Kevin Leaper’s MGB GT
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The MGB GT is not an obvious choice as a daily driver but PPC’s Kevin Leaper reckons it makes good sense.
From a practicality angle it will do 80mph, which is about the limit on most of today’s congested roads, it’s also very cheap to service – you get change from £50, and the driving position makes you feel like your piloting something fast.
And despite all the justification from Kev of why it makes sense you gather that he gets quite a lot of stick in the PPC office for driving an old codger’s car.
He has gone some way to making it a little sportier though, with polybushed suspension, Greenstuff brake pads, telescopic rear shocks and has had the body resprayed, but the real difference is the planned engine conversion.
Rather than go the normal Rover V8 route to a 200bhp MGB, Kev plans on fitting the Rover T16 four-pot turbo engine. The reasoning being it’s cheaper, lighter and easier to fit than the Rover lump and actually has more potential with 350bhp already seen from the engine, with little more than boost and ancillary changes.
So far Kev’s mated the engine to a spare MGB gearbox and it’s proved to be an easy fit. A quick measure up around the MGB engine bay revealed that the standard T16 inlet manifold and exhaust manifolds were unlikely to fit, but Kev plans to use the similarity of the port spacing on the T16 head to the Mitsubishi Evo and Zetec heads to find a way around those problems.
Follow Kev’s progress as he attempts to fit the Rover lump in PPC magazine every month.
