Customer Reviews

How to Improve MGB, MGC & MGB V8: New 2nd Edition (Speedpro)

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Having over thirty years of experience owning, driving, racing and working on MGs, I had hoped to find this book a gold mine of information. It is--fool's gold. The standard MGB engine, required in forms of racing and used by thousands of owners in their cars, is not even covered. Williams makes a vague comment about the 1800 engine not being large enought and states that his book is only concerned with the larger 1950 and 2100 cc modifications. Immediately, he has made this section of the book usless to the vast majority of MGB owners. Additionally, these two engine modifications have some serious problems, well known to the MG community, which the author does not bother to discuss (cylinder bore flex and excessive oil consumption). In a similar vein, the author mentions the MGC automobile, but only in passing. When discussing suspension modifications, he does not mention that the MGC has a completely different form of front suspension than the MGB and his recommendations will not work on the MGC. For the most part, this book would be useless to the owner of this very rare model car. Most of his "improvements" in the suspension area would cost more than the value of a good car (L 2,000 for the rear end modifications, or about $3,600, plus the cost of modifying the body and installation). Throughout the book, Williams makes use of the phrases, "This should be possible" or "I was told by". He offers no supporting documentation (as in personal knowledge based on his experiments) for these broad statements, no results of anyone's experiments, nor does he relate the actual steps involved in most of these modifications. Very poor technical research for an engineer. He does, however, maintain a very consistant quality as his poor research is combined with poor technical writing and some of the worst technical photographs I have seen. (One illustration is of a brake caliper. He does makes a vague comment about a brake line which is barely distinguishable and does not even bother to insert an arrow into the photograph to point out which line.) This book is of very little value to most owners and should not be purchased. It is unfortunate that the SPEEDPRO Series has published this book as it detracts from the overall quality of their line, many of which are excellent and a few of which are truly outstanding. This book is neither.

I found this book to be of little practical use. The author speaks mostly in generalities, with little in the way of specific recommendations as to "How To" actually go about doing anything. Few of the modifications recommended involve the easier, simpler improvements that the average owner can do himself at reasonable cost which conribute so much to improving an MGB. Instead, most of the improvements the author recommends involve the purchase of expensive and often elaborate conversion kits more appropriate to a race track than on a street-going car, all of which are accompanied by photographs obviously supplied by their manufacturers. The text refers to such items as a "Brown & Gammons head gasket" which Brown & Gammons do not themselves make and is commonly known amongst MGB aficionados to be manufactured made by Fel Pro. All this, plus an absence of in-depth technical knowledge, tends to leave the reader with the impression that the author has never laid a wrench on an MGB and gleaned all of his information by reading magazines and sales catalogues. This is not a "How To" book. It is instead a collection of advertisements masquerading as one. I consider my purchase of this book to truly be a waste of money.

I have owned and worked on MG's of one sort or another for more than fifteen years, with my 65 MGB being my longest lasting car (outlasted my marriage). I bought this book hoping that it may give me some ideas as to improve my old friend. Well, I was deluged with vague references as to what would work, how to do things and many bad photographs. I was impressed with the amount of upgrades that are available in the U.K., but very disappointed to the amount of material that was devoted to outlandish and totally inappropriate modifications to the classic MGB. These modifications are well out of the scope of the average owner to accomplish and probably out of the price range of most vintage racers. If you are looking for a book that will help you get the most out of your MGB get a good service manual such as the Bentley manuals, or the Guide to DIY restoration of the MGB. Both of these books more clearly demonstrate proven examples of modifications that can be carried out by the novice to intermediate skilled owner. If anyone is still interested in this book, mine will be on sale shortly. Thanks for letting me vent... Semper Fi!!