Supercharging!

Introduction

Whilst many owners find the standard 1800cc engine acceptable for country lanes and around town, the quest for more power is always lurking in the background for the average owner.  More to the point, by comparison to today's traffic, a B can be frighteningly underpowered at times.

So what to do?  The usual, and oft quoted cheapest solution is to fit a V8!  It makes sense!  The factory produced V8s in the mid-70s, and later in the 90s as the RV8, whilst Costello was the first with his V8 engine conversions on both Roadsters and GTs.  At the most basic level, a late model rubber bumper B is an easy conversion, with the engine bay already designed to take the V8, and as with the factory GTs, fitting up with a standard gearbox, the car is good to go!  Apart from a few improvements to brakes and suspension, the standard V8 engine will provide bags of torque for lazy driving, and you won't disgrace yourself either.  With a similar mass to the original car, performance is much improved, the downside being the amount of time to complete the conversion, and the additional fuel consumption.

Another route would be the later "O" series engine as envisioned by the factory in 1980, or even a later "S" or "T" series engine from the various 90s FWD Rovers, the latter unit available as a turbocharged version with in excess of 180bhp. But again, the horny old problem of finding the right transmission to suit, metal bashing, and numerous other small issues to complete the work, although, Roger Parker of the MGOC has done this successfully and the conversion is well documented.

However, for a weekend's work, and the possibility of power outputs similar to the original factory GT V8, one has the choice of supercharging!  Admittedly not as cheap as a V8 conversion, but, it requires less effort to fit, and the car can be returned to standard in a short space of time.

Phil will be adding more in due course on his research into Supercharging the B, but in the meantime visit the pages above of two supercharged B's from two different suppliers.

High Performance Products - Supplier of Phil's supercharger.

12th April 2006 - I would like to thank Hans Pederson of Hi-Flow for the time he spent recently talking me through issues relating to supercharging and specifically to Phil's issues on his GTK.  Martin.