well today was the longest drive I have made so far in the margan 4/4 sport with the ford 1600 sigma engine. I had to go to oxford from yeovil so it was a mix of fast roads and B roads and a few lanes a good test for the car. The good points first, the car is happy to run at 80 mph on the flat and drives well and feels safe at the speed, I filled up before leaving and refilled when I got back and it returned 46 mpg which is not great but not bad.
OK the bad points. not a lot of power, at times on the hilly parts of the 303 I found myself seating behind HGV,s as I just did not have the power to get into the faster lane, the car needed a run up to get to speed and was just not happy picking up from 50 mph. The car rides on the gears so its up and down the box, there is no power below 2000 rpm and not alot higher the 4500 rpm, it is pulling around 3500 rpm.
I have only had the car a few weeks and already the leather is showing signs of wear on the seat backs, not a good sign of things to come, the power take off for the sat nav is right next to the hand brake and is a total pain when trying to use the brake if you have a power lead in place, what a b---y position to put it.
all in all not a bad car, but needs more power, to this end i have booked it in for a sports manofold and pipes and a better ait filter, will see have this helps and if it needs more will get a remap ecu fitted.
michael

Drive it like you stole it. the sigma won't slog but loves to rev, hold it in third and watch the speedo hit 95 before the rev limiter reminds you to change up. 5th is not much use except for saving fuel.

Great write up Michael. Good luck with you mods.

I'm surprised you find the power stops coming at 4500, peak torque is at 5750. These engines like to be revved, it should be producing decent power right up to around 6750.

Worth chatting with Jays who has done a number of mods to his Sport

Bud

Jays is going to do some mods, not done yet I think. My way of thinking is that the engine needs more torgue lower down the ref band, and a remap may get this out. I dont, want to rev the ba--- off the engine as its not done 5000 miles yet and it will not do it any good in the long run driving it like a motorbike. I have the car booked in for the 3rd of sept for the filter and exhaust etc, . also on an aside I found the start of rust inside the rear wheel rims, not to happy with that, what do morgan use for this work ?? its no good.
anyway will write a follow up when the work done, michael

I'm still waiting for Aero Racing to contact me about the throttle bodies. Hopeful they will be done before the end of summer.......before I end up spending the money on something else! Camera so far and my budget for another car might increase!

I would say that as my car is reaching 8000 miles, it is feeling faster. It does need revving but then I expected that when I bought it. The biggest improvement was fitting the competition axle ratios, the car gets on cam a lot easier. Once I get my engine management problem sorted I'll get it on a rolling road to see what the output is.

It's your car, and if you feel that the mods you propose are what you want, then that's absolutely fine.

But I'm a bit concerned about your belief that using the available rev range with the standard map is somehow bad for the car. I would have thought that putting non-standard aftermarket parts on it, especially with a remap, would be likely to have a greater detrimental effect on the longevity of the engine.

I have a GM 1.8 VVT engine in my 4/4, it has a MBE ECU and a custom map which produces something like 175bhp / 150ftlb, so I'm by no means averse to tuning the bollocks off sports car engines, but I have no illusions as to the likely longevity of the result. But hey, crate engines are pretty cheap these days :-)

Can a remap normally get any worthwhile increase in power from a normal aspirated engine without other mods?

IMHO ( and I accept people like cereal and Jim M might take another view) I went down the road of thinking that what I wanted to do was to get the engine taking the mixture in, using it and then putting out the exhaust gases as efficiently as possible, so I started with inlet manifold, air filter and filter flow and exhaust / silencer. I also looked at substituting the 4000 cell cat for a 200 but it cuases problems with the MOT emissions requirement
I then went on to look at remap, Tbs etc and concluded that I would be better off having my head, valves etc reworked to get the most efficient performance from what I had. ( try someone like Paul Dunnell or Raceline) I know there are outfits like Speclialise Engines who will tell you that you can keep the existing plenum, use an E 350 body and get an increase but I wasn't happy with the work I saw that they had done.
I didn't go over to TBs in the end becuase it would have meant having to engage with other things such as maximum delivery rev bands etc which I didn;t want on a road car
The Sport is, I think notorious for the f/d ratio.
So, my take- for what it's worth, is to recognise that what you have is a Ford 4 cylinder which isn't going to be great on mid range torque and needs working through the box. because to try and 'cure' this is. in the final analysis going to cost more than the final result is worth.

It's for that reason that if I can't rid myself of this desire for a more torquey, lazy motor that I may change my car. If I do, then it wont be a Morgan 'cos I'll succumb to my other love and go for an American Vee 8 ( prb Chev stock bloc)