Hello from Dorking!

I forgot that scoop on the boot lid, that's probably next to useless, there will be bugger all ram airflow getting pushed in there as when the roof is up it will be in it's lee, of the roof in a low pressure area and when the roof is down it will very extremely turbulent and unpredictable airflow, it's a really bad place for a scoop

Airportable wrote:

At the front is the oil cooler, is that at the top of the radiator assembly?
Behind that you have the intercooler, which had a pump in circuit. This isn’t full hight.
Behind & in the least advantageous place is the radiator & it’s single fan.
One could argue that as it’s only the bottom of the radiator on the f that does the heavy lifting, then all should be fine. However the original design didn’t get enough cooling area exposed to the air flow, was the body kit for the Cheetah better or worse.
Obviously these are rhetorical questions but it might answer why the number plate had found a new home & you’re overheating.
Off for a dog walk now, possibly more thoughts later.
M

The oil cooler is indeed located the most forward, but is at the bottom, roughly in line with the lower opening above the number plate, but it is also quite narrow. The charge cooler rad is behind it and above, roughly aligned with the higher grill opening, so they do not cross over each other vertically. It is wider though, almost as wide as the main radiator. Both oil and charge cooler rads appear to be quite an old design, likely steel rather than aluminium so I am considering swapping them for more modern aluminium items with more flowthrough + fitting a second fan, as per @Cobber's suggestion

Cobber wrote:

I forgot that scoop on the boot lid, that's probably next to useless, there will be bugger all ram airflow getting pushed in there as when the roof is up it will be in it's lee, of the roof in a low pressure area and when the roof is down it will very extremely turbulent and unpredictable airflow, it's a really bad place for a scoop
 

Agree with you and @Airportable on this, as noticed the direction of the scoop and thought it did not make sense... I think it was more of an aesthetics driven addition, without much thought to functionality......The idea of placing additional fans eagainst it but aimed at sucking the air into the chamber  is definitely an option, but knowing that hot air likes to go up, trying to push it down and out might not be too effective. I am also wondering how the flow coming through the engine compartment fan by one of the scoop's is going to interact with the flow coming from the scoop, whether RAM induced or helped by fans..

Frustrating, yet productive weekend behind me. Taken aside it is taken me over 2 days, and the 30deg heat did not help in any ways, I am pleased to say the engine and the subframe are finally out!!
 

.now I just need to get it from under the car, give it and the engine bay a quick degrease (severely needed after the coolant blow ups) and can start on the real work! HG and cambelt kit arrived, reconditioned spheres arriving today, other goodies on order and more work to come........

Quick question everyone: where have folks sourced AP clutches from? I read this appears to be the preferred upgrade amongst the forum users, but could not find any advertised online at the moment? As an alternative, has anyone used these: https://www.larkspeed.com/drivetorque-stage-1-clutch-kit-936209/?
Thanks
Martin

Very well done!
This car will be well preserved and a credit to you when its done.
I can vouch for Larkspeed and in all honesty I would want to fit an upgraded clutch to that engine. A stage One would be perfect because the pressure plate is usually not much harder but the clutch lining is. Rather like brake pads.
Good luck it is a very interesting car.

As I understand it, Cobber’s and AP’s fans extract air from the engine bay, which makes a lot of sense in a low pressure aerodynamic area

Living in a warm country, I will follow suit with this.

That vent on the boot lid would make more sense if it was turned around 180 deg, it'd look strange but be more effective!

This Cheetah Ressurrection is a fascinating project and you will end-up with an almost unique car with impressive performance.

I think the key to achieving reliability will be getting the cooling system fully sorted, but I strongly suspect that you knew that anyway!  If you also know all the history of the work done by MIRA for the 200HPD project, then there is no need to read on, but others might be interested:

  

Similar vents to extract hot air from the back of the rad were done on the MGTF XPower 500, the 2004 TF development car tested in the Australian desert, and Matt Parker's 1998 MGF.
All of this is covered in detail in Roger Parker's "MGF and TF Restoration Manual" (pages 223 - 228)

MIRA concluded that:
Aerodynamics: MIRA’s Thermofluids engineers had measured the aero properties of MGF & TF during their respective development stages and knew there were plenty of opportunities to ‘go at’ for this prototype. Their work on drag and lift reduction and its relevance to MGF / TF owners and ‘tweakers’ has been thoroughly reported in excellent, entertaining articles by Rob Bell, namely Ultimate MG & FasTForward, so there is no need to duplicate here. Suffice to say that their airflow analysis and wind tunnel experiments indicated considerable merit in ducting the radiator cooling air out and up over the bonnet, rather than down beneath the car, balanced by a tidy bootlid spoiler to control the wake.
The end result yielded the following transformational gains, all of which would considerably improve the car’s speed and stability:
CD 0.346 → 0.323
CLF 0.160 → -0.002 (downforce!)
CLR 0.085 → -0.089 “
Additionally, the engineers investigated the potential hybrid system cooling issues that might arise either in the hot engine bay or in the boxed in front end. So as the Figures show, they mapped airflow through the standard poorly ducted radiator – improved enormously by the bonnet-top outlet, modelled temperature distribution within the battery box and doubled up the engine bay top vents. The pleasing outcome of all the sound engineering was a purposeful, sporty look where form followed function.

Hope this is useful!

Hi folks

Thought I owe everyone an update on project "Cheetah Reborn" 

Last couple of weeks have been busy, with every free minute between work and family duties spent either wrenching or spending hard earned cash on ever growing pile of parts to be installed in not so distant future, hopefully...

The car is getting used to resting on axle stands while the dropped subframe seems to have lost a lot of "weight":
 

The weight loss is just ilusionary as all that was lost just relocated (my wife's recent patience with me and my hobby is truly astonishing!
 

The pile of parts patiently awaiting to be installed has grown so high it is becoming a safety hazard should someone even breathed on it  Refurbished hydrogas spheres, Spax shocks, full headgasket kit, to name just a few. And even though I promised myself to wait with any aesthetic work until the car is fully sorted mechanically, I could not help myself when I spotted a set of black and red seats on ebay..
     

Today was a special day as I was able to finally able to install something, after an endless saga of dismantling: a brand new clutch  and pressure speed , courtesy of Larkspeed
 

Some interesting discoveries made while taking the car slowly apart. A positive surprise today, adding to the charge cooler, oil cooler and PRT upgrades, is that the previous owner installed a performance cam kit from piper cams
 

For those interested in the supercharger kit modifications, here you can see the custom Turbo Technics setup driving the supercharger via the auxiliary belt

From not so positive discoveries, looks like I had a lucky escape given the state of the cambelt 
 

The state of the water pump and its "chamber" also leaves a lot to be desired
   

That's about all for now, shed loads more to do, but happy with the progress so far and really proud with myself for finding the courage to get stuck into things I've never done before. The huge amount of knowledge on this forum has been amazing help and I;m super grateful for all of you that put the time and effort creating the amazing "How To's" and sharing your know with fellow MGF/TF owners!

Cheers
Martin

One quick observation; the shock absorbers, are these recommended for a hydrogas f. The spheres do an amount of damping as a matter of course & so the OEM (Monroe) originals compensated for that. An incorrect choice would cause over damping & a possibility of frame damage.
M

Airportable wrote:

One quick observation; the shock absorbers, are these recommended for a hydrogas f. The spheres do an amount of damping as a matter of course & so the OEM (Monroe) originals compensated for that. An incorrect choice would cause over damping & a possibility of frame damage.
M

 

Good shout @Airportable and yes, these are the RP1023SPAX that Spax themselves, RimmerBros and others specify for the Hydragas MGF. I was lucky to grab a set of 4 secondhand but unused units for less than RM sell one for... I plan to start them on lowest damping setting either way, and work my way up to a comfortable balance between handling and comfort

.. so I think I can safely confirm that the head gasket has indeed failed and likely to have been at least partially responsible for the overheating issues on my Cheetah 
At first things were not looking terrible
 
but then I realised I was looking at what I think is the shim that @Cobber suggested, was likely present earlier in the thread.
Once I took that away this is what I saw:
       
Will start getting the head surface cleaned tomorrow and check for straightness. In the meantime, a couple of questions to the collective T-bar wisdom:

1. Is the white discoloration on the intake valves normal for this engine or am I looking at problem with too lean air fuel mix that needs to be addressed?
2. If  after checking with straight edge/feeler gauges the head appears straight, would it still make sense to send it for a recondition or buy a reconditioned head? I found both options for around 250 quid and in many ways it is appealing, not just because  it would give me a piece of mind in terms of no future issues (should I fail to spot the head being warped), but also the fact it would be fully refurbished: cleaned, pressure tested, valves/seats lapped, etc. Suggestions strongly welcomed here!

Thanks
Martin