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MG Midget and Sprite Technical Exhaust Pipe Ground Clearance BBS discussion at MG-Cars.net
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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Exhaust Pipe Ground Clearance
This clearance problem has been on my mind since last Fall when I installed a stock exhaust system (from Victoria British) on my 72 RWA. I replaced all of the hardware / clamps / hangers / brackets / etc. and even purchased and installed that little aluminum brace between the pipe and the transmission. The aluminum brace fit but I noticed right away that a weird angle was created between the stock exhaust pipe and the bracket. Getting my trusty digital camera out plus my wifes yardstick you can see that I am on the short side of 3 inches of clearance the oil soaked cardboard is probably not throwing off the measurement that much.... O.K. thats the wind up here is the pitch...Is it possible that the bending jigs of whoever is now supplying VB is so far off that there is no resemblance to the original exhaust pipe and resulting ground clearance? What would be an typical ground clearance for a stock system? This under car clearance issue is actually a spin-off of another thread I posted last week where I inquired about the clearance under my front anti-roll bar versus my floor jack. This is starting to look like a trend for this car... This ground clearance is seriously restricting the cars ability to take overweight passengers for rides... Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.... Mike |
| Mike Pelone |
| Darn...I forgot to upload the image file. Here it is - sorry about that...  |
| Mike Pelone |
| Mike, From the ruler I would judge it to be about 2" to 2.5" lower than it should be from my experience. I guess no sleeping policemen in your neck of the woods. |
| David Billington |
| Dave: So how the heck do I get more clearance. Take the pipe to a local muffler shop and let them go at it? But the bigger question is "why" ? Possibly related to the whole front end too low? How does the offset from the top of the pipe to the bottom of the floor compare to what you have seen elsewhere??? Mike P. |
| Mike Pelone |
| Mike what state are your engine mounts in, maybe they have collapsed so the whole shebang is sitting too low in the car? |
| David Smith |
| We chopped around 1" from the downpipes to get around 1" clearance between the pipe and the floor the whole way down; we also uses a slight S-bend to mount the RC40 box horizontally (otherwise the leading part of the box tends to be lower). The downpipes were welded off the car; with 2 pipes, good accuracy was needed given the enclosed space. HTH A  |
| Anthony Cutler |
| Hi Mike, With my 1275/Standard system I get about 5" clearence. The exhaust should run parallel to the floor of the car, along its length. Mark  |
| Mark '74 Midget |
| As Ant says, my manifold was shortened to raise the bend right up against the floor. I also then heat the straight through pipe all the way along and bend it to the shape of the underside, as opposed to using it's 'stock' bend which often bottoms out on bumps. Even though my car is VERY low, it has nowhere near as many bottom outs as it did when it was first fitted. |
| Rich Amos (1330cc Blaze Red '72) |
| Good Grief! I guess my clearance is the lowest of the bunch. I'll check the motor mounts - but will also try to get out to the garage later today (it's raining nicely now...) and get a mid-length pipe measurement & another photo. It doesn't look too low from the mid-point back - I'll get another image up shortly. In any event - thanks for the comparative pics & information. Maybe a header piece would give me a sharper bend near the front section...I don't want to toss away a new exhaust system - although they are quite cheap... Another exhaust won't help much if the whole car is TOO low... Mike P. Buffalo, NY |
| Mike Pelone |
| the bottom of my exhause is 3.5 inches... I think if you can remove an inch off the top of the pipe you will be in good shape.... AS to why??....You nailed it already....the VB provider is making the pipe to long....somewhat of a common problem with vendors that supply both moss and VB with parts....cant tell you how many times I have gotten specality hardware ,,,,and it was to long to short, wrong hardware, to fat to skinny, wrong threads....you get the pic. frankly, just take the pipe to a good muffler shop and have it reworked...might cost a few bucks...but to send it back, deal with VB....will result in a waste of time, and additional headaches prop |
| Prop |
| O.K. made it back out to the garage this evening and made 3 measurements (and took 3 photos...) Dave: Visual inspection of motor mounts did not indicate anything amiss...no (serious) degradation of rubber mounts or funny angles or slippage of mounts or engine block in a vertical plane. Therefore, to confirm my current theory that its all about the poorly made pipe and exhaust tubes I took 3 measurements. First photo shows distance from the garage floor to bottom of oil pan looks like 5.0 to 5.25 inches of ground clearance if anyone can take a similar measurement then the motor mount theory is eliminated...pardon the oil drip about to fall from oil drain plug hence the cardboard.. Photo below:  |
| Mike Pelone |
| The vertical clearance below the wishbone suspension arm is about 5.5 inches if this is also similar to other cars, then this would rule out any front suspension issue...photo taken from front of car on drivers side... Photo below:  |
| Mike Pelone |
| The last photo was taken near the rear hanger ahead of the rear axle and that looks like 5 inches to me. I see a lot of 5 inches +/- under the car EXCEPT for the front pipe so the Sherlock in me concludes that the culprit is the angle or drop of the front pipe below the exhaust manifold clamp. Chalk it up worn out bending dies or jigs used by suppliers to Victoria British, etc. So, depending on what other comparative data I get from the other midget-eers then I will move towards installing a header or new down pipe from another vendor Plan "B" is to take the existing front pipe off the car and let the local muffler shop take a go at it by taking an inch or two out of the downpipe lenght then MIG weld the seam back together, etc. Thanks for any post July 4th advice ... PS: I apologize for 3 consecutive posts but only 1 photo at a time can be uploaded... Photo below:  |
| Mike Pelone |
| Since Gaydon, I have the opposit problem of the exhaust contacting the underside of the floor ;-( Guy |
| Guy Weller |
This thread was discussed between 02/07/2008 and 05/07/2008
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