Chris,
I was well used to the type of independent rear suspension that could
tuck in, small Fiats, VW, Triumph Spitfire. I was not impressed with the
Bellets road behaviour on the Zandvoort track where we tried it out, as
said the shocks where a mess, not unusual with Japanese cars of the era.
It improved a lot with properly set up Koni's.
Jensen Healey's with the original Girling shocks do not handle extremely
well either. Major improvements can be made using Bilstein, Koni,
Kayaba, Spax. At the moment I have my JH set up with Spax, which are
rather hard when set to proper damping, but I will change over to
rebuilt Koni's from my first JH which have a totally different
characteristic and are more comfortable with proper damping. Old age
creeping in I am afraid.
Kees Oudesluijs
NL
Op 15-5-2013 11:56, Chris Dimmock schreef:
> Kees,
> You haven't been in a Bellet until you have been in a Bellet.
> There, but for the grace of BMC, nearly went I....
> A small light package, independent rear suspension - faster and cheaper and
> better handling than a stock bugeye- and even cheaper when I was an 18 year
> old kid.
> And a Holden Gemini "modern" 1600 cc OHC engine and 5 speed gearbox slipped
> straight in.... And looked stock.
> 3 or 4 of my mates did...
> Like any car, driven hard, with independent rear suspension, you had to limit
> the tuck under when a wheel lifted....
> But those little cars are still awesome in my book. My little brothers car? i
> remember being on the other side of a crowbar, at Mum and Dads, when we put
> an 1800cc OHC Japanese ISUZU motor in it, with twin webers, Back in about
> 1986.
> He's restored again since. Mechanically, its been rebuilt again since.
> He's as passionate about his Bellet as I am about my Healey.
> He just loves that no one even knows what it is, but handling? Seriously
> Kees. That's a bit like me telling you Jensen Healey's don't handle, or you
> telling me the Black and White car doesn't handle.....
> Anyway. Japanese cars of that era have little oblong chrome covers. So if you
> take those guard mounted mirrors off the guards, you just pop in a chrome
> filler...
> Too much information ??!
> ;-)
> Chris
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 15/05/2013, at 5:31 PM, Oudesluys <coudesluijs@chello.nl> wrote:
>
>> I remember the Isuzu Bellet GT-R well. A friend of mine had one imported in
>> the mid '70's. A jewel of an engine, a very good looking car but the road
>> holding left much to be desired. Total rubbish. Springs and shock absorbers
>> were not matched at all. In those days you could go to the KONI factory here
>> in Holland where they would build custom made shock absorbers for you at no
>> extra charge. It improved matters considerably.
>> Lesser Bellets were fairly popular (all things relative) over here. Other
>> Isuzu's were not so.
>>
>> Kees Oudesluijs
>> NL
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