First, to my DC area friends, my e-mail is now m1garand@speakeasy.net
now that DirecTV has shut down their DSL service.
Now to the group: (and answer me directly if you think it is off-topic
enough that the group wouldn't be interested) I've been reading up on
suspension design, primarily to see about options for the back-end, but
I also started looking at front-end design. What I noticed, is that
every author that I read said that un-even length, non-parallel a-arms
are the way to go in nearly evey case (so far, so good, for the MGB),
however they all suggest that the upper a-arm should be higher at the
wheel than at the cross-member. The reason being that when a car rolls
to the right (for example) the wheel on the right side also leans to the
right, reducing the size of the tire contact patch. With the MGB, as
that side of the suspension compresses, the upper a-arm travels up
through it's arc, becoming longer relative to the hub, pushing the top
of the wheel even further out and reducing the tire contact patch even
more. If the upper a-arm (in its static position) was angled upward
from the x-member to the king-pin, then any roll to that side would
compress the suspension and make the upper arm SHORTER relative to the
lower arm, and bring the top of the tire back in to reduce the camber
effect of the roll, and increase the size of the tire contact patch,
improving handling.
First, I wonder what the MG guys were trying to achieve with that
design, and second, I've seen at least four new coil-over designs for
the MGB, where the old a-arms are dismissed with, yet none of them
change the geometry to "fix" the upper a-arm issue. The car can be
designed with some built-in static camber to compensate for this, but
that method increases uneven tire wear on the inside edge. Has anyone
here used a front-end design that corrects the camber issue? Most of
the kit/muscle/street-rod crowd have adopted the Mustang II front-end,
and the parts for this are plentiful and relatively cheap (Including 2"
dropped spindles). (remember that this car was the same platform as the
Pinto/Bobcat.......Kaboom!!!!!)
So if anyone has any experience, I'd love to hear from them. Also, if
anyone is interested in working with me in trying to adapt the mustang
II front end to the MGB, let me know. When things get a little quieter
around my house this spring, I want to start taking dimensions off the
MGB for the front-end and back end and putting them into CAD, and
playing around with them. TurboCAD is cheap and powerfull. If anyone
has done something similar, and would like to share their files, please
let me know, too.
Thanks, and my apollogies to those who don't want to read about
suspension design.
James J.
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