomical, not as much power as you'd expect, prone to overhearing, Lucas ignition was disaster and leaked oil like a sieve, particularly from the rear main seal which conveniently entailed dismantling the motor completely to replace. How clever was that?

Remember the XK220, beeeeeeeeeeeautiful car, many folk ordered it for the V12 badge, it was released as a V6 turbo, nobody wanted it. Orders cancelled. I attended an auction in London about 10 years ago and one was there. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeautiful. It did not sell. ..........

[NBD]

By what measure was the Jag V12 a disaster? In production for about 30 years, and raced successfully in touring cars and sports cars beyond that.

Unless you mean any given Jaguar V12 was a disaster for the person who bought it!

A really disastrous engine was the 3.0 V8 developed (on the cheap) for the Triumph Stag that was worse by almost any measure than the Rover V8 - heavier, less powerful and less reliable. Another great BL decision...

[transam]

By what measure was the Jag V12 a disaster? In production for about 30 years, and raced successfully in touring cars and sports cars beyond that.

Unless you mean any given Jaguar V12 was a disaster for the person who bought it!

A really disastrous engine was the 3.0 V8 developed (on the cheap) for the Triumph Stag that was worse by almost any measure than the Rover V8 - heavier, less powerful and less reliable. Another great BL decision...

For those of us who have been in contact with the things, they were a crap design. Yes Jag raced them and had a parts inventory at race meetings. The saloon, E-Type always had problems for those who just wanted to drive. The XK220 is an example of moving in another direction and dumping the V12.

The Triumph V8 is an in house crap design, one that must be forgotten.

The Buick/Rover is a good design but in my opinion to complicated/expensive to produce and service, perhaps why it was sold off by the US.

[Ace of Pop]

I had 2 V12 XJS during my time in England, both had Moto Morelli ,not Lucas Injection and were prefect in all respects.Biggest prob was the big doors.Living in Hotels,Reps, and Call Girls parked that close i couldn't get in.!!.

[NBD]

Well it wasn't perfect by any means, but how did it compare to other big V12s of the time? As far as I know BMW and Mercedes weren't offering V12s at that time, so only Ferrari and Lambo had them in their top end cars, and they weren't really known for their reliability either! No "contact" with it as such but I did drive a Daimler Double 6 once and thought it was absolutely lovely - big lazy purr, effortless power. I never looked at an XJ6 the same again.

I know it's not exactly clear that a 5.3 litre V12 was really needed in the early 70s, but as engines go there's a lot worse

[transam]

Waaaaaaaaaaay back Cadillac had a V16, yeh, lazy low rpm engine.

The Jag 6 pot has been used for yonks in drag racing, strong design, Jag V12 is out of the equation. Crap.

[Woodsie888]

I had 2 V12 XJS during my time in England, both had Moto Morelli ,not Lucas Injection and were prefect in all respects.Biggest prob was the big doors.Living in Hotels,Reps, and Call Girls parked that close i couldn't get in.!!.

I was referring to the Lucas ignition system Ace, not the injection. The Lucas ignition on the carburettor versions.

As far as the injection is concerned it was indeed Lucas also, based on the Bosch D Tronic design for the early cars and P Tronic for the HE versions.

I'm fairly? certain, nothing to do with Morelli.

[wilcopops]

Except Jaguar with their V12 !. Costello never matched Broardspeed,for race engines imo.In those days Tweakers were like Thai Phone Shops, tooooooooooooooo many.

All Jag engines were in house. The Jag V12 was a disaster..........

Yep, very uneconomical, not as much power as you'd expect, prone to overhearing, Lucas ignition was disaster and leaked oil like a sieve, particularly from the rear main seal which conveniently entailed dismantling the motor completely to replace. How clever was that?

Remember the XK220, beeeeeeeeeeeautiful car, many folk ordered it for the V12 badge, it was released as a V6 turbo, nobody wanted it. Orders cancelled. I attended an auction in London about 10 years ago and one was there. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeautiful. It did not sell. ..........

I seem to remember it ended up with a V8?

Whatever it ended up with, anyone at Jaguar at the time will tell you that the V12 was seriously flawed.

Edited March 5, 2014 by wilcopops

[Woodsie888]

Well it wasn't perfect by any means, but how did it compare to other big V12s of the time? As far as I know BMW and Mercedes weren't offering V12s at that time, so only Ferrari and Lambo had them in their top end cars, and they weren't really known for their reliability either! No "contact" with it as such but I did drive a Daimler Double 6 once and thought it was absolutely lovely - big lazy purr, effortless power. I never looked at an XJ6 the same again.

I know it's not exactly clear that a 5.3 litre V12 was really needed in the early 70s, but as engines go there's a lot worse

I also had a Double Six, 1976 Old English White with Navy leather and A/C, a Vanden Plas and and XJS. As you say they were lovely to drive. But each of them had rear main seal leaks and required motors out and stripped to replace. In fact one of them was done twice.

10 - 12 mpg, no good to me even holding 12 or so gallons a side.

I changed to 450 MB's and then 500's after that. Claimed power was 231 bhp for my first 500SEC in 1983 and I had a drag race with my brother in his new XJS at the time with a much higher claimed power. We stopped at about 100mph and the 500 won.

He was shocked about that. No oil leaks from the MB's either. No breakdowns on the road when the ignition trigger unit failed a humpteen times either. The Jag V12 normally hated the hot weather too. (Sorry Naam)

[wilcopops]

the 2 best days to own a Jag.....the day you get it.........and the day you get rid.

[wilcopops]

Those gladiators of the skies, Spitfire/Hurricane verses the (bf) me109.

They were both V12 piston engines of different CC's and fuel delivery, but there was one big difference, what was it.

the Hurricane was a very basic plane built of canvas......nowhere near as sophisticated as the Supermarine

[wilcopops]

Back in the day (and probably still) Jag was obsessed with Mercedes who they saw as a competitor. (they should be so lucky). The problem with the V12 was not so much in the States as in Europe, Germany in particular where it was common practice rather than use a train or plane to drive from one end of the country to the other by car at high speeds on the unrestricted motorways.....Mercs could do this easily, however the Jags would usually require and engine rebuild after attempting this. No matter what they did they simply couldn't stop overheating and top-end problems. So in the end the XK220 dropped the V12 as it became clear it wouldn't be a genuine "200mph" car with that lump.

(the V12 was of course little more than 2 very old design Jag 6s joined at the bottom)

Edited March 5, 2014 by wilcopops

[transam]

Jag has used a Ford V8.

The Hurricane was a better gun platform than the spitfire.

[Jitar]

By what measure was the Jag V12 a disaster? In production for about 30 years, and raced successfully in touring cars and sports cars beyond that.

Unless you mean any given Jaguar V12 was a disaster for the person who bought it!

A really disastrous engine was the 3.0 V8 developed (on the cheap) for the Triumph Stag that was worse by almost any measure than the Rover V8 - heavier, less powerful and less reliable. Another great BL decision...

For those of us who have been in contact with the things, they were a crap design. Yes Jag raced them and had a parts inventory at race meetings. The saloon, E-Type always had problems for those who just wanted to drive. The XK220 is an example of moving in another direction and dumping the V12.

The Triumph V8 is an in house crap design, one that must be forgotten.

The Buick/Rover is a good design but in my opinion to complicated/expensive to produce and service, perhaps why it was sold off by the US.

The Buick 215 on the other hand was a great design. The Rover / Leyland version was not particularly complicated or expensive to service but there were some differences to the regular engines. I.E. Care for threads in the aluminium castings and correct coolant. Water instead of glycol would cause corrosion and overheating issues.

Light & compact and very successful in various BL cars and Trucks. I guess GM did not see much benefit for the aluminium V8 in large cars until much later.

[Ace of Pop]

I recall Ford bought Jaguar , then built and oversaw Quality Control when i had mine,i reiterate Zero Probs. They clearly sent non of them Q.C. Chaps over here to Rayong Ford.

[wilcopops]

Except Jaguar with their V12 !. Costello never matched Broardspeed,for race engines imo.In those days Tweakers were like Thai Phone Shops, tooooooooooooooo many.

Ralph Broad was a very clever man who really was responsible for the first production turbo in Uk.....or just about anywhere. At one point it was claimed to be the fastest production car in the UK. Both he and Costello were drivers as well as engineers - Broad was one hell of a salesman too. His Capri Bullit suffered the same fate as Costello's MG (and the BL MG); the fuel crisis put them out of business. This of course was partly due to the all-pervasive myopic attitude of the British Motor Industry who repeatedly when faced with a problem simply stopped making the models affected rather than thinking around for a solution.....

Both Costello and Broad did something that BL failed to see (apart from the V8) they both road raced minis with great success - BMC/BL only rallied them.

Broad of course went on to great success with Ford both the Capris and several Escorts which he prepared for other competitors. He probably lost it bait after the death of his daughter. Anyway he could never make those Jag V12s competitive. I think he died a couple of years ago.

A spin-off from the Bullit was the Datsun "Samuri"......basically the same idea - blueprint and turbo - but carried out on the smaller, lighter Datsun 240Z - probably a much better car but still failed to thrive.

[wilcopops]

I recall Ford bought Jaguar , then built and oversaw Quality Control when i had mine,i reiterate Zero Probs. They clearly sent non of them Q.C. Chaps over here to Rayong Ford.

Ford bought Jaguar but never made a success of it. The purchase had all the hallmarks of the US side of Ford - they wanted to buy all the prestige niche cars at the time. hover any US company that has tried to send it's own management to run UK motor companies has met with disaster. Chrysler and GM both had sobering experiences in Europe.

Jags improved under Ford because the company ws no longer skint, but they still built some pretty awful cars....that "S"-type.....really!

Edited March 5, 2014 by wilcopops

[Kwasaki]

Apart from 4 f/gears and reverse what else did the MGB have. ??

Option of overdrive.

Don't think it was an option it came with it, well my did.

Mine never, but it was a 1964..........Good fun ride though eh......

Fun drive for sure, mine was a 1967 overdrive in 3rd and 4th, great 1800 B engine, the only thing that I didn't like was the spoke wheels they would need constant checks.

[wilcopops]

There are a lot of people who look back on Jag with rose-tinted spectacles. in fact many do this with ALL of the British Motor Industry. the reality is IMO quite different, it just lurched from one disastrous model, financial crisis or glorious failure to the next.

With regards to a sustainable industry selling to the world it is hard to find a single model that hasn't got serious shortcomings. If you take a good look at the cars that came out of UK between WW2 and the end of the century, it is very hard to find ANYTHING that compares with the stuff being made in Europe or Japan.

US - I'm afraid you really don't get a look in anywhere outside the US.