Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Changing Classes and Engine along with it!!!!

Thanks for all your comments.... I think your offers of effort are heart warming right now and something I may well take you up on when the time comes.

For now, I need to get it into storage so work can progress to complete Woodstock. The Blue an White car will need to be worked on early next year.

I've spoken to Terry at GEE and chassis and Cross head talks are under-way.

I agree, never race your pride and joy and off's are inevitable when pushing it.

Still a blow when it does, especially as, there is only one pilot behind the wheel and in sprint racing, only you on the track!

A moment of inner reflection ensues.....

I am late in reading the topic and seeing your photos. I have never built or rebuilt a car, but know the frustration if I lose a well crafted email. I tear my hair out, then I smile, just a little, and then I go an kick something, many times.

The car looked magnificent after your upgrade and rebuild, and will look just as great after repeating the process.

But, having said all that, what a terrible terrible shame!

Being 'local' if I can help when a lift is needed?

Frank

Happy tosee you're OK
Enjoy the work

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
-- Mario Andretti

Update 23 - A short moment of reflection followed by taking the opportunity

Drivers Dinner and Awards
So the season closes with Chris Bailey clinching the honours for the SpeedMog Championship Trophy. Chris has had a fantastic season which is the culmination of five years determination chipping away at the Class 6 target times to finally have a long and sustained string of lap record beating runs. Chris entered almost all of the rounds this season and is a great example of perseverence and improvement getting the result in the end. A great guy to hold the honours.

At the end of the season there is a drivers dinner where several key management activities happen followed by a season ending knees-up!!

First of all there is the technical comittee. This is a pannel of four experts who discuss the observed stand-out technical differences in the prior season both in Sprinting as well as the circuit series and fast road development. We look forward to the upcoming season/broader future and try to consider if additional ammendments will be required to the regulations to keep the championship fare the true for competitors entering next season. This season more than any other has demonstrated the increasing varied performance of the smaller engined cars with the higher developed cars effectively eclipsing most of the larger V6 and V8 models.

The championship over the last few years have been observing this shift in the context of continual class sub-division. The championship has 12 classes and several are already sub-divided into upto six or so sections. It can make things quite complex for new starters and the championship is keen to allow people to race whatever standard or home brew special they turn up with.
The net result is that for the fist time next year, the championship will be (subject to drafting) sporting power/performance windows in the mid table modified classes allowing people to slot into classes with similar performance vehicles - putting beneficial limitations on the formula specifications as they were specified last year. This has been welecomed by all as an improvement and providing a balanced and inclusive platform for racing.

A couple of other key additions were ratified and included:

• Performance enhancing front splitters Class 10 upwards - to increase front end stability at high speed, especially on smaller engined cars.
• Launch control and flat shifters Class 10 upwards - these are now easily accessed cheap fun performance enhahcements which should be legislated for.
• Sequential gearboxes Class 10 upwards - controlling the presence of all semi auto or paddle shift options standard or otherwise.

Second is a review of the target times, with the power bands introduced we set about working out what impact this has on the target times. Having put in a seasons worth of blistering runs whilst the blue and white car sill conforms to the specification and performance window of Class 7, the times were only 1% away from those of Class 9. Effectively blighting class 7 (one of the most popular classes) with lap records most racers are unlikely to achieve or consider fun (the most important thing) to race against. As a result I have proposed to have my Class 7 times moved to Class 8 or 9 where appropriate to maintain the target time differential between the classes.

Other News

The Taster Day next year will be more of a family day including performance enhancement show in the paddock and events on the outfield. This is intended to make the day more inclusive for the Morgan community. It should be a hoot!

A "Go Sprinting" guide will be produced and published in Miscellany and elsewhere to simplify the steps of going sprinting. In the standard classes it's really easy to get a licence (no test requried), get a set of gloves, overalls and helmet and get going (no special car prep requried)!!

You don't have to go nuts like we do to have a great and thrilling time!!!


Getting back to the cars!
After a moment of reflection, we have to get these cars moving on. Next season will be looming faster than ever and now we don't just have to finish one car and do an engine swap, we have all that and a complete chassis up re-build to complete!!!

Woodstock work therefore has been continuing a-pace. Last time you looked in, we were working on the interior. The trimming of the rear deck area has been completed. Initiall trimming the wheel-arches in thin ali:




Missprint had her work cut out sorting out the doors, we wanted a roadster LW look so again thin ali sheet will be used to trim the inner door pannels. We also test sprayed the door latch in the proposed yellow. TBH having done this our conclusion it that it looks pants! these have since been sprayed dark grey to match the grill (which has been re-built haveing melted in the powder coating oven - ooops) and is also sprayed in the dark grey.



We sent the wheels, trans tunnel, roll-bar and tbh a bunch of other stuff off to a local powder coater we know to be soda blasted and coated in a dark grey we think will work well with the yellow and ali. On finishing the trimming including new suspension covers the roll-bar has been fitted to make measurements for the door bars.



The back pannel of the parcel shelf was replaced, as when the spare wheel was removed it became clear that the rear frame section had previously at some point snapped and no longer supported the rear of the body. Being from a town with a long history in woodwork and chair making a replacement was easily locally sourced and some excellent local skills came usefully back into the picture.



We fabricated new safty bracketry for the roll-bar as the originals were a little "light" for our liking and these certainly meet the current blue book spec as well as our saffy appetite. Once again the local forge came up trumps having the kit needed to roll the curve into the steel to get the right shape of the inner wheel-arch. You cal also see in the lower roll-bar mounts where we have made holes for the fuel and brake lines to run outside rather than inside the car!!







So an overview shot of the car right now.... it's got a coulpe of white wheels from the Blue and White temporarily fitted, Woodstocks wheels are gloss dark grey. Anthracite.



With the front suspension completely re-built with all new parts and the engine bay painted in black we have been holding off painting the bulk-head so we can get a really good finish.

I really like seeing engine bays where the bulk head is "clean, clear and crisp" not caked to death in matt black mushy gunk that's been sticking, melting to everything that's touched it for the last 30 years!

So first up was breaking out the masking tape to stick down the plastic sheet to cover the car and also to tape up the holes in the bulk-head. Now I don't know what the guys either, a) at the factory were thinking or b) those who've had this car since... but WTF! check out the number of holes in this thing, looks like someone has gone mental with a drill. Anyhow, they will all be sorted out nice and cleanly once we are finished.



When Missprint and I were prepping the bulkhead we found there was some pitting which would not be effectively removed by sanding so some additional prep would be requried. We rust treated all the bulkhead to make sure no residual rust would be present in the pits and use a very thin screed of filler to smooth off the top of the bulkhead. Once sanded would give a super smooth finish. Paint's all in the prep! Missprint at the same time scraped of the multiple layers of yellow paint from the leading edge of the bonnet. Again the outer body paint prep will increase in focus as we head towards getting a great re-spray job and bring this little car back to looking like new (or in some cases better!).





We laid up the undercoat and first three coats of hamarite gloss.







I really like it when you can see the reflections in the X pressing on the side and front of the bulkhead. The car was laid up with the heater on to bake it down.



Following another three coats of paint the bulkhead's completed. It looks great. Appologies for the slightly dodgy photo's.





Having got that sorted the car was stacked away whilst we wait for the gearbox from Quaife which has taken a while and the back axle from JB Engineering. Mean time the Race technology digital display and carbon dash are being made. As the Blue and White car has leather around the scuttle a new template has been made to get the shape just right.

Finally what about the Blue and White car?

Having examined the cross head and chassis more closely.. they are complete toast. In addition the kingping on the N/S is bent so the hub is jammed. It all looks like a pretzel. Luckily all the damage has been localised to the front N/S so all the rest of the components can be re-used easily.

On the replacement/fix front...

The Chassis and Cross head are nearly finished upgraded as you would expect! a replacement inner N/S wheel arch panel has been made and collected. At some point soon a monster weekend strip and re-build will occur.. but I think this will be in the new year.

We're collecting the final parts up together for the yellow car and this weekend saw us collecting the full race engine from Northhampton Motorsports. As the blue and white car will be in Class 10 next year we have gone for injection, so the compression has been increased slightly and the single throttle body per cylinder set-up has been port matched every step throttle body to maifold and manifold to head. We're running 450cc injectors controlled by an Omex 600 unit with launch control enabled.



I also though I would show you guys what the clutches we use look like up close. These are twin plate ceramatalic clutches with different compositions on each plate. They are also only 7.25 inches across which makes them very light and have very low inertia.

These help when spinning the engine to 8000rpm+ and also strong enough to cope with standing launches at 5000rpm when you just dump the clutch.

The reason for two different materials is that they have different "take-up" or grip characteristics and allow a little staged slip to reduce the peak loading on the drive-line. They also look really pretty! (or is that a bit too grease monkey for ya).



Thanks for all reading and for the ongoing support!!

Fascinating read. Thanks for the update.

Great update Cereal thanks.
Quick question, did you fit the "new" adjustable camber plates (I couldn't see clearly from the photos) and if so, what do you plan to run them at? If not, do you use fixed plates with some negative camber?
MZ

I don't use adjustable negative camber plates. We use static plates and set them at 1 Deg Negative.