V8 Story

Perry Stephenson continues the saga of his Nitrous fuelled MGB GT dragster

Trailer overload at Santa Pod

Following last month’s shakedown runs at the Drag Strip, I have to say I’m more than pleased with how the old girl is performing.

I still have a load of niggles to iron out over next winter but I just can’t bring myself to do them while the weather is nice and the open roads are calling.

So she will hit the street, for the summer of 2006 looking a little tatty.

Do you blame me? With all this power waiting to be unleashed, would you keep it locked up while the sun is shining?

I had to remove the Spiral flow mufflers in the end because they fouled the trailer ramps, making loading and unloading a real pain.

I’m quite happy with them but they will have to remain on the garage floor for a few months until I can get busy with making a completely new system. They are surprisingly effective at removing the crack from the exhaust note, while offering almost no resistance. They have a through tube in the middle and the rest of the gas travels around a spiral chamber on the outside of the shell.

My plan for the winter will be to make a new aluminium fuel tank to fit in the boot under the deck shelf, and fit a firewall under the car where the tank used to reside.

I can then run the exhaust pipes along the inner chassis rails and over the axle to hook up with the mufflers, which will be mounted where the fuel tank used to be. Then I can have the tail pipes coming out of the rear valence, under the number plate.

Inside the surprisingly effective spiral exhaust

I’m also looking at finding some new 15-inch wheels so I can get the right size race tyres. At the moment, I use a 22-inch diameter Drag Radial made by BF Goodrich but I need to get the rear tyres back up to 24-inch diameter to get my final drive ratio to where it should be.

It was time to start on all the little jobs that needed doing.

The first thing I noticed was how hot the gearbox oil cooler lines got during normal use, let alone when racing. So I pulled them all off and fitted good quality Armaflex neoprene pipe insulation to stop my left leg getting scorched.

In order to get the oil cooler fitted, I had routed the oil lines in through the tunnel and along the driver’s side of the tunnel, under the driver’s seat and out to the oil cooler through the rear seat floor panel.

This was the only logical route to avoid the hoses being exposed to potential damage. I decided the small four inch fans that I was going to fit would not be big enough in the summer months, so I fitted a powerful Pacet fan as recommended by the gearbox manufacturers. I wired this fan via a relay into the fuse box to a feed that comes live with the ignition. So as soon as I turn on, the fan kicks in.

I was looking forward to the 10th June at the Pod. It was just a normal ‘Run What You Brung’ day, and it was the day England would played their first match for that footie tournament that’s on at the moment, World Cup or something? So I expected it may be a little quieter than normal, as the racetrack had not laid on the usual big screen in the beer tent as they do on show days.

Friday the 9th arrived and so did Pete with the trailer, but there was bad news. One of the wheels on the trailer had suffered a brake failure, to the point where the wheel locked up about 500 yards from my house. But Pete didn’t stop. He just floored the Range Rover and dragged it into the close with the tyre smoking.

Therefore the first couple of hours of the evening were taken up with me having to remove the brake assembly of one of the trailer wheels completely and welding up some damage to get the wheel back on without a brake at all.

No real problem, as the truck brakes can more than handle the load of the trailer and MG without brakes at all.

So later than usual, I was driving onto the trailer not having been able to finish tuning for the following race day. Normally I would have cancelled the track day and fixed the trailer on the Saturday, but I had arranged to meet Jonathon Moulds (MGOC Member) and a few other MG owners who drive modern MGs for a race day.

At the Pod
We arrived at the Pod at 10am and signed on to race. The sun was shining and I was glad I’d remembered the sun cream. We met up with the other guys and took the B off the trailer. When I started her she was running a little rough. I’d been having trouble with the 31 year old distributor and decided to reset the timing at the strip. I hooked up the strobe lamp and let out a big gasp as I cursed to Jonathon that the bloody thing had packed up because I couldn’t see the light flashing on the timing marks. However, when I turned the strobe to my face I could see that it was working. I thought the sun must be too bright, but it was then that I realised, I was still wearing my sunglasses! Once I had changed my prescription sunglasses for my normal ones, all was good.

As the guys were arriving, I said they could put any loose stuff from their cars into the truck. This was hilarious, the truck and trailer soon ended up looking like a car spares yard.

After I set the timing to the proper V8 specification minus two degrees, I got in line to race. It is best to run a little retarded when using Nitrous to reduce the risk of detonation. The first race was a respectable 13.4 seconds. This was the quickest run for the car ever, excellent.

A new way to get to the rear exhaust manifold bolt, Perry calls it the ‘Mission Impossible’ technique

The second run was rubbish as the normal road tyres lit up and lost me loads of traction and time. I decided it was time to fit the BFG Drag Radials and see just how well she would hook up off the line.

The next run was a fantastic 12.9 at 108 mph. At last I’d broken into the 12-second bracket. I was whooping with joy as the kids rang me with my time as I pulled back into the pits.

We tried again and pulled another 12.9 at 108 mph.

Time was running out as the track closes at 5pm and it was now 4.50pm.

Eddie said to drop the tyres to 14psi to see how they ran.

I went back into the fire up lane with a couple of minutes to spare and let the tyres down as I was waiting in the queue.

I had planned to run against a guy with an MG ZS180, but something went wrong in the queue and I ended up staging against a Mitsubishi Evo 4×4 monster with a big wing on the back and loads of sponsor stickers. I think it was a four-wheel drive rally type car.

I had originally decided to use a 50 shot of Nitrous on the first stage, and a 50 shot on the second stage but as the first stage was playing up, I re-jetted to a 75 shot for the 2nd stage.

Times from the Pod

Engine out again

I got onto the burnout area, but decided not to clean the tyres off as I wanted to see how they performed from cold with the lower pressure of 14psi that I was now running. The EVO was already staged as I pulled up to the line. I drifted forward to light the pre-stage lamp, and then the full stage lamp. I stabbed at the throttle and the rear wheels screamed for about a second as the Phantom Grip diff locker hooked up and gave me traction to both rear wheels.

The Evo had got a good start, but I reeled him in within the first 60 feet, at which point I banged the shifter forward to find second gear and pushed the Nitrous button on the steering wheel to hear the rear wheels squeak as the power came on. She threw me back into the seat for a few seconds and then I banged the shifter again to get into third gear. I could not see the Evo to my right as I crossed the line.

I could see it in my rear view mirror though, as I slowed for the exit.

As I pulled back into the pits I saw my MG buddies jumping about and punching the air towards me. I could see the Evo in my rear view mirror pulling into his parking area with his buddies opposite our little camp.

I slowed down and opened the window and my mate Ed came over and shook my hand as he told me I had not only beaten the Evo, but that I had pulled a 12.8 second pass at 110 mph.

I was so happy at this point because the old B was now well and truly into super car territory.

The car was now capable of 0-60 times well below 5 seconds and 12 second quarter mile runs. All this from the original 31-year-old 3500cc engine which has been tweaked under the guidance of Real Steel.

Just bust

Auto fluid looks bad

But what now? I’d prematurely hit this year’s target of getting into the 12-second bracket with a 12.8 second run. So now I would have to work on even more traction to improve the holeshot and see if I can hit that elusive 12-second dead pass.

Reducing my time by 0.8 of a second does not sound much, but in the field of Drag racing it can be a world away.

That, I thought, is going to have to wait until the 13th August for the first ever MG Drag Racing Club event at the Pod. So it was a good end to a very nice day. I drove the car for the next few days as normal. Any excuse to take her out for a spin.

Gremlins
Then the Gremlins started to crawl out of the woodwork. The following week, while running the B on a shopping trip to Milton Keynes, the gearbox gave up with a big grinding noise in 3rd gear. I had done my shopping and was on the way home.

I’d pulled away from a roundabout at about 3/4 throttle and she shifted from 1st to 2nd quite smoothly. But then as she shifted to 3rd gear I lost drive and could hear a grinding noise.

I manually shifted back to 2nd and pulled over. I looked for any problems with the prop-shaft etc, but could not see anything loose.

I started off again very gently and when she shifted to 3rd gear I got the grinding noise again. I limped back home in 2nd gear and got the car up on the ramps.

The gearbox should be good for 450hp. I was only running a 200hp motor plus an extra 75hp shot of gas but the gearbox had failed. I was originally told that the makers might not be interested in a warranty claim, as they don’t offer much of a warranty on this type of component. They normally offer a 90-day warranty, but I had bought the box in late 2005, although it is well documented that it was only put into service a few weeks before the failure.

I bought the gearbox for street/strip use as advertised so I got in touch with Real Steel, and explained the scenario. The gearbox was obviously faulty and not fit for purpose. I was quite worried about the whole issue. But The MD of Real Steel, Charles Pinion, got onto the case for me and took it up with the manufacturers. TCI were quite slow to respond, but I found out later it was because Charles was only going to deal with the top man who was away for a few days.

Once Charles had made contact with this man in the USA things took off. I got an email direct from Charles to tell me to get the gearbox and torque converter back to Real Steel asap, as Charles was going to airfreight the lot back to the States for immediate inspection and report. Now that’s what I call service!

I drained the fluid from the gearbox in preparation to remove it. I drained the oil through a clean linen sheet and was not happy with what I saw. Black particles and bits of white metal, not a good sign I’m sure.

Until next month, when I should hopefully have some good news and a repaired gearbox to play with.

Special thanks this month go to: The guys at Real Steel, especially Charles for stepping up to the mark and taking control and resolving my gearbox problems. My lovely wife Gill for letting me use her eyebrow pencil liner thingy to mark up my exhaust pipes for cutting (although she has not found out yet) I’m sure she will make me pay somehow.

JC for coming over to the Pod to race his 1800 B and to help out.

Eddie and the guys from the CRX club and MG XPower for giving me support on the 10th June.

As the mechanical stage of this project is nearing an end, I have to say thanks to the person who made this whole saga possible by contacting the MGOC and telling them that they should get in touch with this bloke who is Drag Racing an old MGB against all comers. Mr Dave Wellings, (applause) thanks Dave, you have given me the opportunity to show people that the BV8 can be a real rival to most modern cars with just a bit of tweaking.