I spent Saturday kicking around VIR raceway at the
season finale SVRA vintage races. Despite the crappy
weather, a great time indeed.
I spent most of the day talking to people racing MGBs,
trying to get some insight into some decision I have
to make soon regarding suspension, etc. One of the
gentlemen I talked to said that there is a fundamental
and serious oiling problem in the MGB engine. The way
I understood it, he said the oil pump gear trashes the
cam gear, causing one or both to fail (with suitably
catastrophic results). One solution was to use a
special brass oil pump gear which is sacrificial and
needs to be changed every sixteen hours (yikes). The
other solution was to do away with the stock oil pump
entirely and use an external oil pump drawing off the
side of the pan (which is technically illegal because
it creates sort of a quasi-dry sump).
My questions are these:
1) Has anyone else every heard of this problem?
2) Why would the oil pump trash the cam under racing
conditions but not under street conditions? Is it
purely a function of revs?
3) If so, what is the rev range where this becomes
critical?
Thanks in advance,
=====
Paul Misencik
1971 MGB Vintage Race Project
Huntersville, NC USA
www.sopwithracing.com
Learn the truth at www.misleader.org
__________________________________
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
|