Hi! I'm new here. I have an '04 Verona and a '92 2wd Tracker.
What I am here to ask about, however, is a 1600 16v swap into a '79 Midget. I have found a breaker who has at least 2 '94 4wd's. Question is, do the 2wd and the 4wd have the same 5 speed box? This swap is by no means necessary, as I have a good running low mileage Triumph 1500 and all the parts I need to convert to the non-emissions euro spec in order to get a bit more power out of it...but...ideally I would like to do this as a learning experience for an upcoming quad4/T5 swap into a '67 Spitfire.
Thanks in advance for your input.

John

interesting. Yes the 5 spds are basically the same except for the tailshaft. For your car I would try and find a suzuki swift GT engine 1300 twin cam high revving fun, 100 HP stock!! mount it to a samurai 5 spd and it will fly!

interesting. Yes the 5 spds are basically the same except for the tailshaft. For your car I would try and find a suzuki swift GT engine 1300 twin cam high revving fun, 100 HP stock!! mount it to a samurai 5 spd and it will fly!

You know, that is a good idea!

I bet that engine/tranny combo would make a neat 1200 lb dune runner buggy.....too

Thanks, I had never heard of the 1300 Swift. Is that a variant on the Sami 1300? Where would I look? Breakers in Japan? How will the 1300 compare to the 1600 for low end torque?
What is available for performance mods for the 1300? Note that I am not concerned with emissions in any way. I will not ever have to have this vehicle tested again as long as I own it.

John

interesting. Yes the 5 spds are basically the same except for the tailshaft. For your car I would try and find a suzuki swift GT engine 1300 twin cam high revving fun, 100 HP stock!! mount it to a samurai 5 spd and it will fly!

Chet
I just checked out a photo of a Swift GT on ebay. It seems that the distributor coming off the rear of the cam will cause it to run afoul of the heater shelf in the MG. I'm sure there are ways of dealing with that. One thing I can not tell from the photos I have looked at so far is how tall is the twin cam compared to the SOHC 1600 16v. It is important that there be no external modifications to the MG in order to fit whatever I end up going with.
Also, you suggest a Sami 5 speed. Is that a better box than the Sidekick/Tracker?
Thanks,

John

Best advice I can give based on a past experience is Don't

Some years ago I worked with a friend to swap a highly modded A series Nissan into an absolutely gorgeous MG Midget. Ended up a beatiful conversion with EFI and everything done to a factory standard....cost a ton took forever.

Before we started I told him he was nuts...if you every need to sell it you are going to lose your shorts...of course he told me he would never sell it.


Couple years later he was transfered out of country. Had to sell the car!

Took 2 years and he still ended up parting it out to get rid of it. (I ended up tearing it apart for him) broke his heart. This car was absolutely gorgeous.

MG guys didn't want it cause it has a Nissan engine.

Nissan guys didn't want it cause it was an MG.


But if you are convinced this is what you must do....I would recommend

1) Go 1300 DOHC with crank fire ignition....100hp out of the box, more if you play, high revving
    sweet heart for a light car like the MG Midget (It will sound like a Lotus!)

2) Samurai gearbox, fits the engine, decent gear spacing, transfer case is remote.

You will wind up with a much lighter power train so be prepared to play with the springs to get the nose back down.

If you must go with the 1.6/16 valve you will need to use the Sidekick/Tracker 2wd 5 speed as it has no transfer case and is set up to do the job.

The 1.6 is a little taller than the 1.3 DOHC so you may have height problems.

Etheir way it will create a neat ride, but don't count on ever being able to get rid of it.

The Quad4/Spitfire I would give the same warnings on plus one more.....you will need to upgrade to the GT-6+ diff and axles. The Spit stuff will shatter like glass with that power.

An Alternative would be the R180 diff from a 240-260-280z and axles modified to the Spitfire ends.......Neat part with the Nissan is you can get gears from 3.08 through 5.12 from the wrecker...it is also darn near impossible to damage. (I used to drag race a 240 with a locked R-180/4.37 gears on 9" slicks....couldn't break the darn thing in 5 seasons)

Zag

Zag,
Thanks for the advice and for being objective. I have no intention of disposing of the original parts (ie the 1500/T7 4 speed the Spitfire is a different situation as it came to me with no motor and the non overdrive 4 speed). As to selling it or getting into a situation in which it becomes necessary??? who could say? The car was originally purchased for my daughter to drive when she is old enough (that was when she was 4 now she is almost 11 I have some time) I have enjoyed being her driver. The Triumph 1500 has great low end torque and revs nicely. It really is not that under powered. All this really came about as a result of wanting an overdrive (the one out of the Spitfire) or a 5 speed box. On the freeway it is turning 4000 rpm |removethispart|@70 mph. That is just not acceptable. But...(always have to have one of those) the o/d Spit box runs around $1100 for a good one and the 5 speed conversion from Frontline was over $1500 a few years ago and has gone up since then mostly due to the sinking dollar creating an increasingly negative exchange rate. I don't even check it any more, it's just too painful.
So, that brings me to where I currenly find myself, if I'm going to spend that much money to get a top gear under 1:1, I might as well upgrade the motor as well and that brought me to the 1600 Zuki as the most likely candidate to fit without body modifications and not to alter the weight balance. Being that the 16v version is essentially no different externally from the 8v, why not use that?

So, now the difficult part, where do I find this 1300 DOHC w/ crank fire ignition? Also I assume this is a distributorless ignition so no worries about clearance to the back or anything hitting the firewall? Already planned on different springs.

As for the Spitfire, I have an R180 (3.89?) waiting to be removed from a 1st gen Maxima the 810 based Maxima, however, I have some reservations about this rear end as the rear brakes are common only to that year and the parking brake cable is impossible to find. But, yes, I had contemplated the Z car rear suspension. I understand Subaru used a similar rear end which was also IRS, the main difference being the Subaru came out of the factory with limited slip. Is this correct?

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone for their input and advice. You have given me much to think about and sent me in directions I certainly would not have taken on my own.

John

Hi again

To get a 1300 DOHC with crankfire ignition you build it.

Using the 1300 DOHC you remove the dist, make a cover, then adapt GM DIS bits to make the ignition...done a couple now and they work well and reasonable cost.

As far as the diff, the Max center and axles will work fine on the Spit, just use the outer 1/2 or the Spit axle with the inner 1/2 of the Max...the center section is nothing special, but the Max had odd brakes.

The early Subies used the R160 diff (like the old 510).  The later ones (some had LSD) use a version of the R200...big heavy beast and much larger than the R180. Can't imagine needing that heavy a diff with your combo. But if you do it's cheaper to look for a 280zx Turbo R200 with the LSD....Subie stuff is big demand.

Hope that helps

Zag

So you guys are saing that the swift dohc 1300 will bolt up to a samaurai trans and transfer case.   

Zag,
That is very helpful. I have been unable to locate the DOHC 1300 so far.
The reason I ask about the Subaru rear end is that there is an old one sitting in a yard near me. Not sure exactly what it is, at first I thought it was an Austin Marina GT??? At the time I was not aware of the suspension implications and was looking for Buick Fireball V6 and V8s

BTW, I hope TrAkLsI's question doesn't mean I opened a can of worms. Sorry if I did.

John

No problems.........

The G13 series (SOHC and DOHC) have the same bellhousing pattern and block bosses so physically they bolt in.

Problem areas are...

1) Adapting the FI or other induction system
2) No RWD headers that I know of for the DOHC
3) In stock form the ignition will not clear the firewall

Work out the solutions to those and it will work.

The bigger problem is the 1300 DOHC has all the power in the wrong places for 4X4ing.

High revving little pocket rocket with poor low end torque...not an engine I wouldn't think it would suit the 4X4 world except maybe for sand drags.

Just my thoughts and opinions

Zag

You can get adapters for the dizzy to turn it 90degs. A fair few people in the UK use them, usually imported from DG Tuning in Belgium.