Hammerstein-Wiener systems present a structure consisting of three serial cascade blocks. Two are static nonlinearities, which can be described with nonlinear functions. The third block represents a linear dynamic component placed between the first two blocks. Some of the common linear model structures include a rational-type transfer function, orthogonal rational functions (ORF), finite impulse response (FIR), autoregressive with extra input (ARX), autoregressive moving average with exogenous inputs model (ARMAX), and output-error (O-E) model structure. This paper presents a new structure, and a new improvement is proposed, which is consisted of the basic structure of Hammerstein-Wiener models with an improved orthogonal function of Müntz-Legendre type. We present an extension of generalised Malmquist polynomials that represent Müntz polynomials. Also, a detailed mathematical background for performing improved almost orthogonal polynomials, in combination with Hammerstein-Wiener models, is proposed. The proposed approach is used to identify the strongly nonlinear hydraulic system via the transfer function. To compare the results obtained, well-known orthogonal functions of the Legendre, Chebyshev, and Laguerre types are exploited.