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

I suspect it’s not something most would notice - but this TalkMorgan thread has surpassed 1 Million views.

I think it must be somewhere in the top viewed threads on TalkMorgan.

It would be great if anyone who like my clips and hasn’t, could subscribe.

It makes a massive difference👍👍

Pop the details on here 👍

That's quite a count .... it's a popular thread (I've dipped in plenty of times) ... seeing how many members we have, the thread must be driving considerable outside traffic to the forum ... hopefully resulting in more members and maybe more interest in Morgans in general ... keep up the good work 🙂

K

Here you Andrew. We still have few spaces left. Anyone who is interested please email me on info@folkmog.net

10th Anniversary FOLKMOG Track-day 2026 Monday 7th September 2026 on the full 300 Snetterton Race Circuit.
Unbelievably 2026 will mark the 10th Anniversary of FOLKMOG running our annual Track-day which has become an important National event on the Morgan Calendar and the only track-day event entirely organized by a local centre of the MSCC. We are very proud to report that our 2025 event attracted a record entry of 40 cars with 70 drivers, additional drivers and passengers signing on. (Please see my full report in Dec 25 edition of Miscellany)
FOLKMOG have secured a booking of the fabulous 300 Snetterton Racing Circuit on Monday 7th September 2026 and certainly hope and welcome strong support from our regular entrants and any new entrants from across the whole MSCC membership, allcomers will be made very welcome.
Please come along and join our friendly group of Gentlemen and Lady drivers on our 10th Anniversary event on the fantastic 300 Snetterton Racing circuit. The main theme of the day is to have fun stretching the legs of our cherished Morgan’s in a safe and relaxed format, we warmly welcome drivers of all experience, from novice first timers to experienced track-day drivers, and race car drivers.
The day comprises of the following: -
• Non-competitive event open to all MSCC members, maximum entry is 45 cars, so come along and have a go, it’s great fun.
• Entrants will enjoy 7 x 20min slots on track, exclusively for our Morgan Sports Cars.
• Strictly no timing allowed, this is a non-competitive event.
• Wolf Performance will be on hand as usual, to help with any minor mechanical/technical issues.
• Entrants may bring additional drivers/passengers along, included in the entry fee.
• We encourage and warmly welcome spectators to watch our Morgan cars on circuit and will be delighted to see as many old friends and new as possible back this September, entry is free and there’s plenty of Track- action from 09.00hrs to 17.00hrs.
• We are always superbly supported by our local Morgan Dealer, Krazy Horse, who have supported this event from day 1, they always bring the latest models and several Morgan’s along for MSCC members to test drive by arrangement.
We strongly recommend all entrants to speak to their insurers to advise them you will be taking part in a non-competitive track-day event. MSCC recommended Insurer’s are normally happy to insure you for the day f.o.c. but some may require an excess for the day based on the value of your Morgan. Entrants should advise their insurers in good time for the event.
The day is usually shared with the MG Owners Club, and last year with the Caterham and Lotus 7 Club of GB, who also enjoy exclusive sessions on track, so there’s plenty of action on track throughout the day.
What does the day look like?
The day begins early with signing on, followed by a briefing by MSV’s Clerk of the Course to explain the rules for the on-track activity. Our cars will need noise testing, then the first session on circuit is behind the MSV Course Car to show us the braking and turn in points around the circuit.
MSV will provide professional management, with medics and safety marshals for all on-track activity. Our exclusive Morgan sessions are for 20mins each hour, with a 1-hour lunch break, our first session is usually at 09.40hrs.
Entrants, additional drivers and passengers will need to bring your own full-face helmets (unless you have a hard top when open face helmets are allowed) MSV have helmets available to hire on the day at a modest cost. You must have your arms and legs covered (no bare skin allowed on track!!) gloves are optional but are a good idea.
The main aim is to provide a safe and controlled “on -track” environment, so drivers can explore the performance of their Morgan Sports Cars and most importantly have some fun.
We had a superb day at last year’s event, with perfect weather, we look forward to another fabulous day on Monday 7th September 2026, so make this a firm date in your diary.
FOLKMOG will provide full joining instructions and protocol documents well in advance of the event.
We anticipate the estimated cost for the day will be approx. £230 per car entered, which will include the cost of additional drivers/passengers, bearing in mind we still await final costing for the track-hire from the track-owners Motor Sport Vision.
Expressions of interest are now keenly invited, so please reserve your place on our entrants list which is now open. Contact Chris Bennion by email chrisbennion@btinternet.com or Michele Jarvis office@wolfperformance.co.uk to register your interest. NO MONEY PAYABLE AT THIS STAGE.
We wish to attract a full entry of up to 45 cars at our Anniversary event, and once we have a good number of entrants registered we will be in touch with payment details, collection of fees will start in May 2026.
We can assure you of a great day out with like-minded Morgan Enthusiasts and we look forward to hearing from any interested MSCC members and place you on our provisional entrants list.
Chris Bennion, Greg Vickers, John Riley and Michele Jarvis FOLKMOG track-day committee and organisers.

What’s the noise rating for the day?

Congratulations Andrew, it looks like we have ourselves a classic torque vs horsepower shootout partner

This makes perfect sense as one is a race car built for the track, while the other (Monty), was built to deliver a very forgiving eleastic power delivery for super smooth road driving, good fuel economy for long range touring duties, and with the ability to tackle occasional track days too.

Now let's study the results, and it appears the magic number is 12

HORSEPOWER

Andrew's Zetec Race Car makes 194hp peaking at 7,200rpm, that's a great result from a Zetec

Monty's Duratec gave 12hp less at 182hp peaking 400rpm lower than Andrew's Zetec Race Car at 6,800rpm, the Zetec also apears to be making Monty's 182hp 1,000rpm lower at 5,800rpm.

TORQUE

Andrew's Zetec Race Car makes a strong 220nm, this converts to 162 lbs/ft arriving at 5,500rpm

However, Monty's Duratec gave 174 lbs/ft peak, and while this additional 12 lbs/ft does arrive 100rpm higher, Monty is producing the Zetec's peak torque figure of 162 lbs/ft 900rpm lower at 4,600rpm.

SUMMARY

Andrew's Zetec Race Car makes a 12 more horsepower and 12 lbs/ft less torque, the important difference between each engine is on the inlet side, the Duratec has a very long runner inlet designed for torque, while Webber carbs on the Zetec are in terms of air delivery no different to a set of injection individual throttle bodies.



If I was building a race car this is definitely the way I'd go too, as all the evidence suggest if I put Monty on a set of ITBs.... he'll do this



However, I'm still resisting, and simply because the Fusion Fabrications long runner inlet works so well! Monty still has fantasic top end punch and will rev all the way out to 8,250rpm if I'm in that mood. But some days I must admit I just want to pootle about, my further recent ECU mapping work has resulted in Monty now being able to happily cruise about all day long at 1,350rpm, regulating road speed from there to just 1,850rpm in that tight 500rpm window gives wonderful flexibility and an extremely civilised drive.

Essentially I've got two cars in one, and probably because I've been forced to work harder on my idle and low speed drivability mapping, Stage 3 Monty with his proper fast road cams, ported head and 1mm larger valves actually drives nicer through town than Stage 2 Monty did, and he was already very smooth on those far milder Newman Phase 2 cams!

TBH this is the exact opposite of what you'd expect

However, I'm taking the drivability results and loving them, the Newman Phase 3 cams are also definitely doing what the should too. Get Monty over 4,000rpm and he really sings, best of all he now screams from 6,500rpm where Stage 2 Monty previouly gave up, and all the way to 8,250rpm if I've really got the red mist that day

THE RESULTS

What we have here are two great 2.0 litre twin cam four bangers, but built to do very different jobs. However, in the end both are delivering surprisingly similar numbers, it's just one one favours horsepower over torque for the track while the other favours torque for the road, but I'm sure both could easily do the other's job.

Let's call it 'The Rule of Twelve'

Thanks for the awesome analysis… I was also very surprised how close they were when you normalised the data for comparison.

For additional reference - the Zetec is a stock bottom end, stock head, valves & valve stems…other than the outer 20mm on the inlet side of the head being port matched to the manifold. The Twin 45’s remember will be choked down because of the Venturi … to 40mm.

Very interesting to see how the power/torque shifts about the rpm range.

12 indeed is the number…. like my grid position 🤣🤣🙈

No idea sorry I'l ask the Morganeer via pm & copy you in.

Definitely an excellent result Andrew, and very helpful evidence that further supports the theory Monty is hiding a restriction.

For comparison with your Webers, Monty's runners are 45mm OD, so 42mm ID when the wall thickness is taken into account, and it's well understood 42mm runners will easily support 230hp.



The interesting fact here is a Duratec head is known to flow vastly more air than a Zetec head right out of the box, it features highly optimised port angles and thinner 5.5 mm valve stems. Monty's Duratec head is also far from standard, Zetec intake valves are 32 mm and the exhaust valves are 28mm, Duratec intake valves are 35 mm and the exhaust valves are 30mm. However, I've gone 1mm bigger still so 36mm & 31mm meaning I've ended up with a massively bigger valve area than a standard Zetec.

The port holes on a Duratec exhaust manifold gasket are 44.5mm but Monty's exhaust primaries are 42mm ID, so it was pointless taking the ports out any larger than 42mm. While heavily worked by A.L Developments in the bowl areas to work with the 1mm larger valves, and with nicely reshaped throats, when the head arrived I was a bit surprised to see the exhaust ports were left at the standard 38mm diameter.

Alan claimed this was intentional for torque, and while I understood and accepted the theory, I also felt we could take the exhaust ports out to 40mm without any negative effects, so that's what we did. My argument was bringing the ports out to 40mm should still give good gas velocity, and a 2mm anti-reversion lip would also still be sufficient to counter the effects of the considerable valve overlap produced by the Newman Phase 3 cams. Subsequent testing has proved I was right as Monty has a nice stable idle, and wonderful low end torque too.

Without any question Monty's big valve fully ported head running Newman Phase 3 cams and 160 lb beehive valve springs will support 270hp, so that just leaves the inlet manifold and exhaust system to hold the engine back. Monty's 42mm exhaust primaries should support 250hp if I paired them with a set of 45mm ITBs, but even on the 42mm inlet runners the whole system should definitely not be producing any form of restriction up to 230hp minimum!

Last week I had a meeting with James at M2R Motorsport to discuss the missing power, don't get me wrong I'm very happy with the results but it's quite clear Monty still has a lot more to give. James who fitted the cams and head was genuinely surprised and disappointed we only made 182hp, his comment being "I was genuinely expecting close to 230hp". I suggested the FF long runner inlet was the likely restriction, but James countered this theory by saying his ST150 with the same cams and a similarly ported head but on standard vales, gave 213hp.

James went on to explain this was achieved on the stock plastic Ford factory inlet with the swirl flaps still in place but held open, and the truth is while it is proven to deliver more torque, the FF inlet isn't actually massively different to the factory inlet. James has also seen many Duratecs making 200hp plus on the FF inlet, and Matt at Fusion Fabrications himself claims his inlet has been proven to 230hp. There's definitely something else at play with Monty, even on a standard head, ST150s running Newman Phase 2 cams and an FF inlet will typically make 190hp. This was Phase 2 Monty spec, but in this guise he only made 172hp so at least 10% down on our expectations even back then.

Clearly we need to find the restriction that's been hindering Monty's true potential, and there's now strong evidence to suggest it's not actually all about the FF inlet as we've long assumed! If we now take Monty's Stage 3 result of 182hp and add 10% we get 200hp, but it seems highly likely there's more to it than that. Comparing Monty's Stage 2 & 3 graphs reveals the same flow restriction continues to hold Monty's Duratec back around the 180hp mark, and this even with the new trick cylinder head, bigger vales, and the Newman Phase 3 cams.

Having closely studied all the evidence, James and I both concluded it now looks like it would be a mistake to put all the blame at the door of the FF inlet. The way I see it, this is actually really good news as it suggests when the restriction is found and removed, I'll be left with the same super flexible Stage 3 Monty under 180hp. However, over 6,500rpm he should continue piling on power all the way out to 8,250rpm. If we follow the direction of travel on Monty's Stage 3 dyno graph everything points to a peak figure of 213hp, although it's entirely possible the restriction could be starting to hold the engine back far earlier around 5,000rpm, in which case we'd likely make 220hp plus.

With all this in mind, my suspicions are now swinging towards the rest of the exhaust system, it's certainly big enough and the primaries are equal length too, and don't get me wrong Matt at Fusion Fabrications certainly built me a lovely full system from cylinder head to tail pipe.









However, I'm now starting to wonder if the internal honeycomb structure has collapsed inside the so-called 'Spots Cat'



Another significant piece of evidence is I'm logging 100 kPa all the way to 8,250 rpm, seeing atmosphere makes the intake even harder to blame as it virtually rules out an upstream intake restriction. If the FF inlet runners, plenum size, throttle body, or air filter were choking the engine, you'd expect manifold pressure to fall away as airflow demand increased.

For example:

3,000 rpm: 100 kPa
5,500 rpm: 98 kPa
7,500 rpm: 94 kPa
8,250 rpm: 90–92 kPa

The above would indicate the engine is trying to draw more air than the intake system can supply.

Instead, I'm seeing numbers that are typically:

3,000 rpm: 100 kPa
5,000 rpm: 101 kPa
6,500 rpm: 103 kPa
8,250 rpm: 101 kPa

That's telling us the plenum is staying essentially at atmospheric pressure.

However, a partially collapsed substrate in the sports cat would behave like this:

* Idle perfectly
* Cruise perfectly
* Feel strong in the mid-range
* Only become restrictive once exhaust mass flow gets very high

Which is exactly what we're seeing here.



While Monty's above horsepower line clearly goes flat from 5,500rpm to 7,900rpm, the below Caterham 420 with presumably no exhaust restriction goes from a Monty matching 180hp at 5,500rpm, to 233hp at 7,800rpm!



The evidence pointing to an exhaust restriction above 5,500rpm is building strongly chaps

Remove the restriction, and Monty really should do this......



Finally, when I recently had Monty on the dyno we did a second run advancing the ignition timing by 2°. In doing so Monty only gained 2 hp, and that's exactly what I'd expect to see if the engine had reached a physical airflow or gas-exchange limit rather than simply needing more ignition advance. It also reinforces the idea that the missing horsepower is likely hidden in the engine's breathing and as we're recording atmospheric pressure it's highly unlikely to be a restriction on the inlet side, it's also not the calibration as we're pinning the optimal 13.0:1 AFR under full load & wide open throttle.

So despite Monty having a rather loud exhaust, noise is not always proof there's no restriction, catalysts are a classic example of this as a partially blocked catalyst often produces:

* Normal idle
* Crisp throttle response
* Excellent mid-range torque
* A very loud exhaust
* Disappointing top-end power

That's because the engine isn't trying to move huge quantities of exhaust gas until the upper rev range, below 5,000rpm the catalyst may cope perfectly well. However, above this and increasingly all the way to 8,250 rpm exhaust mass flow goes up dramatically, it's only then the restriction becomes significant enough to limit power.

So one of the things we found early on was that exhaust dynamics are important. My exhaust has 2” primaries that are 3 feet long each before going to 2 and into a single 3” exhaust. The included angles are no greater than 15 Deg. I have the same on my other race car which is an all steel Zetec E pushing 285bhp.