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

Well done, Cereal, wishing you and Missprint all the best at MIRA. Gerry.

Your not cheating and fitting a stonking V8 while no ones looking are you

Hope it gets sorted quickly. Have they found the cause?

It's ongoing but it looks like material failure.

Here are some pictures from the weekend...

Plenty of Morgans in the paddock for Saturday.



This weekend there was going to be 3 cars in our class (Class 7 - upto 2000cc Modified 4/4) including another freshly finished car a Rutherford Lightweight with a Zetec E with variable cam on a Magajolt ECU.



We set-up our paddock tent and made ourselves at home.. just in case of the rain.

It was interesting getting used to the clutch when launching, the wheelspin was very smooth - as it looks. Missprint was up first.





Morgans take over parc ferme....



Next up.. my turn...



For the rest of the weekend, there was still fun to be had sorting out the times... well someone has to do it!!

Good, sounds like you have an inkling of the failure. Are you building a complete new motor?
What's the temporary fix? Inquiring minds and all that!!

Update 13 - Findings and What's next?

Our engine builder partner has stripped the engine to investigate what happened, as the engine by all the data we have was operating within limits. It looks like there was a miss casting of the No.1 piston which caused it to fragment and cause cascading and terminal damage to the block, cylinder head and No. 1 rod. Interestingly it looks like this was very progressive and could have begun before the weekend even started.

So.. what next.

Luckily we have a close relationship with our engine builder... having notched up a win even though we missed half of a days racing he's keen to get us back out winning with one of his engines in the car.... so...

He's going to supply an interim engine, a stock Zetec with minimal modifications such as cams. I'll take the car up with dad and fit this into the car on Sat next week and he'll set-up the ECU in the afternoon. That will get us back out racing in time for MIRA.

In the mean time, he's already started sourcing all the parts required to build a completely new engine, as you might expect we will be using a higher quality piston manufacturer.

At the mid season point when the new engine is ready we'll swap out the two and come back with the new one. All the while we will be sticking with Class 7 and as we are using a new block, we don't have to worry about a re-bore taking us into Class 9.

I have to say Northampton Motorsport have been very professional and if nothing else this has increased the ties between the two of our respective companies. You can expect more joint projects in the future.

Troy's put what's left of No. 1 piston and the two snapped off valve heads to one side. I'm going to get them cast into glass to make a reminder paperweight!!

He's also taken some pictures, if I can I'll post some when I get them through.

Forged pistons are not available?

Sorry... Speedy typing on my part there... the Wossner pistons are forged... Hopefully we won't be running into he same problem next time... !!

I have no idea of common practice in building race engines at this level but given the cost of such disasters is xray checking of rods and pistons an option?

Could be.. though you wouldn't expect necessarily to have to do this when using a well known manufacturer. Accidents happen and we're moving forward looking for the positives. You can imagine it also gives us an opportunity to look for more power in the next build