RE: MG Montego Turbo: Time For Tea?
Discussion
tdm34 said:
Sorry can't agree with what you've said, the 2.5 V6 was no less reliable than the 2.7! The increase in capacity was to give it more low end grunt, which with the variable length inlet system was very effective. I owned a lovely black 827 Sterling
There were no head gasket issues, but it had one Achilles heel, which I found out to my cost. Coming home one evening I pulled up to a petrol station, when I noticed a small escape of steam from the front grille area of the car, so I lifted the bonnet to see a small stream of water from the radiator, so I dashed into the garage and bought a can of radweld, gave it a good shake and poured it into the header tank, and topped up with water
Well all was well until I'd done about 10-15 miles, I noticed the temp gauge steadily climbing! So I indicated left and rolled onto the hard shoulder in a cloud of steam, as I rolled to a stop the engine just locked up! Yes it'd seized!!
Called the RAC, and after 40 minute the van appeared, upon explaining to the guy what'd happened he asked was it the V6?
I said yes, he said you should've read the radweld instructions on the back of the bottle (I'd used it before on other cars so thought there was no problem) he had a bottle in the van and handed it to me, and there in tiny letters was the legend
"Do not use in Rover 825/827 or Honda Legends". Apparently it blocks some key waterways and basically massively overheats the engine, leading to complete meltdown!!
I sourced another engine and fitted it, but i stripped the seized unit to see if there was any useable bits, and even though the engine had massively overheated the head gaskets were intact!
I forgot it was actually a late 800 that had these problems: http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/ar-cars/not-their-...There were no head gasket issues, but it had one Achilles heel, which I found out to my cost. Coming home one evening I pulled up to a petrol station, when I noticed a small escape of steam from the front grille area of the car, so I lifted the bonnet to see a small stream of water from the radiator, so I dashed into the garage and bought a can of radweld, gave it a good shake and poured it into the header tank, and topped up with water
Well all was well until I'd done about 10-15 miles, I noticed the temp gauge steadily climbing! So I indicated left and rolled onto the hard shoulder in a cloud of steam, as I rolled to a stop the engine just locked up! Yes it'd seized!!
Called the RAC, and after 40 minute the van appeared, upon explaining to the guy what'd happened he asked was it the V6?
I said yes, he said you should've read the radweld instructions on the back of the bottle (I'd used it before on other cars so thought there was no problem) he had a bottle in the van and handed it to me, and there in tiny letters was the legend
"Do not use in Rover 825/827 or Honda Legends". Apparently it blocks some key waterways and basically massively overheats the engine, leading to complete meltdown!!
I sourced another engine and fitted it, but i stripped the seized unit to see if there was any useable bits, and even though the engine had massively overheated the head gaskets were intact!
tali1 said:
Every Honda2.5/2.7 had a in built noisy tappets fault
I always found 800s to have lovely interiors - certainly not cheap and nasty!
Again one of the big myths about the engine! Because everyone seems to think it has hydraulic tappets. It does only the inlets! The exhaust tappets use good old fashioned adjusters! But no one ever service's properly so they get noisy, now I'm not saying that the hydraulic adjusters don't get noisy but that's generally down to poor oil. I always found 800s to have lovely interiors - certainly not cheap and nasty!
Now we all now about the debacle of the K-Series motor, well again that motor was basically a peach, the KV6 2.5 Litre motor was gorgeous, there was a 3.0L variant in development but that got canned in the BMW era.
One of the other things I heard (I had a very good source in the development side at Gaydon) was that if we'd have stayed in partnership with Honda the bigger 800s would've ended up with a variant of the 3.2 Engine that went in the later Legends.
I know there were prototypes of the 600s with the V6 in.
tali1 said:
RoverP6B said:
tali1 said:
Oddly once the twin plenum was introduced the standard Vitesse sales fell badly- and it became rarer during that time period C to E reg .Same thing seems to have happened to Montego Turbo once Maestro Turbo was introduced.
Did total Vitesse sales including the TP fall, or did more customers simply opt for the more powerful engine?40 extra horses for the Vitesse but 30% heavier and probably a bit more transmission loss being rwd.
tdm34 said:
The 800s had double wishbones on the front, and could be made to handle as the last Vitesse Sport 2.0 turbo
had a decent reputation, for going where it was pointed.
The Monty/Maestro Turbos where (like all other A-R group products at the time) were put together by people that basically didn't care, unless you were very lucky, at the garage I worked for all Sporty ARG cars had their geometry and tracking checked, i'd say 80% came off the transporter with all four wheels pointing in different directions, I always fitted a Moto-build spring set to my demos, which lowered the front by 25mm and the back by 15mm and it made a huge difference, set up properly there weren't many comparible cars at the time that would hold a candle to them.
And yes i'd include the 205/309GTis in that statement, as I know for a fact that ARGs press dept didn't do anything to the cars so it was pot luck, and once people start throwing mud around it sticks.
My first demo Maestro Turbo had the spring kit fitted, and the motor tweaks (waste-gate actuator, Carb needle and banded intercooler) which gave about 180bhp reliably, as well as the Geo/Tracking set and it went in a straight line and only torque steered if really provoked!
I found that if you could get people in the seat to actually drive it, they usually came away very impressed, I did a couple of closed track days with AR for "good customers" the factory hired a load of Pro drivers and had obviously spent a bit of effort to make sure they were set-up properly, it was in the spring of 1990 just after the launch of the 200/400 series and strangely most people only wanted a go in the Maestro Turbo, after getting blitzed by it when they were driving the 200/400/800, and the "Pro Drivers" loved it only criticizing
the brakes which tended to fade after 4-5 spirited laps!
That point about geometry was quite common with some cars back then. My friend, who went on to work for the RML touring car team, had experience of the Astra GTE 16v road cars. A better suspension set up on the 16v but I suspect the variable verdicts of road tests/customers at the time was down to a lot of delivered cars never having the Geo checked on delivery. They work a whole lot better with the wheels all 'working together' - as anyone who has had a car with badly set toe ( or inconsistent near side to offside settings will know )had a decent reputation, for going where it was pointed.
The Monty/Maestro Turbos where (like all other A-R group products at the time) were put together by people that basically didn't care, unless you were very lucky, at the garage I worked for all Sporty ARG cars had their geometry and tracking checked, i'd say 80% came off the transporter with all four wheels pointing in different directions, I always fitted a Moto-build spring set to my demos, which lowered the front by 25mm and the back by 15mm and it made a huge difference, set up properly there weren't many comparible cars at the time that would hold a candle to them.
And yes i'd include the 205/309GTis in that statement, as I know for a fact that ARGs press dept didn't do anything to the cars so it was pot luck, and once people start throwing mud around it sticks.
My first demo Maestro Turbo had the spring kit fitted, and the motor tweaks (waste-gate actuator, Carb needle and banded intercooler) which gave about 180bhp reliably, as well as the Geo/Tracking set and it went in a straight line and only torque steered if really provoked!
I found that if you could get people in the seat to actually drive it, they usually came away very impressed, I did a couple of closed track days with AR for "good customers" the factory hired a load of Pro drivers and had obviously spent a bit of effort to make sure they were set-up properly, it was in the spring of 1990 just after the launch of the 200/400 series and strangely most people only wanted a go in the Maestro Turbo, after getting blitzed by it when they were driving the 200/400/800, and the "Pro Drivers" loved it only criticizing
the brakes which tended to fade after 4-5 spirited laps!
Integrales were the same on many occasions - it could be pot luck how your newly delivered car handled if the PDI wasn't done.
The 2.0 MG Maestro was a nice handling car - did well in group tests
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