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

Update 27 - Chassis fit out and bulkhead repair

The new chassis is getting fitted out with it's first fit parts. Floor and main plumbing.



It looks soooo shiny and clean





The old chassis is nearly completely stripped.... the engine, gearbox, back axle all stripped out.



The petrol tank is the first thing to swap over next week.




Bulkhead repair

On stripping down the old chassis, we found one area where rust had taken hold (not an unusual location). There were no other areas of significant rust even adjacent chassis components. Weird, but not irreparable.







These sections are now getting cut out and made good, nice and new ready for a shiny black paint job.

I've ended up ordering an o/s inner bay panel and also an o/s wing so everything matches. We will also not need the inner wing cut-out this time around as the throttle bodies are much shorter.

When the o/s bay panel is collected the damaged door will be dropped off for re-skinning.

By the time this is completed it's going to be about 75% new!!

Great info. Thanks. Interesting as ever.

Update 28 - Fitting out the chassis

Following on from last weeks update, we've spent this week sorting out getting the chassis fitted out. We've cut the remaining floor sections and welded in the additional chassis plates which make the seat foundations.



The main objective was getting the rear of the chassis sorted so the chassis can be rolled about. We started by doing a lot of measuring ensuring that the new chassis and the old one were directly compatible and that reference measurements for the suspension etc. can all be directly transferred.

When we removed the Mulfab tank out of the old car, we found that the base of the tank which rests on the supplied cradle was slightly corroded. Whilst not a serious issue, we didn't want this to get any worse in a long term install. So thinking caps on we decided to use a sealant to stop water ingress to the base of the tank thereby promoting corrosion of the aluminium surface of the tank base. Hopefully this is now sorted.





Next came the suspension hoop, dampers anti-tramp bars etc. all of which was easily swapped over.





So at the end of the week, we have managed to get to a rolling chassis ready to start building up the body work.









This week also saw the collection of a bunch of body panels which are critical for the completion of both Woodstock and the Blue and White car.

A replacement O/S inner bay panel - in the end the original was us-usable. From other sources 2 x rear wings, 1 x O/S Front wing, 2 x Cowels and 1 x Racing front air dam/splitter.

We also sent the damaged passenger door off to be re-skinned and repaired.

This week will see us focusing on sorting out the rust repairs on the bulkhead along with replacing a damaged passenger side tub panel - the one under/to the rear of the door.

On a final exciting note, we started work on a new prototype racing roof... it's not going to break cover until the cars are completed. So watch this space.

Ah... I almost forgot....

We fabricated new upper and lower brake reaction bars, slightly heavier gauge tubing so stronger than the off the shelf items. A local guy powder coated them for us so this week should see them getting fitted.

Good progress,long may it continue

Interesting as ever. Hope that the progress continues a pace.

Looking good Cereal, makes me wonder why they don't put an aluminium floor in at MMC as original build. That's probably heresy on here there would be no wood to treat!

Interesting that you're trying more robust brake reaction bars, may they become available through yourselves if you are happy with them?

Interesting place to "fit" the Panhard rod not sure it will work well there

Plus pushing the car around on its wheels... very Morgan, must be in the DNA

Finally, I may have asked before, but are you going to fit rear discs?

Update 29 - Fitting the engine and gearbox

Whilst the bulkhead repairs are under way, the engine and gearbox were mounted into the chassis.

With the prop bolted in the gearbox swung into place pretty easily. Brackets and hole positions taken from the original. The engine mounts were still usable however new rubber dampers were installed.

The engine was held in place from the engine hoist whilst all the lining up was done.





This gearbox is a Quaife Type9 with Heavy Duty gear shafts along with straight cut gears. It has a slightly taller 1st than the yellow car. I spec'd the new box for the yellow car with a slightly lower 1st to help getting off the line as it has a little less power.

You can see this engine also has throttle bodies... given the original engine made 235bhp on twin 45's, even with the valve clearance issue, which would not have helped peak power figures .. we've also slightly changed part of the valve system which may also help obtain maximum air flow. Fingers crossed for 250bhp+.

The clutch is the same set-up as the original and the yellow car... the Mr Clutch 7.25" twin plate on a lightweight flywheel. All up - this makes a huge saving on total rotating mass.

The engine looks pretty good sat in the chassis!!







In the last pic you can just see the Ford BDA rocker cover and aluminium filler cap. This really sets of the top end and should look pretty tasty when it's all packaged up.

I look forward to these posts - many thanks!

Me too, it is good to have the updates and to see the progress.

Cross post from sale section





The problems you encounter when using throttle bodies (tb's) or twin DCOE's on a 4/4 with a Zetec engine are around the packaging issues that the effective length of the intake creates.

The main difference is that tb's can be inclined whereas the DCOE's need to be flat to operate.

I've heard talk of off-setting the engine mounting, I can say that there is little lateral movement available when you take the gearbox into consideration and I'm not sure I'd want to off-balance such a heavy component in the chassis.

With either, if you put the back of the bell housing close to the bulkhead working forward, you end up with cylinder 1 shrouded by the inner bay panel when looking horizontally. This impacts your options on intake components.

As you highlight, a short intake promotes peak power at the sacrifice of torque, but this will only be minimal and torque promotion is significantly promoted by the exhaust architecture, i.e. 4-1 = power where-as 4-2-1 = torque.

So taking each of the intake components one by one:

1) manifold
2) fuel delivery system (tb' DCOE etc.)
3) initial intake tract (trumpet etc)
4) air cleaning system

Manifold

There are several suppliers of intake manifold, main differences are short, long, inclined or flat. The difference between short and long in physical terms is not huge, in tuning terms it's all about pulse matching the length of the total intake based on the cam timing and valve size. Shorter tends to give more ultimate power as the pulses make pressure waves at the valve throat high up the rev band which in term boosts peak power.

Let's assume for a second that either way you'll have plenty of power and torque so the short manifold is the one to use for a 4/4.

Anyhow there is also the incline, when using DCOE's you need to keep them flat, which means intake 1 on the front DCOE's pair will be partially shrouded (again there are pics of this earlier in this thread).

An inclined manifold allows you to aim the fuel delivery hardware over the inner wing and therefore position them nicely for a SS style bonnet scoop.

On my race car we did trial a Ram Air system which was ok but not ideal.

Fuel delivery system

First up carbs, the twin DCOE will be the most common installation. It's a reference point for tuning and many of the aftermarket throttle bodies follow the sizing as it offers direct swap and interchange of ancillary intake hardware without wrecking oem set-ups, think swapping DCOE's or IDA's on vintage cars - you don't want to muck up the alignment of the filters etc.

DCOE's are quite long and paired, this will set much of the alignment possibilities and even on a short manifold brings cylinder 1 to within a couple of cm's to the inner bay panel. Not ideal for optimal flow or balancing cylinders across an engine.... You don't want cyl 1 dumping unburnt fuel (due to mismatch of oxygen) into the exhaust, especially at high rpm, which is where it would be worst!

In the end you can either raise the engine (hhmmmm ...... not!) or relieve the inner bay panel and inner wing edge. This is possible sufficiently without it being visible outside a standard bonnet. Just remember to reinforce the cut out of the bay panel and box in the whole to stop water and crud from the wheels getting into the engine bay in pretty much the most sensitive place possible (the air intake).

As stated above many of the TB's follow the standard DCOE architecture, so they will lead to the same problem if mounted to a standard (legacy) manifold. If using these types of TB get an inclined manifold which raises the intake above the wing. There are various inclinations available. These TB's tend to be the cheapest.

Second-up get Motorsport TB's which are modular and smaller, these are performance oriented and allow mounting to a wide variation of engines, handily both the Zetec and Duratec are so popular as after-market retrofits, there are many kits available, weber, Omex etc all do their own.

Last up, whilst we discussed manifolds in the proceeding section, there is a type of throttle body which does not use a manifold thereby shortening the intake further, they are known as direct to head Individual Throttle Bodies ITB's. This is where the last few % optimisation appear, these TB's can be internally tapered for optimal charge compression and flow, multiple injectors per cylinder allowing not only increased fuelling but staged fuelling whereby the injection point can move away from the valve as the gas flow increases... after all you need to give time and space for the fuel and air to efficiently mix. The 300+bhp SBD Duratec engine uses this.

Two other TB architectures worth noting for completeness are the throttle slide and the Titan roller barrel set-up. The slide offering the shortest intake as the throttle plate slides sideways rather than rotating. The Titan barrels essentially twist a tube (barrel) which itself forms the intake. Both of these set-ups eliminate air flow disruption when at Wide Open Throttle (WOT). As such they out-flow the style throttle plate and subsequently offer the opportunity for more peak power than the usual twist style throttle plate we more commonly associate with carbs or throttle bodies.

Lastly it's also worth noting that a 45mm TB will always outflow a 45 DCOE due to the absence of chokes and venturi's.

Initial intake tract

Trumpet or not to trumpet - it's always important to use a trumpet as the airflow is easily confused if you only have an opening - think no trumpet inside a sausage air filter for instance. Take a look at guy croft's blog for flow analysis and pictures. He even shows that a simple roll of plasticine can make a significant difference when measuring flow of a single intake.

Secondly, not all trumpets are equal!!!! I found this out first hand, much to my annoyance.

You should get a set of trumpets matched to the intake set-up that they are attached to. Sounds simple but in practice is not. In order for this to happen you need to make sure of 2 things:

1) the intake trumpet is manufactured to decent tolerances and is designed to be 40, 45, 48, 50mm as appropriate.

2) even if it's 45mm say, the trumpet needs to have enough meat such that it can be fettled to be a direct and smooth match..... It's surprising how much of an error can exist. I purchased a set of reputable 45mm trumpets, which when measured were 43mm and were not hefty enough to be machined. I instantly found out how much decent trumpets cost!!!

Trumpets should ideally be as long as you can get away with.

Air cleaning system

Basically filtration, closed or open system. Open system - essentially sausage filter similar to that on +4 SS. Closed system, think air-box with cone filter in-line.

I'd avoid closed system and go directly for an open system. ITG offer a variety of sizes and shapes, squared or domed. You need to make sure it will fit between the fuel delivery system and the inner bay pane, (or bonnet) whilst also paying attention to the internal proximity of she trumpets!

Conclusion

Suffice to say, on a tuned Zetec engine you will have more of everything compared to a 1800 Stock Zetec. You won't be stuck for pulling power, in gear or top end. Take a look at the power graphs on this thread for two examples. First is an out and out race engine which made 235bhp on the rollers with twin. DCOE's and subsequently a stock 2.0 Zetec with only aftermarket cams in twin 45's making 185bhp. Trust me 185 makes a 4/4 quick... like +8 quick and the 235 makes it just mental fun!