Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Centra Compensator falling apart.....

Background and Update on my Centa compensator situation.....

The Centa unit was fitted at the factory in October 2015 and has covered around 2000 miles. However, I've had the Morgan Stage 2 kit fitted for almost 12 months and, in addition to road use, I race and hillclimb in the MTWC Challenge....so it does get some abuse.

During the past week or so I've been speaking with Krazy Horse regarding possible tuning of my Stage 2 ECU. Starting has become labour-some, tick over lumpy (and the engine often stalls) and there has been plenty back firing. On the move it has been fine...
I had already connected a laptop with Protune software and discovered that my ECU was unlocked
In a nutshell, I emailed the Tune File from my ECU to Dan at Krazy Horse and he told me that the Base Fuel Injection table was Mega Rich. He very kindly made some adjustments and recommended I reset the adaptive maps. Wow, what an improvement
The engine is now running so much sweeter and it most definitely feels quicker

I emailed Dan to thank him and said I would make an appointment for him to properly set up the ECU mapping on the dyno....once I'd fixed the Centa compensator

Dan wrote back saying that he'd had a few of the Centa rubber barrels break up on tuned cars and they had now fitted their tuned demo car with polyurethane barrels, which they'd had made, and that they haven't had any other problems with the driveline yet. He offered me the set of polyurethane barrels they had in stock and I didn't delay in ordering them, as they seem a better option than replacement rubber barrels, based upon what I've heard and read since my initial post

Unlike Phil Bleazey's polyurethane barrels, the Krazy Horse barrels are the same shape as the rubber barrels

I'm hoping that my compensator holds together for the 4 hill runs at La Vie en Bleu at Prescott on Sunday, then I've got the challenging task of engine removal and replacing the disintegrating rubber barrels before the MTWC Sprint at Curborough on 18 June. I'll keep you posted.....

I live in paris and I am often confronted with slow road traffic in the Paris region and often runs with regime engine 2000trm see less, I happily buy a set of rubber advance as a precaution, I plan to change the fixing between The torque damper housing and the engine to make the rubber replacement very quickly, four screws 5/16 unc key btr 1/4 make me lose more than one day of work by removing the steering rack to raise only the Motor and take it out alone without the torque damper housing.

I'm sceptical that Polyurethane is the long term answer.

It won't deflect to absorb shock loads in the same way as rubber does and will eventually deform resulting in backlash.

I speak from experience of using it in a Marine environment when we didn't have the correct "rubber" buffers available.

Hope I'm wrong and good luck.

Note. Just a thought. Are they using solid polyurethane or hollow polyurethane buffers ? With the latter they may have a chance.
I have seen these in use before.

Interesting feed back Warbird/ Austin.

Good luck at Prescott.

Hope to be at Curborough. So,will visit the pits for a natter then.

Cheers

N

I figured that the rubber barrels seem prone to breaking up on higher powered cars...and certainly haven't lasted long on mine, so the Krazy Horse option, at similar cost, was worth the risk.
I don't know whether they are solid polyurethane or not. Have to wait till they're delivered...

Thanks for your good wishes Neil. Hope to see you at Curborough

Ironically I think the Krazy Horse stage 4 M3W suffered a similar fate this morning during the FolkMog track day at Snetterton. I believe it was still using standard rubber inserts though.

A little more understandable maybe given the higher state of tune and heavy usage. Guess they now have a test bed for their poly inserts.

Sorry to hear of your woes. Good that Krazy Horse are doing some worthwhile development work. They sound like a really good outfit. See you at Prescott on Sunday.

Tony

Richard, I'm going to check up on that as I think I was told it was the Stage 4 car that was using the polyurethane barrels....

Tony - Yes, Krazy Horse do seem very good. I've been changing my car to race trim this evening and I'm hoping we can successfully manage the 4 runs up the hill. Looking forward to the event, although I've not had much luck there in my previous couple of visits

Austin

Would be interested to hear result. Arrived too late at Snetterton to see the failure but was told the story by another M3W owner who mentioned broken rubber pieces!

Met another future owner buying a sorted 2013 matt green M3W from KH, so expect another joining the fold here.

Richard, I've just received a phone call from Krazy Horse telling me of the compensator failure yesterday. It was the polyurethane barrels that failed. I'm impressed with Krazy Horse customer service
They've cancelled my order as they're going to investigate the failure
I've now ordered a set of rubber barrels and live in hope that they will last longer than the current ones.....