I had a short ride in the Garage 56 Stage 1 car at Silverstone the other day with Terence Goad and thought I would pass on my thoughts on the kit. It was a new experience for me being a passenger, I was not offered a drive for insurance reasons, understandable.
The claimed performance certainly seemed to be there, although that may be part of the "passenger" feeling. My car suffers from pinking at anything much over 4500rpm, I couldn't detect any pinking on the G56 car and it pulled cleanly right up to the rev limiter at about 6000 rpm. As for the sound of the absorption exhausts, a low rumble, not annoyingly loud or raspy at all, like 1/4 of a big Yank V8, which it is really. Terence said the standard ECU is able to adjust itself for the G56 Stage 1 kit and does not require a remap, although they are looking into that for future developments. I was surprised to hear that the engine runs very rich at the top in standard tune, I always assumed it was weak, hence the pinking but that's a result of heat build up from the restrictive standard exhaust I am told. The stage 1 kit improves the breathing and mixture through the rev range,.
The inlet filter assembly doesn't look far removed from the original round Morgan one, other than the scoop. Terence insists it performs better than the standard item and helps with the overall performance gains of the kit. The exhausts are larger than the originals but don't look out of place to me. They look well made, come with new mounting brackets and the production ones will have larger, stronger mounting rubber bobbins, another problem solved? The tail pipes on this development car are just cut at an angle and are a bit sharp. I suggested a rolled end like the standard ones have, less chance of them biting your leg. The polished stainless finish is not a problem and black heat shields should be available as well.
Terence said they have had a problem with their supplier but will have this resolved in the next few days, so the kits should be available very soon. I have "expressed an interest" and await to see when they are available. Garage 56 were happy to talk about the kit and answer any questions I had, they seem like a good set up.
