We are a Morgan dealership and we are dealer of the year 2012 www.williamsautomobiles.com. To celebrate this my boss decided he want to go racing in 2013 and we entered the Morgan Aero Challenge.

But this IS staying road legal so customers can drive it on the road.

With this we walked through our show room and we pulled out a 2011 Morgan 4/4 ( 1.6 Duratec Ti-vct) with 5.5k miles on the clock. These engines are 110bhp in Morgan trim.

We are entering in the lowest entry level for the first yr so we are limited to what we are allowed to do the vehicle, but this is racing after all

The car the day we pulled her out of the show room and into my unit.




Then the strip down began.






I then set about to see how the new 2012/13 Babydoll Safety Devices & the new 2013 FIA Carbon Tillet seat roughly fitted.








As you can see the Morgan has wooden floor panels which is not ideal, so I removed these and made new sections out of aircraft grade aluminium 3mm thick. As you will noticed the new floor panels are bolted in and ive also used chassis bonding glue.













Next on the jobs list was to removed the standard rear axle and positioning blocks and fit into position the newly released for 2013 the 4:1 LSD axle, I also moved the axle back 16mm on new centralising blocks to allow the rear wheels to sit better in the archs and for stability.










I then set about on sorting the exhaust system out, as the old one system was very restrictive and ran right to the back of the vehicle, so it all had to go








Now the standard battery is a very heavy unit which sits in a steel cradle behind the passenger seat in front of the axle, this weight and position was not great so I went down this route in the passenger foot well.









Then I set about wiring in the outside kill switch.







I then fitted the interia switch bypass switch for when on the raod and racing.





Now on the wet weight for these cars is 850kg, in our race series the min wet weight with driver sitting in the car is 850kg, but as this is also staying a road car I knew power to weight was critical and I can always add lead to bring the weight back up for race weekends. So off I went lightening the car and I also made new aluminium panels from scratch.



















Then I had to make a rain light bracket and fit into location with wiring before the rear internal panels and cage were finally fitted.





Then a big push for the interior went ahead. I had to modify the gearbox tunnel cover so the new seat could be fitted as low and as far back as possible, the gear lever location bracket was made lighter and so was the rear cast aluminium prop end cover.
































Now where the seat is postioned my boss wanted a nice steering wheel and he wanted it mounted on a snap-off connection, so out came the tig welded.









Then the fun and games of fitting the rest of the interior ( except the new dash ). Passenger seat is out of a Lotus Elise but is only used on road use. Also a single aero screen was fitted for the driver.









Now at this point the car was road worthy and was taken to Omex to have their new 630 ecu installed and some very special TB'S fitted more to come later on that note. Omex is the only ecu besides the Ford standard unit your allowed to use.







Now whilst shes away ive been fabricating a front valance with brake ducting and to hold a 13 row oil cooler. Ive had a fuel cell made. Fabricated a panhard rod, one off aluminium radiator.














As the front suspension is the very old king pin design, I found there isnt a great deal of uprated kit out there on the shelf so I had these made by Eibach and are 1'' lower but with a higher poundage. I also had these roller collars made to help with the steering.





As the new seating position is alot lower my boss wanted the gear lever to sit higher up in a more racey position so I knocked this up out of billet aluminium.




Now as we are running TB's we wanted more air to the filter, so luckily Morgan themselves gave us a Supersport half bonnet so we could modify.









So the last thing which I completed today (28.1.13) was to make the road going lower radiator brackets lighter as standard they are 2kg each.






So there we are, all up to date so far. I will be updating this.

Comments good or bad welcome

Lawrie

 

Looking good there my old mucker .

 

mint!!! love it!! and they really are made of wood haha

 

All Morgans bar the the Aero series and the new plus 8 are built on a galvenised steel chassis with a wooden frame and thats how its always been

 

Thanks Len

 

Great job

 

looks an interesting build

 

Brilliant job

Can't believe how tidy your workshop is as well

 

Cool project matey.Will keep an eye on this.

 

Looks like it will be fun!

 

nice job on the morgan m8 keep up the hard work and keep the up date,s coming

 

fantastic!

 

Thank you for the kind words

Today I had my heat range stickers and paint arrive.

I also fitted an alloy expansion coolant bottle and trail fitted the new racing bonnet








As always comments welcome

 

Today was a case of ordering more parts and finishing off the front valance brake ducts

 

great project, reminds me of preping my race car over the winter of 2009, youve done some neat touches to the morgan

steve

 

Thanks Steve, there are going to be a load more neat touches coming very soon

 

Amazing work, cant wait to see more!

 

valance ducting looks great ,odd ball kind of car the morgi must be fun to work on .

 

This afternoon I managed to sort out a new version of the billet gear knob, I began to fit up the engine oil cooler, finished the front ducting so this is ready to be painted.









Comments welcome

 

Thats lovely mate what a good build hats off

 

Thank you all for the positive comments and I'll keep the up dates coming

 

So more work has been carried out.
New alloy rad fitted, old fuel tank removed,front valance al fitted and ready for paint. I think the lightened radiator brackets turned out very well.


















Comments welcome

 

Great project, some proper nice fabrication work going on in there.
Would love to get into doing track days in a classic/ period car.
Keep it up

 

Thanks mate

 

Bigish update tomorrow

 

Looking good mate will have to keep an eye out for it

 

Just read the thread from start to finish, cracking little car mate love it!

 

So time for an update - Rear plinth fitted with new large LED lights, front valance painted and fitted into position.
Mesh fitted to front valance aswell.
Oil cooler sandwich plate which has a built in thermostat, -10 Pro-lite lines installed, 13 row Mocal cooler already fitted.
Aero catches fitted
Bothe sides of the bonnet off being resprayed.














Parts being painted, vehicle also has a new reg which will be shown soon.
One off baffle sump is currently in build.
New set of wire wheels were sent off today to be sandblasted and powder coated red.
Next update very soon.
Thank you for the positive comments so far

 

Im sure you will see it about mate

Thank you mate

 

Good work

 

Thank you mate

 

very nice mate good work on getting rid of the wooden flooring aswell

 

Thank you mate

 

Up date time peeps and alot has happened

So the rear end is almost complete, new alloy fuel tank and alloy protection plate has been fitted.
The rear pan hard rod has been installed.

The new dash panel has been made and shaped out of one sheet of aluminium.

The aero catches have been installed into the bonnet halves and both bonnet halves have been freshly painted
















Comments welcome

 

Whats the paint for on the disc?

 

there heat tell tales, tells you what temps the disks get to whlist racing
further up the thread is a pic of the stickers that go on the calipers and do the same job

steve

 

Exactly mate

 

So another bigish update peeps













Comments welcome

 

Ahr I thought it might be that. I've seen the stickers before but never the paint. How does it work then, does it fade or change to a certain colour or something?

 

Exactly that mate, it burns/fades off once temps rise

So another little update peeps

Began to seal up the wire wheels before new tyres are fitted.


I also finished the dash, it now just needs to be secured into postion once wired up.