Pump Up The Volume

Retro Sports Cars has taken MG’s contemporary runaround and transplanted a much-appreciated dollop of older generation Rover ZT power.

- Simon Goldsworthy & Jim Jupp

The MG3 is a great little car but it has yet to become the sporty little number some MG fans may desire.

We met up with Chris Flanagan, from Retro Sports Cars of West Yorkshire, and Mark Stacey at Kmaps of Banbury, who collaborated in the unconventional step of fitting oldschool Rover turbo power to SAIC’s compact and likeable ingénue.

A current model MG3 reportedly produces a modest 106PS (104.5bhp), with 137NM of torque, from its DOHC VTi-TECH 1498cc petrol engine. To gain more power you have to access the MG3’s computer, i.e. the ECU. Unsurprisingly manufacturers aren’t too keen on anyone tinkering with their electronics these days, having spent a fortune developing the car’s set-up for a huge host of conditions. And without access to the factory-level software, there is a limit to how much you can tune the 1.5 engine.

So, to get an MG3 to be much more lively you could either put it on an extreme diet, as we saw with the MG3 MTC UK racer, or go large. Chris says: “People do ask why we are putting an older engine in but the K-series is much lighter. It is proven and we’ve seen now just how tuneable it is. We’ve gone straight to the 1.8 because it is the same amount of effort to fit, whatever the capacity, so why bother with a 1.4?”

Not only has Chris opted for the 1.8, he has also chosen the turbocharged version of the K-series engine. As standard the 1.8 Turbo would offer around 150 to 160PS. Even in its basic guise, this is half the power again of the SAIC engine but much more can be gained. The RSC development MG3 currently runs a Garrett GT2560R turbocharger, producing 17psi peak boost, but Chris acknowledges there is room for more. Obviously you have to balance that with tractability and cost.