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

The A.L Developments hand ported big valve head has arrived



A 0.18mm skim ups the compressio ratio a touch too



Inlet valves are now very high-spec austenitic stainless steel +1mm @ 36mm from Race Engine Components - REC 835



Exhaust valves are the same austenitic stainless steel +1mm @ 31mm (poor photo angle) - REC 836





Inlet ports recieved a lot of attention, clever bowl work and nicely knife edged port dividers.



While also heavily worked like the inlet ports, the exhaust port diameter was actually kept to 38mm, bigger is not always better. My header IDs are 44mm making them 41.6mm ID, so sticking to a 38mm exhaust port diameter gives a perfect anti-reversion step and keeps exhaust gas velocity high, both stratergies should improve torque over just blindly hogging out the port.





The new head will receive a pair of Newman Phase 3 cams to replace my current Phase 2s, my existing 180lb beehive valve springs will be moved from Monty's current head to the new big valve ported head.

Monty previously recorded 173hp before I advanced his ignition timing by 3 degrees at the top end, I've also let my pops & bangs map blast out any remaining sports cat and silencer baffles for a nice reduction in back pressure, so he should be laying down a stout 180hp now.

Place your bets on what Monty will make with the new head and Phase 3 cams?

Monty - thank you very much for sharing this wonderful bit of advanced engineering with us it's beautiful stuff and extra grunt what's not to like.

Thanks Rich,

The objective here is really just to deliver a healthy lift in power while retaining Monty's excellent road manners and reliability, tuning naturally aspirated engines can be an expensive business so there’s no value for money logic to be found here, but I can share plenty of man-maths justification as this is precisely what I’ve been using to get myself to this very point

However, man-maths aside one thing is well accepted in the Duratec tuning world, if you’re looking to squeeze over 230hp out of a Duratec the weak point will for sure become the Ford factory con rods. Well, some may argue it’s more the rod bolts than the rods themselves but whatever the detail is things definitely start to become very expensive when you open an engine. I did very closely study the option oft fitting a low pressure Rotrex supercharger kit (8psi), but my research pointed strongly towards this placing Monty’s engine on borrowed time if I failed to take heed and fit those forged rods and pistons.

Ultimately all this set the brief and determined our target horsepower, with Monty already at 180hp and the super safe ceiling for a Duratec being 220hp, our horsepower goal would need to be somewhere between to two. The supercharger idea simply delivered too much power to be engine safe without spending a kings’ ransom, and I’m not so sure a 240hp Trad chassis Morgan is a good idea anyway!

Making power is actually pretty easy, the difficult bit is making good usable power while retaining a nice sensible idle and tame town manners, Monty needs to remain a pussycat on the road and to achieve this we've made what might be viewed by some as 'a couple of controversial choices'.

1. Prioritising exhaust gas velocity and a meaningful anti-reversion lip over ultimate exhaust port size - The thinking being is the ports on a Duratec head are already big enough to support 250hp, so with our lower target more than covered we've chosen to focus on porting strategies that will deliver superior torque.

2. Steadfastly refusing to take the obvious and well trodden ITB route in favour of retaining my Fusion Fabrications inlet manifold - It's already acknowledged and widely accepted we could easily make more outright horsepower with ITB's, but for fear of repeating myself I’m after drivability and torque. As the brief focusses on delivering the desired driver experience over a making a specific horsepower number we can brag about in the pub; the long runners, single throttle body and idle air control valve offered by the FF inlet are all destined to remain.

As we know, an internal combustion engine is just a giant air pump, the more air it can be made to shift the more fuel you can add in proportion to that air, with the outcome being more power. Of course, that mixture of air and fuel must still be at the correct ratio, and it must be lit precisely at the right time to ensure maximum cylinder pressure at the precise moment that pressure can also excert maximum leverage on the crank.

So, given all this the starting point for any tuning work is always to establish where the greatest restriction exists, address this restriction and you'll be making the greatest gains. To this end, I'm reliably informed by a number of highly respected Duratec engine builders (assuming your target is uder 250hp), by far the greatest restriction in a 2.0 Duratec cylinder head is not the already large enough and well-shaped ports, it's the valves.

If you then combine 1mm larger inlet and exhaust valves with some nice knife edging of the port dividers and clever reshaping of the 'valve bowl' which is the rounded, pocket-shaped area in the intake or exhaust port located directly behind the valve seat, the engine can really come alive. The 'valve bowl' is the critical transition zone where the air-fuel mixture passes from the port runner into the combustion chamber, after that it all becomes much more complex and a bit of a black art with good engine builders closely guarding their cylinder head porting strategies.

I can understand why too, as many spend years learning what does and doesn’t work, which can, and often does change significantly from engine to engine. I chose A.L Developments as Alan Prichard has been experimenting with, and developing the 2.0 Duratec head for decades now, I gave him my proposed cam specs, header tube dimensions and most importantly what I was looking for from the engine.

The rest is all locked up in Alan's head following years of amassed experience exclusively working heads, but with a special focus on the cylinder head found on four cylinder Duratec and Mazda L engines, this knowlege is what I paid for!

For anyone interested in Monty's cam spec, here's a table showing the differences between his current Phase 2s (PH2) and the new Phase 3s (PH3) we're going with.



Newman claim their PH2s have a power band of 2,500rpm to 7,250rpm, the reality was the PH2s proved milder than I'd expected, paired with my Fusion Fabrications long runner inlet these cams gave Monty a very wide and flat torque curve. This gives Monty huge flexibility, I can smoothly trickle through urban environments at 30mph in 4th gear with the engine gently spinning at 1,500rpm. Now hit the throttle and he'll pull cleanly all the way to 135mph in the same gear at 6,750rpm, mid range punch is also impressive.

The engine actually starts to come on cam at 3,500rpm and gives a real VTEC kick at 4,000rpm, however, contrary to what Newman's above cam spec claims the PH2s most definitely do not keep making power to 7,250rpm, mine actually gave up at 6,500rpm giving 173hp until I added a few degrees of timing which I confidently predict places Monty's output at 180hp at 6,750rpm. I'm not complaining as the end result has proved to give Monty very flexible and street friendly manners, keeping the engine speed between idle and 3,500rpm gives an extremely civilised nature that more than equals a standard Duratec Plus 4, but with super exciting thrust from there on all the way to 6,750rpm which makes for surprisingly rapid progress for what is a very vintage looking vehicle.

It's highly likely what I've ended up with here is something of a Duratec sweet spot, none of this is exactly ground breaking as early on in my tuning journey my research pointed to Caterham having long since found the natural Duratec power steps. If we exclude the bonkers supercharged 620R, Caterham give their customers two states of Duratec tune, coming down from the insane 310hp 620R you can choose from 210hp in the 420, or a Monty matching 180hp in their 360 model. The difference between Caterham's 180hp and my 180hp is Monty has a broader and flatter torque curve where peak horsepower also arrives 250rpm earlier, this is almost certainly a result of the two different inlet manifold used, but more on that later.

By now you're probably all wondering if I've already found the 180hp high torque sweet spot, why I'm bothering to take Monty on his next tuning adventure? Well, sometimes I also wonder myself ??? The answer of course is you never really know you've taken tuning too far until you've taken it too far, so I've chosen to accept the challenge of hitting my original 200hp target with the promise to myself that if I don't like the outcome I will revert back to the PH2 cams. The ported big valve head is not my concern, however the worry is PH3 cams could introduce a rough idle (without winding the tickover up excessively high), and they could introduce an unacceptable dip in low down torque?

Saying all that, the increase in duration, lift and overlap when moving from PH2s to PH3s isn't radical; I'd also argue Monty has more than enough torque on the PH2s so the thinking is the PH3s could take Monty past 200hp with no drivability downsides, the new ported big valve head will certainly help here. The key unknown is how the new cylinder head & PH3 cams setup will work with my Fusion Fabrications inlet manifold which is known to start to become a restriction around 200hp.

At this stage in proceedings it's worth pointing out the Caterham 420 makes 210hp on what are essentially Newman PH3 cams, and like the 180hp 360 the 420 achieves this using Caterham's own short runner plastic inlet manifold, but on standard valve sizes and no head porting work.



While Monty's long runner Fusion Fabrications inlet manifold may well start to become the restriction around 200hp, my hope is the new big valve ported head will help redress the balance while also retaining the torque advantage provided by the FF long runner inlet?



Will Monty make the 200 plus horsepower number I'm shooting for, while still retaining good torque and his excellent drivability, or will the Newman PH3 cams fail to play nicely with the FF long runner inlet and hold the horsepower back, while also messing up Monty's lovely flexible street manners I value so much?

As I say: "you never really know you've taken the tuning too far..... until you've taken it too far!"


Wish me luck chaps

What it'll look like if the big valve ported head and Newman Phase 3 cams deliver the predicted 213 horsepower.

* The red Standard numbers were taken from the official Morgan published numbers for the Plus 4 with the port injectected 2.0 Duratec engine, and the shape taken from a graph I found of a standard Plus 4 that someone took to the rolling road, in practice that completely standard Duratec delivered it's peak 144 horsepower a fraction lower at 5,750rpm

* The blue Stage 2 numbers came straight from my Surrey Rolling Road dyno graph, however, I've safely added a few degress of ignition timing since then so Monty should be closer to 180hp now.

* The green Stage 3 numbers are what AI says should happen after I fed it with detailed information on my A.L Developments ported big valve head, and all the Newman Phase 3 camshaft specification.

Not long now, and we'll be finding out just how accurate the AI prediction was?

I've also independantly made my own calculations using old school traditional methods and experience.

Here's what I came up with:

* 207hp @ 7,300rpm

* 168 lbs/ft of torque at 5,250rpm.

So Artificial Intellegence & Dave Intellegence are almost in full agreement

Here's the evolition.....

The above predicted Stage 3 torque spread is AI generated, but it should be pretty accurate. I fed AI with the Phase 2 cam spec and my Surrey Rolling Road graph, then gave it the Phase 3 cam spec the crosssectional area of the pre and post worked ports, and finally the 1mm larger inlet and exhaust valves.

I appreciate 1mm on the valves doesn't sound like much, but in percentage terms it's signigficant, and of course there's 16 valves so the increase in airflow measured in CFM actually becomes considerable, especially when you add it to the port enlargement data. The additional lift and duration provided by the Newman Phase 3 cams is really just there to ensure we take full advantage of the potential additional airflow offered by the bigger valves and port enlargement work, although the shape of the ports is arguably more important than the volume increase which is where the real skill of A.L Developments comes into play.

The good news is AI is predicting Monty's current torque curve shape remains completely unchanged, we're just making a nice chunk more torque at Stage 3. Critically we're still enjoying 81% of peak torque at just 1,800rpm, and better still now holding onto 87% of peak torque all the way out to the new 7,500rpm red line! That's going to mean in Stage 3 tune Monty will essentially feel like a massively stronger version of his current self, with his Duratec delivering 23% more horsepower and 10% more torque everywhere and this over the current Stage 2 tune.



Very soon we'll find out how just good these AI Stage 3 etimates really are?

Dave

For those following all this, here's the parts list:

* Newman Phase 3 Cams
* ARP head stud kit
* Athena MLS head gasket
* Exhaust manifold gasket

While the A.L Developments hand ported big valve head (+1mm valves) is without question a lovely piece of work, after much deliberation we've actually decided to bring the exhaust ports out a litttle further from 38mm to 40mm, my header tubes are 41.6mm ID so a 40mm port will still leave a small anti-reversion lip for good torque. However, it was felt the additional 2mm on a four circular exhaust ports will deliver fully optimised gas flow, while we're on the exhaust side of head we've also decided to take the opportunity to dowel and TiG up the EGR void, this ensures all four exhaust ports are perfectly volume matched.

Finally, I've added the following sensor upgrades so I can implement three robust engine 'failsafe' stratergies within my engine management calibration.

- Bosch Motorsport Knock Sensor

- ⁠EcuMaster 10 Bar Oil Pressure Sensor

- ⁠Bosch Motorsport Combined Fuel.Temperature & Pressure Sensor

Those following Monty's development journey will already know the EMU Black 'Plug & Play' ECU worked out extremely well, I can highly recommend it to anyone looking to replace the Ford/Visteon ECU used by Morgan. The only small challenge I failed to overcome was getting the ECU to play nicely with the standard Ford knock sensor, while I was certain I'd dialed in the optimal sensor settings, a weak knock trace had me assuming I'd overlooked something?

However, after discussing the challenge with James at M2R Motorport, he explianed this is a very common issue for ECUMasters users when trying to work with the standard Ford knock sensor, the solution is to replace it with a Bosch Motorsport knock sensor that is known to work perfectly with all ECUMaster ECUs including my excellent EMU Black.The new Bosch Motorsport knock sensor allows me build a stratergy into my engine management calibration to save the engine from piston destroying knock/detonation, which I felt is wise given we're increasing Monty's Duratec to a 11.0:1 compression ratio.

I'm also adding oil and fuel pressure sensing to the ECU, if I lose oil pressure or go lean due to a loss of fuel pressure, the ECU will instantanly kill the coil pack trigger signal to save the engine. As we're now taking Monty's Duratec closer towards it's optimal naturally aspirated state of tune, and I'm heading to Castle Combe in June, I felt it was well worth the small extra cost to build these three layers of engine protection into my engine management calibration. Giving the ECU fuel temperature and pressure inputs also opens up additional engine management calibration trimming options, I can now fine trim my base VE table to compensate for changes in the volume of fuel arriving at the back of my 440cc Bosch Green Giant injectors.

The objective as always remains to deliver safe repeatable power, while retaining the excellent OEM Ford Duratec engine reliability, and Monty's super flexible 'everyday use' drivability. All the engine hardware upgrades, sensor implementation and ECU calibration work should be complete in two weeks time

Montegue, your search for performance improvements takes me back a few decades to when I suspect the majority of Morganeers were ever in search of modifications to "improve" the performance of their Morgans, Power to your elbow young man in keeping old spirits alive.... (-:

Cheers, I appreciate your words of encoragement

Of course there is scope for all this to go terribly wrong, so my approach to mitigating potential disaster is to:

1. Reasearch, research, research

2. Identify and work with the right team

3. Select the right quality components

4. Use modern engine managemet and carefully calibrate

5. Implement 'fail safe' stratergies to protect the investment

As you can see, I've done my level best to make all that sound easy

Hopefully it won't end in this

Good work Monty…. A friend had just upgraded his Duratec engine’d Caterham 420 to add Jenvey ITB’s and independent ECU getting him to 231bhp.

I’ve used Newman cams in the past with decent results - a really nice company to deal with 👍

I’m rolling roading my Zetec E on twin 45’s in the next couple of weeks - that puts out 185bhp at the moment … this wasn’t the final best run but the red line on here is the one to look at for the Zetec E on twin 45’s.