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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Oselli and A series engines

Does anyone have any experience of these, particularly build quality?
J Barnacott

My late friend John Larrington ran a 1293 Oselli engine in his Frogeye from about 2002 until his death in 2012. The engine gave about 75bhp and was reliable throughout those years.
Alan
Alan Anstead

I believe that the company has changed hands since then, so possibly not an accurate recommendation.
Dave O'Neill 2

I dont know about today but historically they where the cats meow back in the day
Prop and the Blackhole Midget

Oselli are no longer the same company they were some 20 years ago. My last experience of them wasn't great and I took my engine to someone else to rectify their error. Subsequently I no longer returned to them.
Daniel Stapleton

I had an engine from them when I had an MGB - a 'Motorway' spec (balanced, lightened flywheel, modded head etc) and it was very good.This was when they had a fairly large factory unit - so 20? years ago.

Then in 2005 I had built an 'A series' 1293 'Stage 11' again balanced, modded head unleaded (standard valve size), 266 cam?, etc, etc. This was from the time they were at Bridge Garage ?
Runs well as Alan noted about 75+ horse with an HIF6/Maniflow exhaust - it does pull well and has a very good (flatish torque curve.

Only had one initial issue with the vernier timing gear slightly touching the casing - sorted with a little dressing !! of the case.

I think they have moved again and seem to be into some expensive marks - Astons etc.

So my experiences are from some years ago also.

R.
richard boobier

My experience is exactly the same as Daniel's - I no longer use them, even though they are still quite local to us.

The 'someone else' in my case is Peter Burgess, and he I would certainly recommend!!

Richard
Richard Wale

I have a 1380 oselli, it was purchased 2nd hand but was unused,It has the 266 cam,twin 1.5 inch su carbs and an lcb manifold,power on aldens dyno was 97 bhp for what thats worth but i can tell you it flies up to 6k in top with a 3.7 rear diff. I am very happy with it.
S BREEZE

My own experience with this is that I fitted an Oselli "standard, balanced, lead-free" A series engine to a colleague's 1968 Midget, assuming that all would be assembled as I would have done it myself ie. ready to start. We followed the instructions received with the engine regards starting and warming up, leaving overnight to cool before tightening/torquing head nuts etc. Whilst performing this task I realized that the nuts on the studs in the head for the rocker pillars were only finger tight (!), hardly "ready to run".
We then spotted a puddle (8" diam) of fresh engine oil beneath the forward end of the engine which on starting and running the engine again revealed an oil leak from the front crankshaft pulley oil seal, which is now in the process of rectification (a new seal will take about 10 days to be delivered to Cyprus from UK). On examination it was obvious that the seal was a new one but the problem had been caused by a failure to "centre" the seal on the pulley before tightening the timing chain cover bolts.
Not the sort of experience one expects to suffer with an engine costing over £2000 from a company with a hitherto excellent reputation.
Obviously, as Daniel says,not the company they were.
J Barnacott

J.

GOOD lord J.

Thats just wrong, I feel for you, I just hate crap like that, and it seems to me I get more then my fair share

Good luck buddy all you can do is grit down and bear though it.

As much as I hate to say it, if all the external hardware is finger tightened, I WOULD NOT trust the inside hardware... id strip it back.to.the last nut and re micrometer and measure everything and do a complete rebuild, if you cant trust the head bolts to be torqued correctly how can you possiably trust that the piston rings are not installed upside down or in the correct grove in the piston or that the cam is timed properly or that the correct cam to oil pump connection is correct... sloted and stared sort a fits togather if you hit it with a big enough hand sledge hammer

Let us know how it works out...I gotba gut feeling your just beginning your long never endding nightmare

Prop
Prop and the Blackhole Midget

Prop.
The head bolts were OK, it was just the 4 other, smaller, nuts on the rocker shaft pillars.
As to the rest of the assembly only time will tell. I don't propose to strip it out completely to check. But if it does go "bang" then rest assured that Oselli won't be the only ones that are made aware of the situation!
It runs sweetly enough at the moment.
Watch this space!...........No news is good news as they say.
J Barnacott

Well, the new seal is in place after a couple of hours of unscheduled and uneccesary work and appears to be doing what it is supposed to do. On examination, the old seal lip has taken on an ovoid rather than true circular shape, and remains so over a week after removal from the unit. This confirms my original diagnosis that the seal was not centred properly when fitting the timing chain cover.
Oselli would do well to take more care over assembly of their customer's engines as no doubt they do with those that they use themselves for competition, not that it will affect me in future as I shall be using the services of another establishment for future engine rebuilds.
J Barnacott

That sounds positive. Even so I would certainly fire off a firmly worded (signed for delivery)letter of complaint listing the faults you have found - and what you have had to do to fix them. You might get some sort of refund, but more importantly you would flag up the fact there were issues before you used the engine. Should the worst happen in the reasonably near future you would then have evidence that the engine was supplied in a not fit for purpose state. Otherwise they might just claim that any damage is because of things that you had done after taking delivery.

That sounds pessimistic, and I genuinely hope that you have sorted what should otherwise be a good quality rebuild from Oselli.
Guy W

This thread was discussed between 27/07/2015 and 23/08/2015

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