Morris Minor Owners Club

Well my install is finally finished and running well. After having poor running wuith wrong needle I had it set up on a rolling road and it is amazing , very fast in all respects.

It is delivering 51 bhp at the rear wheels measured on rolling road, so I suppose about 70+ bhp at the flywheel.

Highly recommended.


!275 A+ enginge
spridget differential
spridget gear box.
Metro GT 1300 big valve head
HIF 44 carb
K&N filter
Metro electronic distributer.
Kent fast road camshaft
Maniflow manifold and exhaust.

Well done - I would have expected a bit more than 70 at the flywheel with that set-up. Can you tell us what needle is in the carb now ? The 1275 Cooper S engine made 75 bhp. You have an 'almost as good' head, but a better camshaft and a better carb - and probably a better exhaust system too! I would have expected 80/85 bhp at the fly.

Yes I was a little dissappointed with the readings. However these rolling road readings are notorious for their variablilities. It seems v.quick and bounces off the speedo needle with ease.

The needle according to the mechanic was BCE

Oh - well that BCE is slightly RICHER pretty much all the way from the general 'starting point' BDL needle - so it should be ok, although perhaps a bit heavy on fuel! Best not to rely on speedo too much - unless you have checked it against a GPS. As you say - BHP figure doesn't matter - as long as it goes well enough!

definitely worthwhile when the engines been modded. I had the original MG metro needle still in & turned out to be lean throughout the rev range on the first power run. After a needle change (he tried two) & a slight tweak of the timing It had gained about 10hp

That's interesting! Because the MG Metro BDL needle is supposedly THE one to go for. I used it in a 1340 Mini engine with 544 cam/Cooper S head etc etc - and it made for slightly rich plugs!

I suppose it was just the combination of parts fitted to my engine, whats good for one may not be good for another
It wasn't too far off MG metro spec apart from a mildly ported head & inlet Kent 266 cam 1.5 rockers maniflow exhaust. I imagine the freer flowing nature of the setup caused the original needle meter the fuel to lean