The long winter nights spent in the garage working on my
1957 MGA have proven to be fruitful. Strengthening the front springs has
reduced the annoying wheel spin from the inside rear wheel when hard cornering,
allowing exit speeds to be increased. The engine rebuild has also increased
brake horse power from 109 to 124 and torque from 105 to 129 ft.lbs. The new
camshaft has given me torque at lower revs, working to the adage, “torque wins
trophies” rather than max power.
The engine took longer to build than expected as everything
has to be built, measured, stripped, machined and rebuilt to get it right.
Everything has to be matched together, valve sizes, compression, bore size; some
people call this “blue printing”. Once built and run in, around Wales one
winter weekend, the car was then set up on a rolling road which enables the car
to be tuned at maximum speed without leaving the garage.
The season is now over and I have defended my Luffield
Championship title again. It came down to the last run of my season at Prescott
and I was very pleased with my performance under pressure from 3 of my fellow
competitors who were all getting some very quick times. It took a new class
record to finally clinch the title.
Now I need to figure
out how to get more speed out of the old car again this winter. Hmmm!!!
