The ride quality from the front end is indeed very good, as is the handling. I'd rate it as superior to my Chimaera as there's much less dive than the TVR under braking, however, there was no front anti-roll bar used on the Mulfab wishbone conversion so it's my plan to add one (adjustable of course), this will further enhance turn in and allow me to fine tune the car's on the limit understeer/oversteer behavior.
For the record I didn't specify the Mulfab front wishbone conversion myself, the first owner must have really hated the Morgan sliding pillar arrangement as very early on in the car's life he forked out a massive £6.5k to have it custom built and fitted. As I understand it the work was largely completed by Simon of SiFab who worked for Mulfab at the time, Simon's TiG welds are beautiful, he is clearly a very talented welder/fabricator and it seems while the car was with him it also received one of his lovely aluminum radiators, another gift to me from the previous owner if you will.
When I bought the car last year the rear suspension was really letting the side down, so to compliment the excellent front end I binned the terrible Morgan springs that had gone soft in just 10k miles. Clearly they were not correctly tempered and Morgan's spring supplier almost certainly didn't use a quality 5160 steel, I have no idea if this was solved on later Trad chassis cars but let's hope it was because my springs were shocking.
No pun intended
I replaced these dreadful rear springs with a pair of BCC anti-tramp leaves that are properly forged in Sheffield by Owen springs using quality steel, I'm sure 5160 or similar. I paired them with Bilstein dampers from SSL, lowering blocks were then used to drop the rear and centre the wheels in the arches. The front end being on adjustable spring platform AVO coil overs offers full ride height adjustment, this allowed Techniques Morgan, who set the car up, to dial in the relationship between the front and rear, finally I went with a Panhard rod to eliminate any lateral axle movement.
Jacking the rear end and rotating the rear wheels seems to suggest the car received a limited slip diff, it's my understanding this was standard on the Roadster and Super Sports models so either the original owner specified it, or an LSD was all Morgan had on the shop floor when they built Monty so perhaps like the eye watering expensive Mulfab front wishbone conversion and the ally rad I just got lucky again?
More recently, and now the handling is sorted, I've been inspired to tune the Duratec 2.0HE engine Morgan used in my Plus 4, it's a power plant that seems to respond really well to simple breathing improvements such as a decent exhaust manifold/system and a better inlet manifold, with these two changes alone Monty’s engine was now shifting a lot more air and clearly needed more fuel to deliver its power potential, my solution was a Plug & Play EMU Black aftermarket ECU which has proved absolutely fantastic. I estimate the engine is now making in the order of 175-185 horsepower, the car goes like a stabbed rat. In the next few weeks the engine will receive a pair of Newman Phase 2 fast road cams, beehive valve springs, and 440cc injectors that I'm reliably informed will deliver a further 30hp.
And the point of all this work?
Well, it all started when I got the car home from auction last summer and found out it had benefited from the Mulfab front wishbone conversion, apparently it's one of only six Morgans that ever received the setup. I was really impressed with the way the front end behaved, there was clearly a little go-kart waiting to reveal itself so I felt compelled to sort the rear suspension to enjoy the car's true handling potential, once I'd done that Monty was absolutely crying out for more power so the tuning plan was hatched.
Essentially, I figured I had the ideal platform to create my own version of the Super Sports with better handling, mid range torque and drivability, but for less money than one of the rare one of 60 Super Sports models. I've definitely spent a few grand less than a Super Sports, but will it beat a Super Sports in all these areas?
