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Engine decision made, gonna be a fun winter!

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drooartz

drooartz

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As many of you know, I've been back and forth over my need for more performance. Living at high elevation (5550', many great roads over 9000') means a stock Bugeye is very slow, glacial even. I've even considered switching to a bigger car with a bigger stock motor. Eventually, I settled on rebuilding a 1275 and seeing what that would do.

My initial plan was to do much of the rebuild myself, farming out only machine work and head/carb work. Two things happened to change my plan. First, I thought long and hard and realized that I'm really a maintainer/driver, not a restorer. So many detail bits with an engine, and I'd feel really horrible if I messed it up. Second, a few recent events have enabled my wife and I to have a bit of one-time financial elbow room. I had a chat with my wife, and she completely agreed with the new plan (good woman, this one).

So I put a call into Hap today to get myself on his schedule for a complete 1275 build, something along the lines of what Hap posted here:

https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcforum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=309691

My motor will be somewhere between the recipe he lists and the super performance street motor he is building for another customer. All the listed bits in his standard recipe, plus rebuilt carbs, ported head, and a few other bits. Tunebug is a driver, so my focus is on performance and reliability over shiny bits. I'm only going to do this once, so I'm willing to spend a bit more to get it right. Gonna be fun! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
 
Drew, you wimped out on us. Gesh

Can't wait.
 
Was wondering where you've been recently. You're a lucky man to have a good woman and that should be a screaming fun Tunebug when you're done.
Good luck sir. I can't even pronounce some of the things on his list, so it must be good.
 
Hap says: "Every once in a while you get a guy on the street who lets you do it performance wise right. Thats exactly the customer I got yesterday. He's very knowledgeable about what is availabe, he restored several cars in his past, show winners and this time his project is pretty serious killer 62 Sprite hot rod. I know this guy well enough to know this is going to be a very serius hot rod car. he's putting Tilton pedal and master cylinder in it like we do on the race car, Aeroquip hoses, he going with custom race seat and a trick aluminum fabricated dash with all Autometer guages, brake upgrades, suspension upgrade, 5 speed tranny, the list go on an on. Anyway he allowed me a very nice engine budget, so I somewhat thrilled I get to do what is going to be a real serious 1275 street motor, Winner circle oil pan, ARP fastners thru out, ported head, trick valves and springs, roller rockers, vernier timing gear set, balancing etc., etc."

This just has to be in Athens, GA.
 
Jack, that's the guy Hap was telling me about. My motor will be very similar to that one, without a few of the fancier bits (I'm using the stock oil pan, probably stock valves and rockers) but in much the same vein.

It's been meltingly hot here, so I've not done much in the car world lately. I'm ready to dive in to the disc conversion and suspension rebuild, though, so I'll be really busy (and asking lots of questions) over the next few months.

I'm really excited. Next summer is going to be a fun driving season!
 
Drew, good for you. The disc brake conv. is a good start for the other mods you are making. I'm really the same kind of mechanic you are, except I have a lot of really good friends who are good mechanics in the area. If you don't go with too much compression, you can always ad the SC later.
 
jlaird said:
This just has to be in Athens, GA.
Click to expand...

Jack, yes very small world indeed.

It's going to be fun for me as well, to get to build two such special motors almost side by side.
 
Drew, you WILL be happy with the little car after everything's done!!

Say, how far are you from Provo?
 
I'm maybe 30 minutes from Provo, Tony.

Ray shot me a PM yesterday, really nice to hear from him. We're going to be enjoying the dual-build as well, for obvious reasons!

I've got to get my parts boxed up and off to Hap, so I can get focused on the brakes and suspension. Probably should go through the transmission as well. Lots to do, and it's really nice to be able to get started on it all.
 
nudges Drew with elbow /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif , sounds great.

Pat
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]I'm maybe 30 minutes from Provo, Tony.[/QUOTE]

I meant Logan (man, I'm getting old & senile!)...have a friend who just moved there...he & his wife are both PhD's who were hired by the university...however, he's one of the best LBC mechanics I know (I allow him to work on my cars)...he'll be opening his little shop there when he gets settled as he bought a house with a big 1500 sq ft detached garage in addition to the attached 2-car...think he's father north though
 
Logan is about 1.5 hours from here -- not too bad, really. Not too far to go for good mechanical work, that's for sure. You'll have to send me his info at some point so we can welcome him to Utah.
 
The drive to Logan would be fun in Tunebug too. Head on up the river beyond Logan for some nice driving and scenery too.

I have family there, and that's where we buried my mom back in '82.
 
I am so jealous! I can't even find a 1275 to build myself let alone find the resources to have one built.

Congrats!!
 
Our resources are a small bit of unexpected inheritance, so I'm taking advantage while I can. I've got a small window here, as kids may be coming along in the next couple of years, and the resource stream will dry up.

Rachel, those 1275s are out there. I bought an entire car for about $900, and could have just used the engine as is, since it was running decently. Keep your eyes open, you can make most of the initial price back by selling off the bits you don't need.
 
Drew makes a good point about finding a decent 1275; it just MIGHT be advantageous to buy a (more or less) complete car, pull the engine (and whatever else is needed) and part out the rest.

If you take the value of the engine and add the going rate for the front disk brake setup (assuming is is a model that has them) and the differential, that will give you a good starting point in negotiating the price of the car. If you buy the car at or near that price, anything else that you sell or keep is profit.

I was recently shopping for a 1275 long block for rebuild...paid more than I would have liked. BUT, I was remined by a wise sage "...OK, that's more than you want to pay...but if you owned it, would you sell it for that?"

I bought it!

Ray
 
Steve_Lawrence said:
The drive to Logan would be fun in Tunebug too. Head on up the river beyond Logan for some nice driving and scenery too.

I have family there, and that's where we buried my mom back in '82.
Click to expand...
I used to drive logan Canyon every week in a tractor trailer... my buddy rolled his KW there one winter and his load of cheese went floating down the river...
 
When Alan settles in, I'll get you his contact info...you'll enjoy his stable of cars - one of which - a '69 MGB - was moved across country last week by his furniture movers.
 
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