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Why Convert Your Classic British Automobile?

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 May 2011 19:29 Written by Brian McCullough

Hi this is Brian from bmcautos.com where we restore your classic British sports car to original or above original standards, we repair as necessary and we do engine driveline conversions.

There are two main reasons for our conversion: first is, reliability, the second is POWER!

Lets talk about reliablilty: First of all even though we do a lot of these conversions I say that any original driveline can be made very reliable. But how much money you want to spend on it, and are you going to be happy with it?

I've had a number of customers that have said "Don't matter what we do to the driveline" / "It doesn't matter how much they spend on the driveline" in their heart they will never be happy with that driveline ever again; Therefore, conversion time! Other guys have said "Hey, it's time for more power, I'm getting sick of being past by Ford Escort's and Focus's, much less the big boys". So they say, "Ok, it's time for an upgrade"; Thus, the engine conversion.

Now once you've chosen to go the route of an engine conversion you need to figure out what you are going to go with. Now there are several choices. The first choice is, just stick with the original driveline. Now that might not sound like a conversion, but as soon as you throw in a supercharger or a turbocharger or something like that, then that is in essence a conversion. The next choice is something like our v6 engines. Or, 4 cyl's or even v8's.

There are some drivelines that are easy to install and then there aren't as easy to install. The MG B that we are using for our example is a fantastic car for the v6 conversion. There is very little work to install. Now if your going to look at a Honda S2000 driveline or a Mazda Miata, believe it or not those 4 cyl engines are a lot harder to install in this car then this v6 or even some of the v8's.

Now what you need to do is determine how much horsepower you really need for this car for what your going to do. If your going to go with a 500 horsepower engine with 500 ft-lbs of torque which is quite a bit for an MG B now you have to figure out what you are going to do with the rear axle, the rear wheels, the tires, the rear suspension and even front suspension in order to get this car to stay on the ground and to launch.

Once you figured out all these items you can bring it together and build the conversion that is right for you. BMC will provide one bolt for your conversion, or every nut and bolt, installed in the car and ready to go. If your looking to do a conversion but you don't want to touch the driveline, you just want to bolt it in, we'll send you what we call a driveline on a palet, which is every part of the driveline, you just have to bolt it in place.

We hope you learned something today; if you like what you see have a look at bmcautos.com and we'll see you on the road!

- Brian McCullough