Morris Minor Owners Club

As a wonderful, wonderful person has dropped an MG Metro cam in my lap, just as I was putting new rings/mains in Molly, I have another possibly controversial question.....
According to the Bible all standard A series cams up to A+ tend to work better advanced 4 degrees. Is there any evidence that the MG Metro cam works better either way. At very least I am going to check it to spec. And yes, I will re-check my exhaust valve to deck clearances before finishing re-assembly!

I believe it's recommended to advance an a series cam by approximately 4 degree's and understand this is due to slack in the timming gear,

I was given timing instuctions and a dial gauge when i bought a kent 266 kit recently,
If it's any help i could dig it out an post it here...

Simon P wrote:I believe it's recommended to advance an a series cam by approximately 4 degree's and understand this is due to slack in the timming gear,

I was given timing instuctions and a dial gauge when i bought a kent 266 kit recently,
If it's any help i could dig it out an post it here...

Thanks very much for the thoughtful offer, I'm fine DTI'ing cams (when I am calm and cool, around 7AM usually!), just wanted opinions on the actual figure. So thats one for +4 degrees!

What says the Scots Sage??

Dot to dot is fine! This 'timing in' of cams is fine for a racing engine - for a road car it's nonsense. Only repeated trials on a RR will tell you the best timing for any cam. Your engine may get 1 extra bhp at the very top if set 4 advanced - and lose plenty lower down. Equally - if set say 4 degrees retarded - it may give great low torque and lose a small amount at the very top end! So - just assume that MG actually did some trials/tests when developing this cam - and ground it up so it would work well in most engines when set dot to dot!

OK- thats sorted then

Well - that's my view........ But as you well know - 6 others will say something else! But I firmly believe dot to dot is fine. I did mess about for ages timing in a 544 on a MIni engine a couple of years back - the amount the key for the sprocket has to be moved to advance it 4 degrees is TINY! The engine didn't run well at all - very peaky etc. I pulled out the timing gears and fitted a normal key - dot to dot - it ran much much better. Still peaky -as expected with a 544 - but much more driveable. You won't be disappointed with an MG cam. It should have the same lift as the standard cam - but do indeed check !

I think you would struggle tremendously to time it accurately 4 degrees either way ! and I'm with Roy on the merits (or not) of doing so....

The general consesus of opinion is that the MG Metro cam is properly sorted and leagues ahead of other stock BMC cams. I would conclude therefore that a standard setup would be best.

Peetee wrote:The general consesus of opinion is that the MG Metro cam is properly sorted and leagues ahead of other stock BMC cams. I would conclude therefore that a standard setup would be best.

Thats what I had in mind, only someone's statement that the 4 degrees is to remove backlash that made me query it. I will check the timing to spec anyway out of curiosity to see how close or not it is.

If BMC/ BL managed to get the timing right on production, then Triumph could have learnt something from them with their offset fixing hole-to-chainwheel-tooth relationship, takes a bit of thought and turning the chainwheel over to get the timing right on a Spitfire!