Hi Doug,
As I understand it the EGR system only really operates under high vacuum conditions, i.e at idle and cruise, when you open the throttle and vacuum in the inlet manifold falls to a predetermined limit the system shuts off so no exhaust gasses enter the combustion chamber under load. Exhaust gasses are super hot so bleeding them into the inlet manifold under any condition will quickly heat the incoming charge and considerably reduce its density, while this is only happening at idle and cruise it still isn't ideal as even a plastic inlet manifold will hold heat.
Any attempts at creating a cold air intake are therefore somewhat pointless if the ERG path remains in place, it's also well documented that the EGR valve can cause some hesitation while cruising, so if you're looking for better drivability and performance blanking off the path of hot gasses is a bit of no-brainer. Technically removal of any emission equipment is a fail, which is daft because in the case of the ERG system as it has little or no effect on emissions under test conditions, obviously it would also cause a fail if you removed the valve as the engine management light would come on.
Apparently Mountune (more on Mountune later) made two reducer valves for the ST150 to help cut the flow of used gasses down and fitted them as part of their MR200 tuning kit, you can't get these valves anymore so my ERG path into the inlet manifold is now simply blanked off, but the wiring and valve remain so the ECU doesn't get upset. When researching improving Monty's performance I looked for other cars that used the 2.0 Duratec, cars that were also being regularly tuned, it's a Mk3 Ford Mondeo engine but obviously there's nobody out there tuning boring old Mondeos so I had to look elsewhere.
What I came up with were these three vehicles:
1. Current Caterhams - 360 & 420
2. The Mk3 Mazda MX5 (NC)
3. The Ford Fiesta ST150
I found the most useful information on the STT150 forums, and also discovered Mountune were definitely the leaders in ST150 tuning back in the day, when I looked into it further it turns out Mountune have been offering quality Ford engine and performance parts for almost 35 years, they're so well regarded they're actually also Ford's only approved tuning partner so they must be doing something right.
For the Duratec engine ST150, Mountune created something called the MR200 kit, this kit could only be installed by Mountune themselves and as the name suggests it took your Fiesta ST150 from 150hp to 200hp which was a healthy increase. The foundation of this kit was Mountune's cast aluminum long runner inlet manifold of their own design that by no accident is almost identical to my Fusion Fabrications inlet manifold. To complete the MR200 tuning kit Mountune would also fit their long tube fabricated exhaust manifold, a pair of mild fast road cams, a performance air filter, and to complete the package would upload their clearly well developed calibration to the ECU.
This was all guaranteed by Mountune to give you 200hp, actually by all accounts the MR200 kit would very often deliver 205-210hp and drivability was completely unaffected, it was also quite well priced so understandably the upgrade became a very popular indeed back in the day, and no doubt further helped by the fact Ford were themselves backing Mountune.
So to tune Monty I decided the best course of action would be to simply replicate the now long discontinued but extremely well proven Mountune MR200 kit, why risk reinventing the wheel when all the development work had already been done years ago by Mountune, and with great success? Good Duratec cams are freely available so that's easy, however, you try and find a Mountune MR200 inlet manifold and you'll soon find they're like rocking horse poo, and even if you can find one they're so sought after they now change hands for £2,500 or more!
So that's where the Fusion Fabrications manifold comes in, for a lot less searching you can have all the torque and horsepower improvements of the MR200 manifold and for a lot less money too. On the exhaust side I obviously needed something Morgan specific, so I looked at the offering from Librands but it's expensive and I felt it could be better too, I then studied the manifolds used by Morgan on the Super Sports and ARP4 models which are way way better, but again just like the MR200 these are not available off the shelf, so I had Matt as Fusion Fabs make me a replica which he made a beautiful job of.
So the truth is my FF inlet is just a replica of the Mountune MR200 inlet, and my exhaust is just a replica of what Morgan fitted on the Super Sports and ARP4 models, the air filter I've used is an AEM dryflow and the cams will be the well respected and readily available Phase Two grind from Newman cams. That just leaves me to reflash Monty's ECU as Mountune did with the ST150 when finishing off their MR200 kit installation, unfortunately the ECU used in the ST150 is different to the Mondeo ECU used by Morgan, and as nobody is bothering to tune Mondeos, so this left me with a bit of a challenge.
The answer came in the form of a plug and play EMU Black from Ecumasters, although as it turns out there remains some development work still to be done to make this ECU a true Morgan Plus 4 plug and play solution. In a couple of weeks Monty goes to Ecumasters to have the CAN system sniffed, the EMU Black will then be able to drive various warning lights and gauges on Monty, just as the Ford ECU does via the Caerbont instruments CAN controller box that sits next to the Ford ECU. A week later Monty will be ready for the cams, and with a bit of mapping he should be pushing out in excess of 200hp, all this without me resorting to the throttle body route that Morgan took with the SS and ARP4.
In theory, for a street driven car, running a plenum type inlet should deliver many advantages over the individual throttle body route that Morgan took. Mountune would have thought the same when they cast their MR200 manifold, like me they were trying to offer a performance increase with zero compromises to drivability, and by all accounts they certainly achieved that.
Where this gets really interesting though is when you consider a Fiesta ST150 eights 1160kg while a Duratec Plus 4 tips the scales at a featherweight 877kg, lets say I make 205hp at the end of all this which is perfectly within the realms of possibility, because Monty only weighs 877kg that gives the car a power to weight ratio of 234 bhp per tonn, that's a pretty healthy power to weight ratio even in a modern world full of cars making crazy horsepower numbers.
However, if we look at small performance cars like a GR Yaris that's considered a quick little car and one that everyone is currently raving about, makes 200 bhp per tonn, also my 4.0 litre TVR Chimaera had 215 bhp per tonn and was definitely a fun and rapid car on the road.
I therfore conclude, 234 bhp per tonn in a vintage looking Morgan on a beam axle with leaf springs should be an absolute hoot
