Hello Graham and Luddite(!),

I confess - that is me. I bought a new 2002 Plus 8 through Cantab in West Virginia, and although I loved the car I was not so happy with the original 4.0 engine and the Lucas GEMS EFI - which is an excellent system but had been detained for the US (I presume) market. Since there was no documentation on GEMS I decided to reverse engineer it and write the guide as a way of ensuring the necessary rigorous reviews. I changed the car to the UK bumper spec by designing aluminium CNC machined clamshell mountings for the holes for the US high bumper, and modified minor items throughout, including removing the airbags and fitting a European dashboard… as part of this I swapped the engine for a 4.6 Stage III, with a Piper 285 cam and ultra big valve heads, and I changed the CR to 10.1:1. I actually pulled the engine out four times for various - er - corrections, twice to change the flywheel to a lighter one.

I also had a close ratio R-380 gearbox made in the UK, but never got around to fitting it, and it is now at Mid-Atlantic in their spares. I owned the car until this year, when it wen to Mid-Atlantic Morgan’s for sale - and it sold in two days with mileage in the high 30k’s. It was a great car, and I miss it dearly.

I wanted a trad Morgan when I came over to the UK, and when the low mileage R100 appeared I was done. And I am very happy to have joined such a friendly bunch at Talk Morgan. Cannot wait to start meeting you…

All the best,
DavidnPoole