Here is my 1956 ZA Magnette with its Wheel Vintiques 15"x6" wheels and 205-65x15 Dunlop tires.  The wheels are part number 038-560404 with 4" backspacing. I was looking at the Wheel Vintiques site recently and noticed that these wheeels are no longer listed, so they may be unique.

I need to apologize for the quality of the photos, my son borrowed my camera for his trip to Europe and left me his.  I haven't figured out how to make it take good closeups yet.
When I received the header from ZeroExhausts a couple of weeks ago, I was first impressed by the quality of the packaging for shipment.  It really proctected the header from the ravages of package handlers.  When I got the box opened, the welding is beautiful.  It is all TIG welded with filler only added to where the pipes connect to the flanges.  The header comes in three pieces, the center branch, the Y-pipe between the first and last ports and finally the Y-pipe that connects the two and is the collector.  This first picture shows how well the 1/2" flange fits on the engine.

This next picture shows how well the pipes come together in the collector.  I wish I could take a shot that really shows how well they are fit.  It also shows that the pipes extend about 1 1/2" below the level of the oil pan.  As soon as I get this setup in the car, I'll take pictures to show the actual ground clearance.

Next, I fitted the stock ZA intake and carbs to see what the clearance looked like.  I don't have the original heat shield, so I couldn't see if there were any issues.  Kevin at ZeroExhausts said that the heat shield needs a small dent added to be able to clear the center pipe.

Here's a closeup of the center pipe and ZA intake.  The flange on the ZA intake is about 3/8", where the exhaust is 1/2".  Either the exhaust will need to be ground down or spacers will need to be made for the intake.

For Magnettes using stock crank ventilation, some mods are required.  Here's a photo showing the breather in the stock location.  The header won't even seat.

By swapping the breather to the rear location, the pipe will fit requiring only minor bending to fit.

What do you think?  A quad carb Magnette?  I wonder how many people I could fool with primary and secondary carbs on a 'rare' racing head.  I may have to clean up a set and add some fake plumbing and linkage.

Here is the drivetrain assembled and ready to be installed.  I installed the Hi-Gear kit I bought about three years ago - finally.  This also was impressive as Hi-Gear included all of the hardware to install the kit including the bellhousing to engine bolts and the boot for the throw-out fork.  I ordered the kit modified to allow the use of a stock MGB clutch with the Magnette slave cylinder.  That's my MGC-GT Automatic in the background.  I tried to use a Moss engine dolly and found that it doesn't really clear the front sump oil pan well.

I finally took a little vacation time the third week of July 2008 to pull the old drivetrain out of the car and install the new engine.
Here is the car with the old engine disconnected and ready to be removed.  My MGC-GT is occupying one side of the garage with my MGB-GT sitting outside.  I used the come-along that you can see hanging from the I-Beam that supports the second story floor joists to pull the drive train out.
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Here is the empty engine bay.  It's way too dirty to work on so I borrowed a neighbor's pressure washer to clean it up a bit.

 

This picture shows the cleaned up engine bay with modifications for the Hi-Gear kit.  The major modification was to move the clutch hose bracket from the firewall as the picture above shows to the right frame rail because the Hi-Gear bell housing moves the slave cylinder to the same location as an MGA or MGB.  I ended up moving it again after the engine was installed because clutch hose would not twist enough for the frame rail location.  The other modifications were to bend the sheet metal flange where the firewall joins the transmission tunnel to point straight out and to flatten the stiffening ribs on the top of the transmission tunnel to make more room for the slightly taller Ford T-9. 

The Transmission Crossmember needed to remove the 'ears' for the stock mounts and drill holes for the Ford transmision mount (the instructions from Hi_Gear said to make the holes slightly oblong to be able to centralize the driveshaft in the tunnel) and the front lip needed to be modified.  I thought it would be a good idea to sand blast and repaint the crossmember and the clutch hose bracket while they were off of the car.  When I installed the engine and transmission, I bolted up the front motor mounts, then bolted the crossmember to the transmission mount.  The Hi-Gear kit includes 1/2" spacers that fit between the rear crossmember and the body shell.  I set these in place and used my floor jack to raise the assembly up to the floor to drill new holes for the crossmember to bolt to the body shell.  I used enough pressure from the floor jack to hold the transmission so that the tailshaft was centered in the transmission tunnel.  The new holes are about an inch behind the original holes.  The kit included all of the bolts and washers needed.

Here is the new engine going into the car.  It's a tough job to do by yourself, but it can be done without scratching up the nice new paint on the engine.  I'll get another chance to do this job when I pull the car apart for final body work and paint.  It's going to be a 'rat rod' this year while I work out the details of how to make A/C fit into the car and develop the sound system.  After I got the engine in the car and bolted up the motor mounts, transmission mount and crossmember and installed the driveshaft, the car sat until the last week of December 2008 due to the demands of my job.

Here is the completed engine installation with one part of the header installed.  I still have to figure out how to get an aircleaner on the carbs without cutting up the inner fender and find a place to mount the coil and ignition amplifier.  You may notice that the spacers under the transmission crossmember have tilted the engine a little bit from the stock location.  I have fitted the radiator and it clears the MGB plastic fan by 1/8" and found that by making the lower radiator mount holes 1/8" oblong towards the front of the car the radiator I now have 1/4" to 5/16" clearance on the lower tank of the stock radiator.  As soon as I can get to Portell's radiator shop to get the new aluminum radiator-A/C condensor built, I'll see if I can make more space.  The other point in changing the radiator is to try to get the upper outlet built in such a position as to allow a standard MGB thermostat housing and upper radiator hose to work since the upper hose on a Magnette is such a unique piece.

During the last week of December 2008, I got  the rest of the ZeroExhausts header installed.  I still have to get some longer studs so I can put the clamping washers on the center four studs.  I bought the Aluminum plate to replace the stock side plates from Doug Jackson before he retired.  This plate redirects the crankcase breathing to be done through the valve cover instead of the side plate and should keep oil leaks under the header from occuring.

The center branch of the header required slight trimming of the left frame rail flange to fit.  I'll drive the car the way it is.  If the engine rocks enough to hit the flange, I'll cut it back to the rail and seam weld the area for strength when I disassemble it for final body work and paint

Here is a picture from underneath the car showing the relationship of the pan and the header.  It does take away some of the ground clearance, but I think it will be ok.  I will reposition the clamps before I tighten them down

This picture shows where I ended putting the coil and igntion module. I'm going to use a Lucas CEI ignition.  Jeff Schlemmer has already gone through the distributor, so I am confident it is correct.  Jeff told me that the CEI is really a GM HEI in disguise.  I took off the back cover of the CEI Amplifier module and found a standard 4 pin GM HEI module inside!  If you look just above the bell housing, you can see where I moved the clutch hose bracket on the transmission tunnel right next to the RHD blanking plate.  The brass plug on the back of the head is the water take-off for the heater.  I'm blanking off the heater for right now so I can remove the stock heater box to make room for a VintageAir heat-cool-defrost unit.

This picture shows the inside of the CEI control box. I wanted to make sure that I had the hottest spark possible, so I got a Pertronix D2000 Flamethrower HEI 4-pin module and paired it up with the Pertronix 45011 Coil and set the plugs to .035" gap.  I can report that the engine starts almost before it can make a complete revolution.

Here's the 5 speed shift knob I had made by Kool Knobs. I like the subtlety of the stock appearing knob with a different pattern. Also, you can see that I did use a hot rod style spoon gas pedal to connect up the throttle linkage. I've since found a stock ZA pedal assembly that I can modify slightly to work so I can have a stock appearing gas pedal.

On 19 September 2009, I attended the All-British Car Day in St. Louis and Maggie made her debut on the show circuit. I took this picture after the Land Rovers left - that's right, my Magnette and Bill Fox's MG1100 were relegated to CLASS Z - Miscellaneous British 4-door!

That's all for this installment.  It is the evening of 9 October 2009 and I am hoping to figure out the right needles for the HS6 carbs to finish the tuning enough to use it as a dailty driver while I start work on repairing the rusty bits.