Having sorted my +8 without resorting to Suplex, and yes I agree Suplex would probably provide a more compliant ride at lower speeds on bumpy roads, I have the following thoughts.
I have spoken with many owners on the front suspension and recently a +8 owner who uses his car a lot and races it, he has gone through the majority of front end mods and his car after a rebuild has 6 degrees castor and still suffered shimmy issues, this has been alleviated with a steering damper. So the question is what could be causing the shimmy in a car that has everything that should mean no shimmy?
Now I have another friend local to me who has a 2002 +8 which has had the usual steering issues and had new springs and bearings under the top springs and good shocks, 4 degrees of castor and the shimmy issue, he fitted an SLK steering damper and it made an immediate improvement and I also drove the car and was acceptable to me in fact very close with one exception, it was resistant to turn in to corners. Now all is set up correctly before you ask, especially toe in is correct. So is the same as my +8 but is not as responsive to turn in, so what is different ? This got me thinking and after a bit of head scratching the only variable that I can come up with is the tyres! I run Bridgestone that have done 2500 miles and are 2years old. He has 2/3 worn continentals that are a more modern type of tread design.
So this got me thinking, what if more modern tyre patterns a designed specifically to work with modern suspension designs and some worked better on a Morgan than others. In other words if the tread resisted being thrown off of its direction of travel on rough roads but transmitted this through to the Morgan suspension could it induce a shimmy? So the test to be done is to put my tyres from Rosie onto my friends car and see if it then drives the same. I will report on our findings in the near future.
Has any one a subjective view or experience of different tyre types affecting the Morgan setup?
