Youthful engine builder Mitchell Kay is preparing a short-stroke 500cc MV triple that either Michael Dunlop or Dean Harrison will use in their battle to defeat the Paton twins in the Senior Classic TT on August 26.

“Mitchell is doing an engine of his own design,” his father Mark Kay, the director of MV Meccanica Verghera in Staffordshire, confirmed. “He’s changed the bore and stroke to see what he can get from the engine, and in a couple of weeks it will be on the bench.

“He's using a different exhaust and carbs, and he's altered the valve angles by a couple of degrees within the original casting to change the combustion chamber shape. The burn rate should be a lot better.”

The family hopes that the work of 24-year-old Mitchell will bring their Black Eagle Racing team the Senior victory, after John McGuinness won last year’s race on Winfield Racing’s Paton. Harrison finished second on a Black Eagle MV, a replica of the  factory bike that Giacomo Agostini raced in 1972. It gave about 76bhp at 12,500rpm.

“We’re just trying to do what MV would have done if they hadn't stopped racing in 1976,” Mark said. “We’re just developing what they had.”

Which of Black Eagle’s talented pair of Mountain Circuit stars will get the more powerful new engine?  “If both engines survive practice, Michael will get the new one,” Mark confirmed. “But if Dean’s has a problem, he will get it.”