Barwell Motors Ltd.

Barwell Motors Ltd. of Chessington, Leatherhead in Surrey was a tuning company supporting enthusiastic owners and club racers, like so many other tuning companies of the period. However, unlike many of those other tuning companies, Barwell did not choose to specialise on one marque or model, but instead offered tuning for pretty much any car you cared to present them with.

Of course, we are interested in Barwell Motors because of their involvement with the MGA Twin Cam, what results they achi...more »

The fabled 'early' camshaft profile

There have long been stories about an 'early' camshaft profile used on the fist few engines made. This has its origins in an article from the American magazine, "Sports Cars Illustrated". As described therein on page 50:

"...the first production run Twin Cam engines had cams which degree out at 280 degrees with the same lift and slightly milder acceleration than the 250 deg units. Check yours with a dial indicator and degree wheel. If you have the 280 deg cams the timing is:

+ Intake opens...more »

The Mysterious 'WP' Stamp

We have noticed on a number of heads that there has been a 'WP' stamped into them, post casting. This isn't much to right home about on its own, but one of the heads was a special twin-spark cylinder head that was a development item, never used in production.

Another head with the 'WP' stamp, although standard in valve sizing etc., had most certainly had a lot of port and flow work carried out on it at some point, and unusually for a Twin Cam head, the work was of very high quality...

This...more »