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MG MGF Technical - MGF Cup Cars

How are the MGF cup cars different engine wise from the normal cars, how much extra power do they generate? by what means?

just interested
K
Kingsley

Kingsley, they're sealed, normally aspirated 190 bhp VHPD units, that came direct from Janspeed who built them.

Quite different beasties from your common or garden K-series in that they come complete with multiple throttle bodies, and ported big-valve heads (similar in many respects to the VVC head, but without the extra cams).

Very expensive usually.

DVA should be able to give you something similar for a more reasonable outlay :o)
Rob Bell

And were they not 'Dry Sump'?

Ted
Ted Newman

Yes, I believe they were Ted - but would need to check.

Interestingly, only 40 VHPD engines were build in 1998 - and of course, none were emissions compliant. The Lotus 340R had a similar cylinder head (340 engines built according to the figures I have), but this car was detuned to become emissions compliant, and that engine 'only' put out 177 bhp (still close to that magical 100 bhp/litre though). But in context, it is not all that hard to get VVC-160s putting out 180 bhp... and this would certainly be a cheaper option I'd have thought.
Rob Bell

I have MGF Cup cams fitted in my 1.8 engine, can anyone tell me the spec of them eg duration etc & who made them (Kent Cams or Piper Cams or someone else).
tvf

Most likely they're Piper cams, tvf. Drop Piper a line, and they'll be able to inform you of their duration (or alternaively, post the question on the Elise Technical board - plenty of folks there with loads of cams knowledge!)
Rob Bell

The VHPD heads were basically the same castings as the VVC head except with provision for a one piece inlet cam a la 1.8i.The valves were standard VVC size and very little if any porting was performed on these. The cams (Piper)were solid lifters 10.14mm lift on the inlet and 10.08mm on the exhaust cam. 280duration.Timings for inlet are 34-66. Exhaust 68-32.
For hydraulic cams for road use try the 285 Piper cams these have 11mm lift.
The Cup car engines were usually dry sumped as Ted suggested.I recently prepared one of these engines for rallying and fitted larger valves with extensive porting work,(we decided to keep the VHPD cams as the car was to be used for some road stages) this raised the power levels somewhat but we are still awaiting RR figures to confirm the gains over the stock 190BHP as a guestimate we are hoping to see over 210BHP with some improvement on the torque curve.HTH.
Mike.
mike

Hey Mike, very interesting... if you have more details after the RR, please share it with us.

Thanks,
Erik

BTW, there are still some pictures of Cup Cars and more detailed pictures on my site (see section models, cup cars).

http://www.mgtf.be

Thanks for the ad ;-)
Erik

Mike, When Caterham dry sump a K series engine I think they use (I'm happy to be corrected) 3 oil pumps, 2 scavenge filling a remote oil tank from opposite ends of the sump and the 3rd supplying oil from the tank to the engine. Is this the same system as fitted to the cup cars ?

> The cams (Piper)were solid lifters 10.14mm lift on the inlet and 10.08mm on the exhaust cam.

Interesting (!?!) to note that the cams I think are used in the 240-250bhp Caterham R500 (1227, used to be called #835?) have the same timings and duration as the VHPD cams but have more lift:
Lift:
Inlet: 0.462" (11.74mm)
Exhaust: 0.460 (11.68mm)

I think the only drawback of the extra lift is increased cam/follower wear due to the extra stresses.

It's possible to get cams half way between this (same timings/duration), I have Piper Grind #834:
Lift:
Inlet 0.441" (11.20mm)
Exhaust 0.439" (11.15mm)

Russ
Russell Morgan

This thread was discussed between 01/10/2002 and 04/10/2002

MG MGF Technical index

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