As owner of a +8 which gets mighty warm in these Cincinnati summers,
I've had conversations with two people who should really know about
keeping Morgans cool.
First was many years ago with Maurice Owen. Maurice's suggestion which
I shared at the Morgans at MidOhio banquet in 1991 was to "put a piece
of black tape over the temperature gauge so I couldn't see the needle!"
He did go onto mention using the ISIS style air box which I bought at
the Factory in 1986. (This is a scoop which drops below the front
bumper to catch air and channel it into the bottom of the radiator.)
My car also has the front air dam, made of sheet metal that Stuart
mentions. Maurice commented that he didn't think the louvers helped
much. The ISIS cars of a few years ago had louvers inserted into the
inner fender valences next to the engine bay. I think these might
actually accomplish more than the bonnet louvers.
This leads to my conversation with Chris Lawrence. During a visit with
him at the Factory in 1998, he described that during development work
for the Aero 8, they did extensive wind tunnel testing of the current
cars. He commented that the bonnet louvers "didn't do much" and that
the problem was creating a low pressure area in the engine bay to
encourage maximum air flow thru the radiator and then exit hot air out
of the engine bay.
His suggestion was not very pretty but sounded technically effective:
cut valence holes or cooling slots in the inner wing area behind the
headlamp pods on the downward slope of the wing. These holes would then
be ducted to the inner fender valence and into the engine bay. Creates
an extractor effect that would sort of be like the Austin Healey 3000
rally cars extra venting gills on the front fender sides.
Never seen anyone do this, but it would be interesting on say ... a
racing Morgan. Maybe the idea will go forward from here. I doubt if
anyone else has ever had this type of conversation with Chris.
I still like the cool look of all the louvers on my 77 +8 though --
especially the way their line varies slightly from louver to louver due
to the hand stamping process used when my car was built!
Cheers,
Chas Wasser
Oh Mog
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