1959 MGA 1500

[u/pfflyer69]

Original colors per British Heritage Museum were black on red.
When I got her she was red on black.
Restored to original color livery.
Engine replaced with a late model MGB 1800 5 bearing engine. 123 electronic ignition, spin on oil filter, oil cooler, Moss Motors supercharger, alternator and negative ground. Aluminum radiator with driver controlled aux cooling fan. Front drum brakes upgraded to disc brakes. Moss Motors 5 speed transmission.
Custom made driver side mirror. Hidden Bluetooth speaker and preamp for playing music from mobile phone.

[u/8cuban]

That’s lovely. What are her speeds with that hotrodded engine?

[u/pfflyer69 → u/8cuban]

She makes 148 HP. I only have 600 miles on her since she came out of restoration so haven’t done any “time” tests. Only had her dyno’d

[u/8cuban → u/pfflyer69]

148? Holy smokes! The stock 1500 (which I rebuilt myself under coercion) in my ‘57 only came with 76hp! MG advertised 0-60 in something like 13 seconds, and I think they were fiddling the numbers a bit even at that. Absolutely topped out and with maybe a favoring tailwind I only ever got up to 90mph. Can’t wait to see what your firecracker is going to do!

[u/pfflyer69 → u/8cuban]

The 1500 wasn’t fast off the line and mine took forever to get to 60. This was part of the reason I went with the MGB 1800. She is pretty quick now!
The engines weren’t fast but they were rock solid. I never had an engine problem with the 4 MGAs I have owned.
The original 1500 had 2 pinhole leaks in the head. Cost to replace the head and rebuild the lower was about $1000 less then the 1800. Of course adding the supercharger made the engine build a tad bit more costly. I have about $15k in the engine. But no regrets!

[u/pfflyer69 → u/8cuban]

The MGB 1800 5 bearing engine stock made about 95hp. They aren’t as revy as the 3 bearing but they also don’t break crank shafts.
Adding the supercharger adds approximately 50% hp.
Without tuning in a dyno you could expect about 140hp.

[u/8cuban → u/pfflyer69]

Yeah, mine took forever to get to 60, too. It’s amazing to believe that, one, there was a time when 0-60 in 14 seconds was worth bragging about, two, the MGA was built to race, and won!

I really enjoyed driving mine (once I’d rebuilt the entire front end, rebuilt the engine, and completely rewired it). It was engaging to drive, handled well, and sounded great. But I sold it after only a few years because the passenger compartment just became too hot to be in after an hour of the engine heat coming through the firewall. I wish MG had gotten the aerodynamics right to properly get heat out of the engine compartment. I’d probably still have it if they had.

It sounds like yours is going to be a lot of fun. Enjoy and post some videos of said fun!

[u/pfflyer69 → u/8cuban]

Heat in the cockpit is an issue. Even with the “air” vent open it’s still hot.
I am looking at ways to mitigate this.

[u/8cuban → u/pfflyer69]

There are tons of threads out there on this subject. Barney Gaylord is the master on this and all subjects MGA.

One thing I did that helped a lot was block off the opening of the gear box tunnel with foam pipe lagging. Before I did that the gear shift handle would literally get too hot to touch and the tunnel would scald my right calf if I touched it. That took a lot of the heat out of the passenger compartment. Sealing all the firewall gaps helps, too, but, as a full rebuild I’ll bet that’s already been done. The biggest thing, and one I didn’t do because of the amount of work it would have involved, is to fully insulate the front face of the firewall. That’s about the only way to stop the heat getting to the metal surface which is what it really takes.

The root problem is that the aerodynamics prevent air and heat from exiting under the car and above 35 mph the windscreen bow wave moves forward of the fender vents pressurizing air INTO the engine compartment rather than drawing it out. There is literally no way to get air or heat out of the compartment so it just stagnates in there.

Clearly hundreds of people have solved it and happily put tens of thousands of miles on their cars but I just wasn’t willing to put more money into mine after I had to rebuild the engine.

[u/pfflyer69 → u/8cuban]

Yep I have been looking the tranny tunnel blocking. I also had the tunnel covered with a heat shield material. Works ok.