Morgan Plus 8 Confusion
by Lorne Goldman

The most common frustration for Morgan Plus 8 owners and those who work on them is where and what to source as for lore and parts. These issues are compounded by the fact that most of the helping hands you find on the net assume the engine variation and fueling systems installed in your car reflect those used by Rover (and then Land Rover) at the time of your Plus 8's date of manufacture. This is often not true and useless costly expenditures, confusion, wild goose chases and often unwitting damage results. It is so disheartening to watch.

The fact is that Morgan never adopted the supplier's changes until forced to by regulatory issues.  This became more complex as time went on. For example, by the time of period of transition to the GEMS configuration front timing cover, the difference in a minor water or oil pump problem could cause an expenditure of an extra 1000£ unnecessarily spent for no benefit. Beware of who you wish to listen to.

Even if you know your Morgan Plus 8 stuff well, there were production weeks where new and old configurations were installed simultaneously. There were also periods where two or more configurations were supplied for LONG periods, depending on the destination country. 

For example, the UK Plus 8 fueling, front cover and general configuration for Plus 8s remained Hotwire until the end of 1999, both for Plus 8 3.9s and 4.6s. At that point, the UK stock Plus 8 became similar to the Land Rover standard GEMS  Morgans never used the Bosch Motronic fueling system that LR adopted.

However, for US Plus 8 fueling, a special (an excellent) GEMS fuel map was developed was used for overseas Plus 8s from 1998 to 2000 (?)when it became the same as the largely standard GEMS configuration the UK used from 2000-2004 (which Land Rover had stopped using by that time!!!!).

Complicated? Absolutely. And the different parts with these different configurations will not be interchangeable. The best idea is to find an expert and email them pictures of the engine front end and top. And be aware that ne advances in diagnostics and fixes keep happening from the aftermarket to this day. Don't listen or spend big money on some dated workaround or fix from some guy who hasn't bother to keep up in the last decade. If required, I will be happy to try to help you.

PLUS 8 FUELING SYSTEMS
from the OMA Forum (translated from French)

1968-1973 R7001 - R7715 SU (SH6)  Carburettors

1973-1981 R7716 - R9066 SU (H1 F6)  Carburettors

1981-1987 R9067-? Stromberg (175 CDEF)  Carburettors

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1984-1987 Option EFI Lucas Bosch L-Jetronic Vitesse "Flapper"

1987-1990 Stock EFI Lucas Bosch L-Jetronic LR "Flapper"

1990-2000 Stock EFI Lucas Hitachi (UK et l'Europe) "Hotwire"

1998-2000 (Overseas) EFI Morgan "GEMS"

2000-2004 (all) EFI Land Rover "GEMS"