New owner/member introduction

Greetings everyone. I'm new here and I figured I'd introduce myself before barging in with a bunch of questions.

I met Curtis Jacobson at a track day in Colorado a couple of weeks ago, and he let me drive his car. The combination of the looks and the sound (and some pleading on the part of my wife, who was particularly afflicted by the car) cemented my interest in the GT and led to the recent purchase of a black 1971. It's mostly stock for now, but it will be lightly restored and given a Ford 302 at some point. I've already found parts of the MG Experience site quite useful.

Background: I work with Miatas all day, and have a tendency to play with interesting cars. Hopefully I won't be asking too many dumb questions, just MG-specific ones. If anyone has any Miata questions, I'd be happy to help.

I'm not sure it would be kosher to post pics and stories of some of my previous projects, so we'll stick to MGs right now.

Keith,
Welcome to the 'club'. Here's a tip if you see a few question coming up in the future. It helps to put some car info on your homepage, year, model, carb. dist, mods, anything out of the ordinary. This way the people that know the answers can help better. I don't do much on the computer so I don't know what other sites are like, but I enjoy the post here and it seems like everybody is willing to share what they know.
Larry

Keith's too modest. He wrote the book on Miatas (a couple of 'em, actually) and is an all-around cool guy who really knows his way around cars. 'Bout time he got a B.

What's a Miata? :D

Welcome Keith.

Paul

Welcome home!

You won't have any trouble with MGs, you've seen it all somewhere or another, except for the rear brakes. Don't let them throw you for a loop, get a Bentley repair manual. They look like any other rear drum brakes until you get into them.

Ahh, you're the guy with the great website on your locost project. Welcome! My longterm project is a 302 into a '74 gt. There's lots of info available (especially from Curtis and his website), but let me know if I can help.

Welcome!

I've got your locost book. It was just a matter of chance that I'm working on a GT before building my locost - that's next. Got a 5.0 and t5. I'm torn whether it goes in the GT or the locost. Glad to see your interests are as schizophrenic as mine.

Tom, I prefer to think of them as "wide-ranging" instead of schizophrenic :)

Once I've had a chance to go through the car from stem to stern I'll be able to identify what's on it. I'll start a site for it, which should be fun once the build gathers steam. First, though, I just have to get the car up and running and happy. I know there's brake work ahead of me but this doesn't scare me! Thanks for the suggestion of the Bentley manual, I usually get the best manual I can for any of my cars.

This is the best part of the project, really. I get to imagine what I'm going to do. The 1971 grille will be replaced by either an earlier or later model. The dashboard is going to be changed from tan to black, or possibly a custom-built one with a bit of vintage flair. The wheels are going to turn into Panasports or a reasonable facsimile thereof. And I'll spend a lot of time looking at the car and thinking, while trying to align all the parts in my head so I can build a cohesive whole. You know, the dreaming stage.

What the heck, here are some of the previous projects, in chronological order. The ones near the bottom tend to be better documented and a little more involved.
Basil the 1967 Land Rover - dragged out of a barn, put back on the road, driven to Colorado, given a frame swap and rewire then taken all over Moab.
A light cosmetic resto of a 1966 Cadillac. Which I then drove to Vegas. Because you have to.
The Mini - not so much a restoration, but an ongoing toy.
The Seven - the Locost that got turned into a book. It's fun.
The Targa Miata - a Miata being built from the ground up for the Targa Newfoundland. The MG doesn't get any serious attention until this guy's done.

Welcome Keith!!!

Folks, Keith is well known over in the Miata community, built a Lotus 7 replica that is fantastic, wrote a couple of Miata project books that are great. He's a real automotive talent.

welcome keith....

i suspect you will be answering more questions than you will be asking....experts always welcome (hell, everybody is welcome here!)

Welcome to the fun Keith. GT's are a great time. Not the fastest thing out there but they are fun in curves.

Hey Keith,

Great to see you here! I was a long time customer of Flyin Miata and Dealer Alt

Through early Porsches and Turbo Miatas.


If anyone can figure out how to extract the most speed out of an MG, It's Keith,

It is a moral imperative for him :)


Stephen

Ever consider a new devision... Flyin' MG?

justa thought...

Stephen

Welcome Keith!

I love the landy!

Thanks for the warm welcome and kind words, folks. There are lots of people with more talent than I, I just happen to talk a lot :)

The idea for this car is simply a rumbly little cruiser. My wife really latched on to the look and sound of Curtis' car, and I found it hard to resist as well. So I'm not likely to be exploring the outer limits of MG performance, I'm afraid. That's what cars like the Seven are for. Of course, I've said things like that before...

Welcome aboard.

You know, if you check it out, I believe the Japenese based the Miata design with the "B" influence.............

Welcome Keith, you have my profound sympathy for knowing Curtis, he will surely lead you down the path of destruction with hot rod MGBs (the dark side of the force) ;) The Targa project sounds like fun, when you get a chance check out the older threads about Andy Russel's build up of a car for the Pan America. He's had to abandon the project and it's up for sale, but the photos of Hap's work are worth the search. http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?1,717714,718535#msg-718535

Bill, thanks for that. I'll check out everything about that car. Race modifications are always interesting to me.

Chris, it's usually the Lotus Elan owners that claim to be the styling inspiration for the Miata. But if you check dimensions, they're almost exactly the same size as MGBs - which is, of course, the second most popular sports car ever built. First is some soulless Japanese upstart by this point.

My car's coming in from California, should be here in a week or so. Get ready to be innundated with the questions :) First step will be to hunt down some wheels and a dash, I think.

Get to know Pete Mantell of Mantell Motorsports, especially with queries regarding your 302 conversion.

http://www.mantellmotorsport.com

You already know about http://www.britishv8.org

And....welcome aboard!