Peter Burgess visit

I had booked in a session with Peter Burgess for a rolling road tune-up back in January. At the time Peter was taking bookings for April, so his services are obviously in demand!

If you aren't aware, Peter has literally written the book on MGB engine tuning and he is well regarded in the community for both his cylinder heads and his tuning capability. So I was looking forward to the session, even though it would mean a 2 hour drive each way and a hotel stay overnight as the session started at 9am.

Before heading down I did an engine oil change as it was due and wanted the engine well protected for the runs on the rollers. I normally use Halfords Classic but had seen recommendations for Millers Pistoneeze so had picked up a couple of 5l cans and this was the first use. Millers is a brown rather than the green of Halfords, and to me it seemed to flow quicker, although that could be down to the warm weather. We'll revisit this shortly.

On the way down I remembered to do a quick sound test on my phone to see how noisy the cabin was. Turns out it was around 72db.

Funnily enough after driving all the way down to Derbyshire and not seeing any classic cars on the way, we pulled into the hotel and there was another rubber bumper B! We bumped into the owner as we were leaving the next morning and it turned out he was Peter's afternoon appointment. He had driven a couple of hundred miles up from the south coast.

My main aim for the session was to get the original distributor fitted which I'd had refurbished nearly 2 years ago (where did that time go?). I'd installed it when I had got it back but after an issue with a missing earth wire and then some rough running, I had just been running my 3rd party replacement since. On the way down to the hotel the night before the car had repeated the odd misfire which we had experienced on the way home from our last Scottish trip, so if we could sort out that I'd be happy.

We arrived at the workshop and after a little rearranging of engine blocks and projects to allow the B to be parked on the rollers, Peter and his son got to work. The distributors were swapped over as Peter took a look at the carburettors.

Two issues were found straight away. Peter said the front carb dashpot was empty of oil (Peter confirmed engine oil was fine for this) - I clearly don't check this often enough. Peter explained that this would cause a misfire when setting off from a junction but this would clear above 3k rpm. This might have been what we experienced as using overdrive and hitting a long hill (of which there were many on the way down to Derbyshire) would drop the revs below 3k.

Peter's son also said that the 3rd party distributor had a bit of slop in it which could also have caused some misfires. The rebuild one was nice and tight so that shold have no such problems. He also commented on my bumblebee plug leads being solid copper wire - if I was using electronic ignition this had the potential to cause interference (good to know for the future).

With the carbs checked and the distributor checked they timed the distributor and prepped for the first runs.

Peter explained that they normally do a "before" run to show the improvements they have gained, but as they had changed the distributor obviously I wouldn't have one. This was fine by me as that wasn't the aim of the session for me.

After a couple of runs Peter got out and said there was a misfire. I have to say at this point I thought, oh no the issue must be in the wiring and we aren't going to be able to fix the issue today. But they whipped out the distributor and inspected the points which Peter declared to be damaged. He popped them out and found that they had become contaminated by grease which had caused the misfire and subsequent damage to the point surfaces. This could not be removed so Peter had a search of his spares for some replacements which he installed.

As there were new points the timing needed to be redone, after which the runs commenced in earnest. Peter took the B up to around 5,300rpm, certainly the highest it has been intentionally revved in my ownership, but it sounded great. Pausing between runs to advance the timing, the runs continued to get the best out of the car.

Between runs I was able to have a chat with them both (and pet the lovely dogs).

While watching from the rear of the car, I asked about the occasional puff of blue-ish smoke. This is apparantly normal on rolling roads. It is due to the sudden drops in revs which causes a vacuum and oil to be dragged through, so nothing to worry about and not something you'd see in normal driving. That was a relief as I though I may have overfilled it slightly when changing the oil, but Peter said that an extra pint over the max is fine and is actually common practice when racing!

Peter was surprised that the engine had not had any work which was a positive. He also thought that the gearbox was nice and tight and was surprised that the clutch was the original (it is as far as I know). All good news. We also had a chat about engine oil. Millers they said seemed to run past seals, but they rated Valvoline VR1 racing oil (also 20W50).

The final results were:

• Max engine power: 94.21 hp at 5112 rpm
• Max engine torque 108.54 lbft at 2482 rpm
• Max wheel power 64.60 hp at 4573 rpm

Timing ended up being set at 33 at 4000 rpm.

The total cost was £140 (cards accepted) and in my view they should probably be charging more for 3 hours of work by 2 skilled professionals. If you are considering going I would strongly recommend doing so, even if it is just for a tune up of a standard set-up like mine. Peter and his son clearly take pride in what they do and want to get you the best results possible before you leave.

It was a really great morning and Peter and his son were great (and their dogs were lovely!). Despite it being the warmest day of the year so far the 130 mile trip home was uneventful and the B performed faultlessly - just what I was after!