Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Jon, your Twin Cam Morgan won't be the first. I've worked on a Twin Cam Morgan. Beautiful dark blue with fresh chrome bits. Looked fantastic. I always wondered how it handled with ~130+ HP (uprated cams, etc.).

Hi Jono
I'm interested in your spare spark system.

My xflow still has the Motorcraft dizz less the vac advance and with a modified stop and springs.

I plan to use it in the twin cam and change the leads for the right firing order, no point in replacing it with the prince of darkness product to do the same thing.

When I do change it will be for something better, what do you have fitted?

What are the options and why did you chose the one you went with?

Jon the Chief

jono wrote:Jon,

What you describe is the very reason I converted my Plus 2 to wasted spark ignition as I never liked the idea of the dizzy sitting right below leaky old Dellorto/Weber carbs. The coil pack now sits well away from all fuel sources and I'm much the happier for it.

There are other benefits to like instant starting and, when mapped, smoother and better running. Oh and no points to 'play' with

Jon

Interesting, how did you arrange the timing of the sparks? Did you put a sensor on the crankshaft somehow?

Chaps,

Here is a thread where I include an overview of the system I have installed:

lotus-electrical-f38/calling-wasted-spark-efi-afficionados-t24126-15.html

Cheers

Jon

There are more than a few Morgans with Twin Cams but they usually start out as Morgan 4/4s that already have an English Ford engine and this more importantly, in this case, a real Ford gearbox/bellhousing. That makes it far easier and you also get synchro in all 4 gears !

Why do we doit?

In my case the engine fitted by Morgan was the very boring pushrod Xflow, ok for a tin box but a sad thing to see in a sports car, the thing was way out of character with the car so I wanted to dump it from day one.

The habit of messing with my car is hard to break, I have changed the gearbox from the escort 4cog to a sierra 5cog, that required a bit of cut and weld on the chassis cross member.

Wide steel rims on vw beetle centres then the wide body work to fit, and adjustable shocks conversion with softer rear springs, that was an amazing change!

Then twin DCOE and a Piper 270/2 cam with solid state switching in the distributor and soft cut rev limiter.
After that the radiator needed a 30% denser matrix and electric fan to cope with the load, so I added an oil cooler for good measure.

Then the long stroke steel bottom end and steel linered block, the grinding inside the crank case to get the rods to clear was a bit heart stopping. Twin cam power max pistons and a semi chambered head and still had a 13:1 compression ratio, so turning a few mm of the pistons to get it down to 10:1

The engine pulls like a train, and uses less fuel the the original, and it has character in spade, if you see the youtube of the red Morgan with the twin cam, that is the character the car should have when it was built.

That is were this journey is headed. Thats why we do it.