MG Car Repair: engine cuts out, fuel pressure gauge, bright sun light

Question
Engine cuts out on accelartion.  Doesn't sputter, just drops dead.   Checked fuel and distributor both ok.  Whats up?
Timing?  Valves?

Help!!

Answer
Hi Bob,
On an engine cut off, you should never look for something wrong. ALWAYS look for what is missing. An engine only needs 3 things to run, Compression, fire & fuel. One or more are missing. If it runs again after you back off then most likely it is not compression so look at fire and fuel. It is difficult to look at fuel at the time of cut off but it is easy to look at fire. Just connect a timing light to a plug wire and tape the trigger down on the timing light and run the wires out from under the hood and put the timing light under a wiper arm so you can see the flash of the light when accelerating. If you are doing this in bright daylight tape a piece of cardboard over the light so you can see the flash in bright sun light.
If you maintain a good flash at the cut off point, you know it is fuel. Now you need to do a little work, put a fuel pressure gauge in a "T" just before one of the carburetors and run the gauge out and put it under the wiper arm. If you have fuel pressure at cut off then you have eliminated fuel supply and narrowed the problem to the carburetors. This process will always find the problem without throwing money at the problem.
Howard