Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Monty Takes a Deep Breath

So assuming the pic of the old inlet manifold is the actual one from your Morgan, it seems that swirl flaps were still being fitted at that time?

Yes Doug, it's the original manifold removed from my 2011 Duratec Plus 4.



I've read some past posts on TM debating if we do or don't have the flaps, so I shared the image to prove the Morgan application does indeed have flaps just as you find in a Mondeo/Focus, and to demonstrate the Fusion Fabrications inlet manifold removes these port restrictions.

I also no longer have the ERG system, reintroducing a small percentage of exhaust gasses function as a filler which has the effect of reducing the amount of oxygen in the cylinder, this in turn reducing NOx. ERG systems can also lower combustion temperatures, however combustion temps are different to intake temps!

People with a Duratec Plus 4 should be in no doubt as these hot exhaust gasses are bled into their inlet manifold, they also significantly increase the temperature of the incoming charge. The next time the subject of how to achieve a cold air intake comes up, we'd do well to remind ourselves there's no point in trying to lower the temperature of the air entering the air filter if further down the line you've got superheated exhaust gasses entering the inlet manifold!

If you genuinely want to lower the temperature of the air entering your Duratec engine and achieve a much denser charge, which is one of the best free gains you can give to any naturally aspirated engine by the way, forget the cold air intake idea until you've deleted the ERG system. If you just create a cold air intake without deleting the ERG system, you're really just wasting your time.

Duratec Plus 4 owners looking for cost effective gains while still retaining the plastic Ford inlet manifold should consider removing their swirl flaps and then completing an ERG delete. These two cheap mods with the addition of a decent long header Super Sports type exhaust manifold and less restrictive catalytic converter may very well give you as much as a 25hp increase, this would take your Plus 4 from 145hp to 170hp, better still the stock Ford ECU should just about handle that without requiring a remap.

Of course the long runner and larger plenum volume Fusion Fabrications inlet with its internal velocity stacks takes things to the next level, and with a pair of Newman Phase two cams we should be looking at achieving 210hp, it's basically Caterham 420 spec or what is regular achieved from the same recipe used to create 210hp on Fiesta ST150's.

However, to get there with Monty his Ford ECU must go, this is why I've gone for the plug and play EMU Black from Ecumasters, although I should be clear this is still very much under development.

Watch this space

Very beautiful parts!

But instead of trying to increase the power, adapting the gearbox and/or rear axle could be an other approach.

5th gear 25mph at 1000 rpm... 165mph (260km/h) at 6600 rpm ... cannot be reached with a 2L Morgan taking into account the Cx, roughly about 300hp are needed.
4th gear 19 mph at 1000 rpm... 125 mph (200 km/h) at 6600 rpm

Shorter gears could give better accelerations with the standard motor configuration.

Personally, I feel Morgan chose the gearing really well, and I'm not sure I follow your theoretical top speed argument to suggest lower gearing would be an improvement?

Fifth is an overdrive gear, the ratio was not chosen with the intention of hitting 165mph at 6,600rpm, Morgan chose the ratio wisely so you can cruise at 77mph with the engine only turning at a relaxed 3,000rpm. Actually the car would pull a theoretical 184.48 mph if the engine could reach its red line of 7,200rpm, but obviously aerodynamics take over long before that.

Clearly the gearing wasn't chosen for the theoretical top speed, the overdrive ratio of 0.73 was 100% chosen for fuel economy and modern motorway cruising refinement

Mogan then used a five speed box so you can enjoy maximum acceleration in the lower gears, but also benefit from that relaxed cruising. According to my owners manual, Morgan equipped Monty with a 3.73 diff, if lower gearing really was the way to go you’d think they'd surely have chosen a shorter diff for their more performance focused Super Sports model?

But they didn't, the Super Sports retained the 3.73 axle ratio, I suspect this was because customers wouldn't have been very happy buzzing along the motorway at over 4,000rpm in 5th. However, what Morgan did do with the Super Sports was increase the engine’s power output by 30%, this was the smarter approach as it significantly improved acceleration using the same gearing as a standard Plus 4 but also meant the car retained its ability to cover ground at motorway speeds without the engine revving its nuts off.

I’m also in no doubt that selecting a lower diff ratio would make 1st gear completely useless, all you’d end up with is a noisy unrefined car at motorway speeds that in all usable respects also had a for speed gearbox, basically a return to the bad old days before five speed transmissions become commonplace.

The lower ratios are also well chosen, for example let's say you're looking to achieve the maximum 0-60 time. Just put the car in 1st gear and wind the engine out to 6,400rpm, at this point you'll be travelling at 32mph, now change up to 2nd and by the time the engine is at 6,400rpm again you're doing 60mph, and like this you've only had to change gear once.

For all these reasons I won't be changing the gearing in Monty, I’ll be increasing the engine’s horsepower and torque outputs instead, just as Morgan wisely did when they created the Super Sports

Unfortunately MMC were not so wise when they stuffed the MT82 gearbox into the 3.7 Roadster with standard Mustang V6 ratio's.



First is too low and sixth very much an overdrive and near useless for motorway overtaking when fourth or fifth more appropriate. On the plus side setting off in second can give a brisk off the line once the clutch is loaded up, achieving over sixty without a gear change. I was told by my dealer Morgan recommend second gear starts so use such as the norm. Third is the fun gear though on A and B roads.

The Mustang 5.0 V8 uses the same box with higher ratio's excepting fifth which is the same 1:1. I had considered, if its possible, to mix and match using first to third from that box.

BTW I have the above table as an interactive Excel file which could be easily be edited for other cars. PM with email address if interested.

Hmm Richard

I can see why those ratios wouldn't be the greatest

Personally I'm a five speed guy, six speed boxes have never been my bag.

My 4.7 litre Aston Martin V8 Vantage had a six speed Graziano transaxle and the truth is it wasnt the best, typical of an Italian transmission second was baulky until the thing was fully warm and it took ages in the winter to get the tans oil up to temp, the clutch was awful too but that's another story.

I also couldn't help feeling you really shouldn't need six speeds in a 470hp car

By contrast, the five speed Mazda MX5 box in Monty is an absolute delight, it has a lovely light but direct change and as far as I'm concerned the ratios are all spot on. In simple terms, it's everything a good five speed transmission should be, i.e it's just a nice four speed box for attacking the fun winding A & B roads, but with the addition of a well chosen and usable overdrive gear for motorway work.

Why you would need a six speeds, when you can have all that in a five speed transmission is beyond me


PS: Two good online gear calculators can be found here:

https://www.boosttown.com/gearbox_differential/speed_calculator.php

https://www.gearboxman.co.uk/ratio-calculator/

You have to think of it being a five speed plus overdrive although that doesn't make first any better. I agree re the 5 speed MX5 box, my M3W had one and it was a delight to use with seemingly perfect ratio's for that torquey V twin.

4, 5 or 6 speed or more.

In a performance or race car, it all depends on the power band or torque curve of the engine.

In an ideal world one would change up when the engine reaches its peak power rpm. But again in an ideal world, one would then want the revs to drop to somewhere around the peak torque rpm.

If we have a very narrow power band or peaky engine then we need much closer ratios to stay in the power band and that might not be possible with a 4 or 5 speed box so we go up to 6 speeds or more with something like a DSG style gearbox.

Also the heavier the vehicle (think trucks etc) the more important it becomes to stay around the peak torque rpm.

For a light sports car like a Morgan, 5 well chosen ratios is more than enough.

Montague: thanks for confirming the existence of the swirl flaps; I have learnt something.
Agree too with your comments on the EGR valve, something I have just had to replace to get rid of the MIL that came on a couple of weeks back. So from what you say, that can be ditched and blanked off without any remapping or suffering of performance. Maybe “illegal” as far as MOT is concerned though…if it gets noticed that is!

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