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

They're all over eBay and easy to find, just search 'DB Killer'.

Most sellers offer a range of sizes in a drop down, I chose a seller with a UK address and promising a 3 day delivery, this in the hope I could avoid the normal delivery delays from the many Chinese sellers on eBay.

Dave.

Cheers Dave 👍

K

Be aware when I did a test fit yesterday, my new DB killer whistled like a flock of canaries were following Monty down the road.

The other one that I lost at Castle Combe was identical in design, but didn't do this, however it was adjusted to be quieter so that was probably why it did'nt whistle?

I just thought I'd make you aware, anyway I've removed it now as it's my Surrey Rolling Road power run session tomorrow morning.

Wish me luck

Fingers crossed - take some video and interested to see your results! 👍🤞

Thanks, of course inevitably I've fallen into the trap of making many predictions around Monty's potential new torque and horsepower numbers, but with rolling road sessions my experience is, it's best to....

"prepare one's self to be disappointed"

Oddly, despite the objective of this latest tuning project being to get Monty over 200hp, the final power output is actually the least important factor, the questions I'm continually asking myself to measure the success of this one are:

1. Have I retained acceptable idle quality?

2. Have I retained Monty's excellent town managers and overall drivability?

3. Have I retained the torque bubble from 2,000 - 3,000rpm?

How the car drives and how the engine generally feels on the road is the real measure of success here, ironically making more power isn't the difficult bit, the challenge is making more power without turning the car into something that's frustrating to drive.

The numbers I record today are really not that important, because I already know Monty feels a lot stronger and he keeps making power over 6,500rpm where the Newman Phase 2 cams gave up previously. I also know I can still smoothly regulate road speed through town on the throttle between 1,500 - 2,000rpm with no frustrating engine behaviors.

However, I appreciate we all love a dyno result and there are are a few of you out there in Talk Morgan Land waiting with excitement to hear the results, so I'll update you all later today

I always thought it was the journey not necessarily just the destination, that should also be enjoyed and savoured.

We’re on tenterhooks here!!

Well Dave , I think its all about the feel of the car in the real life situations you want to cover and you have eloquently listed those in that you have multiple driving situations you want Monty to perform well in and to me your driving reports say you have achieved what you set out to do. I'm sure you wouldn't sacrifice any of those to excel in any one area, I know I wouldn't. It takes me back to my younger days and a friend who had a Mexico mk1 escort, he messed around with it claiming performance gains here and there, lightening the flywheel for a faster response until he pushed it too far and it had that Ferrari problem of not idling well or even at all and gear change rev drop so drastic that you lost all power. He took it into the local RS centre and cutting a long story short they sorted it out. When he picked it up the mech gave him the keys ignoring all his tech questions and said.... just try it! He came back beaming demanding to know what they had done to make it perfect. They said.. "returned it to stock sir".
Now I know this doesn't reflect your work, clearly you have achieved wonders with Monty and it really has been very very interesting following it all. By accident you started with a fantastic car in that you have one of the five with Peter mulberry's front end and no doubt the rest of the car was pretty well sorted. I have seen your car and you of course perform at the hill climb And I can't see how it could be improved on, it surely must be one of if not the most sorted classic Morgan out there. And never forget, a car showing way less power than another on a rolling road may well outperform it on in real use!

WELL……!!!!!!!!!!!?????????
What are the numbers…..???????😁

🇬🇧🇬🇧

Excellent comments and a great Mexico story thrown in for good measure from Sewin, loved it

With this in mind, and before we play the peak numbers game, here's what really matters.....



Over 6,500rpm where Monty previously fell over on the Newman Phase 2 cams, on the new A.L Development ported big valve head and Newman Phase 3 cams, he's now delivering 40 ft/lbs more torque and 50 more horsepower as his Duratec spins out to 7,900rpm.

No wonder Monty felt way stronger at Castle Combe

We also recorded big torque and horsepower gains lower down too, in the real world this is where we spend most of our time on the road.



And finally, connecting the bottom end power with the mid range grunt, and then all the way out to the top end.... is this wonderfully flat torque curve!



This is what makes a car fast

Interestingly, Monty is now making as much horsepower at 3,000rpm as a standard Duratec Plus 4 makes at 5,500rpm, and the same toque as a standard Plus 4 delivers at 4,500rpm but 500rpm lower down, after this of course its just more, more more!

With this understood, what should no longer surprise anyone is Monty is actually more flexible to drive than a standard Plus 4 when I'm just tootling about, this despite all the tuning work that back in the day would typically leave you with a highly strung animal, as illistrated so well in Sewin's excellent Mexico tale

I feel the above results and the way I've presented them, is the best way to demonstrate to you all why I was never particully interested in Monty's peak horsepower number