a better one. With the cleaner on as delivered, the standard TD will
rip the pants off a Mark 2 because the cleaner is almost right for the TD but
all wrong for the Mark 2.
1 also found that removing the fan blades for
competition adds one full horsepower and opening the valves to .025 from .019
adds about two and a half more. Believe it or not, the noise increase is not
noticeable though its bad on the valving to leave them open like this
indefinitely. Removing the muffler, which is packed with fibre glass, and
gutting it of all obstructions including the inner tube, and then adding a two
and a quarter-inch pipe to the gutted muffler instead of the silly standard one
inch, also puts several extra horses in the stable. I did this and after making
my tests bought a big chrome tail pipe, made for a V8 Chrysler, drilled four
holes in the end and ran brass rods through the holes. When not racing, steel
wool packed into this makes it almost as quiet as the original muffler.
Furthermore, at a moment's notice you can rip out the steel wool and take on
all comers.
While I was in Palm Beach getting the MG ready
for the speed trials, Jack Donaldson, MG expert who works for Briggs Cunningham
and was formerly with Inskip, helped me with my first tune-up. Alfred Momo, the
great Ferrari man also formerly of Inskip, gave it the original going-over that
took me to Florida. And, lastly, on the day of the speed trials, George Forman
of Palm Beach Foreign Motors gave M'Gillicuddy a final lick and a promise. It
was like having Einstein, Edison and Marconi helping you with your algebra.
My closest competition was Jim McMichael who
owned one of the hottest TD's in the country and was the defending champion and
record holder. Jim made one mistake, however. He likes to drag race before an
event. Two days before the speed trials, we dragged down the beach and he
trimmed me. So I knew a little high class tuning was in order. Tuning requires
tools. The stock MG tools are on the creepy side. As all fittings on the MG are
Whitworth (metric) sizes, these lousy tools can prove quite a rub as I have
found very few things they fit correctly. However, right here in the good old
U. S., the Snap-On Tools Corp. of
Kenosha, Wis., makes their famous Blue Point- wrenches in true Whitworth sizes
and a few dollars invested will pay extremely high dividends if you ever get
stuck with an MG in Roaring Bear, Nevada, and can't find a mechanic in town who
has a wrench that will fit your sick pup, I have a whole set of Blue Point
Whitworths and they are better than any English wrenches I have |
ever see. It would have been impossible
for me to have tuned M'Gillicuddy for Daytona without them.
On the day of the official run M'Gillicuddy
went down the beach just under 85 mph and came back into the very high wind at
75 for an average of 79.49 mph, a- new record for strictly stock production
Class F cars. McMichael averaged just over 77 mph. He and I tuned our cars in
my garage and its interesting to note that his car averaged nine miles faster
than his record of the year before. Wind is extremely tough on these low torque
rigs and on the day of the speed trials we had to return against a 25- to
30-mph head wind.
Three days later in the one-mile acceleration
trials I again got McMichael, mainly because he drag-raced me over a mile
course the day before and beat me five times out of five. This showed me my
timing, perfect for top speed, was just a hair too advanced for acceleration
work even though I could whip up to 6500 rpm in third gear. When I dropped it
into high, McMichael lugged better than I did. Oddly enough, I could beat him
at a half mile, and catch him and pass him at a mile and a half, but he would
take me at the even mile. M'Gillicuddy averaged 65.15 mph for a two-way average
in the standing start mile against McMichael's 62 even. These are not only new
American records for Class F production stock cars but, I believe, world's
records and if M'Gillicuddy hadn't been running, McMichael's runs would also
have been records. As it turned out, these cars, identically tuned, show just
the expected difference between the standard TD and the Mark 2.
If you are interested in sports cars and have
never owned one, the MG would be impossible to beat as a starter. Just about
all our top American drivers, like Briggs Cunningham and John Fitch, got their
know-how racing the mighty midget. When the MG factory realized that
competition was breathing down their necks like the bloodhounds chasing little
Eva, they introduced this factory prepared hop-up for about $200 more than the
TD and dubbed it the Mark 2.
With the few minor objections mentioned, I
think the MG is the greatest sports car in the world for the money and size and
the Mark 2 MG is the greatest of them all. It is comfortable and plenty roomy
for two people and a dog as big as Joe, who likes to ride in something called
the boot, especially with the top down. It has a lot of pep and pick-up and
truly fantastic, glued-in-the-groove cornering. And its sturdily built and has
proven |
