metro turbo engine/gearbox

[gary26]

i bought this of a mg enthuiast who was going to use it for his midget, however like me he had a change of plan and decided not to use the engine.

the engine will need to be put back together, however everything is included, there is no wear on the bores, crank e.t.c and it comes complete with new pistons, shells, and all gaskets.

The gearbox has been rebuilt, the turbo seems to turn ok and has no play in it.

I was told that it come from a 77000 mile metro, however i didnt
see the car so i cant confirm this.

Looking for £400

call gary 07866410155

[vtec steve]

Put it on ebay. Toby got sily money for his turbo set-up. His engine was built up and running though did need a re-build.

[gary26]

i will do that if i get no interest, i will put it back together and get it running then put it on e-bay

[Simon1275mpi]

Still my question remains.. Is there a difference from the A+ gear box to the A+ box under the turbo lump. I know they beefed up the clutch but I've heard rumours about the gearbox. No different rebuild kits etc.

I'll let it go unless someone can convince me other wise. I'm sure you'll get money on ebay.

[Deleted]

yes si there is a difference but its only a bearing, tirbo box allways sounds good

[Simon1275mpi]

Which bearing? Does it make all that much differance and could I mod a standard A+ box?

[Deleted]

easy first motion shaft roller bearing

[noisymini]

The one in the bell housing, so technically the gearbox is exactly the same.

Its just the bearing shell needs to be larger in the bell housing for the larger bearing. Can't recall if the bell housing actually has a larger hole for the bearing aswell but i do know it looks like a pain in the arse to replace a bearing shell there.

I'm sure opinion is devided on this, as with many Mini things everyone thinks there way is best, but personally I'd just use the standard bearing size as the larger bearing aint worth the money. Chances are the gearbox will chew itself up anyway and as far as i could tell all the gearboxes i destroyed (last count i think was 4) were due to other failures.

[MiniGT5]

Where abouts are you located?

Also on a similar path could the bits be used to turbo a std MG spec engine? Would it be jsut case of swapping over the head and manifolds etc?

N

[gary26]

TO BE HONEST I DONT KNOW IF YOU COULD USE THIS ON A STANDARD SPEC ENGINE , I AM SITUATED IN NEWHAVEN IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A LOOK AT SOME POINT

GAZ

[noisymini]

admin said:

could the bits be used to turbo a std MG spec engine? Would it be jsut case of swapping over the head and manifolds etc?

N

You could put the turbo head etc on a standard short engine. The trouble is that the turbo pistons give a lower CR than the standard 1275 ones so you would either need to keep the boost down or lower the CR in a different way to prevent knock.

For about 6 months i ran a standard bottom end and standard 1275 head generally on 4psi but occasionally 7 psi. I fitted 2 Payen BK450 gaskets to help lower the compression. I did this as it was my daily drive so needed to use it, while i was prepping a proper turbo head on which i ground out the combustion chamber to lower the CR as i was to use it on the standard 1275 bottom end. When i came to fit the turbo head there was no sign of trouble with the 2 gaskets i was using so they'd have probably gone on for longer. I fitted the ground out turbo head with one proper copper gasket (Payen AF 460) and it went on fine for ages running 7 psi for fun and 4 psi for daily use, eating the od gearbox here and there. ;D

After about 18 months, maybe longer, it developed a missfire which i put down to piston ring failure. But i used it every day and regularly drove it like an animal so i recon it did pretty well as the engine had already covered about 65k before i had it.

[Simon1275mpi]

noisymini said:

it went on fine for ages running 7 psi for fun and 4 psi for daily use, eating the od gearbox here and there. ;D

So what did you break in your gearbox's? We're they rebuilt or just refurbed?

[MiniGT5]

Thinking about it... just not sure what route to go down at the moment.

Got any pics to inspire me???

N :-)

[noisymini]

mininutter said:

noisymini said:

it went on fine for ages running 7 psi for fun and 4 psi for daily use, eating the od gearbox here and there. ;D

So what did you break in your gearbox's? We're they rebuilt or just refurbed?

Well, all but one were refurbished by myself and Jem. I had lots of gearboxes knocking around so i could pick and choose all th best bits to put together a spare waiting for when i'd need it. I also bought the odd new bit where required like lay shaft, baulk rings etc.

Certainly one of the gearboxes failed due to lay shaft bearings and i'm pretty sure another one was due to suffer the same fate but recognised the nasty noises so replaced it before it had a chance to destroy itself.

One of them I wasnt quite sure as it just lost a couple of teeth tho not entirely sure why as couldn't see anything obviously wrong to have caused it but that was my first so didn't have the same broken gearbox knowledge (dunno if that knowledge is a good or bad thing )

The other one was a complete failure. Was just shifting into second pulling off a roundabout then had a box of neutrals. We could hardly believe what we were seeing when we lifted the engine off of it. There were teeth everywhere! It was a bit of a pain to dismantle as there weren't really enough lock the cogs together to be able to undo the main nut.
I'm still not quite sure what the cause was as i'd not heard any noises or grumbles previously but i guess it must have been one of the big bearings (dunno their propper names) allowing too much kinda twisting movement or one of the bearings that go inside the gears, if you see what i mean, or a mixture of the two.

Maybe someone out there knows exactly why a gearbox would just shed all its teeth ;D

[k1]

If your building a powerful engine you need to upgrade the box and transfer gears.Its crazy to keep damaging boxes that are not designed to cope with big power.A dog box will be able to handle 200hp along with needle bearing drop gears and a diff are a must.
A engine is like a house, you need to start at the bottom and work up.I know from experience if you leave anything to chance on a powerful engine, it will ! let you down and damage the engine.
The turbo gearbox had a different main bearing and harder lay shaft ,all later metro boxes were fitted with the uprated parts.
The crank was also tuftrided in the turbo.