Or is it "bigger" headed?
On April 8th I was autocrossing the MGA (on race tires) at U of I Assembly
Hall in Champaign (Illinois). I somehow managed to net the index trophy
with 40 drivers (Fast Time of Day Indexed) in spite of the fact that the
car was pitching badly.
On April 22nd at our MG club Spring Tune Up Day I had the car on the rack
for an oil change and discovered that the 3/4 inch front anti-sway bar was
broken clean through. This somehow made the April 8th results seem even
more incredible.
On May 12th I finally got around to installing the new 7/8 inch sway bar.
Big job, long story, but it's done and it works.
On May 13th I got to try out this new installation at an SCCA autocross at
Illinois Central College in East Peoria (Illinois). Now how fast can you
spell FTDI again? This time with only 28 drivers, but the next closest
index time was a 6-cylinder BMW in G-Stock, and he was 0.8 seconds behind
on index for a 38 second lap, which means I beat his scratch time by about
1/2 second. No one else within one second on index.
Now the real point of all this is the way the car handles. For the first
time in my life I was able to make a tight right turn on the fringes of
friction, smash the loud pedal to the floor, and it would dig in and go
rather than hashing good old Illinois air with the right rear tire off the
pavement. Oh it would smoke the tire a little, but it would also take the
torque and not overrev the engine, so it would pull away smartly on demand.
YEEHAA!
In fact the car seems very well balanced now. I ran about 12 single laps
(including fun runs), and all day long I couldn't break the front end loose
unless I just entered a tight corner too damn fast. And with both rear
tires planted on the pavement there wasn't a lot of oversteer either (just
enough to put on a good show with a little occasional tail wagging). This
is the way I like it. Turn the wheel and the front end always goes
immediately where it's pointed. Given sufficient finnesse the rear end
will always follow along (after a fashion).
Short summary from experience. The late production MGA factory optional
5/8 inch front sway bar is (was) okay for driving on the bias ply tires of
the day. For modern street radial tires the 3/4 inch sway bar is just the
berries. But for the cornering forces and increased body roll induced by
modern sticky race tires, the 7/8" sway bar is now a very happy thing in my
life. And I chissled another 1/2 second on a fun run (three times). Oh
yeah, and I didn't break anything.
Now I can't wait for next weekend. Saturday and Sunday, two autocross
dates in Rantoul (still Illinois). First day on asphault is a SCCA Central
Illinois Region Cup Series event, which should bring out a pretty good
crowd. Second day on about eight acres of cement should bring out a
slightly different crowd, like those preping for Divisional level events
and maybe some national level drivers. Could be time for a little more
preening of the old MG this week, like maybe install those uprated front
shock valves to handle a few bumps in the cement.
Cheers y'all,
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg
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