Originally Posted by PaulJ
I have had this setup on my ARP4 for 3 years or so now, after contacting Peter Ballard who I believe may have thought up this design. I initially found the ride choppy although do not remember it bottoming out. Peter sourced the short springs and some shorter main springs which I then fitted.

The ride immediately improved, as per Richards report, however I was having problems with bottoming out when fully laden with passenger and luggage. Having screwed the spring seats to the top of their travel and set the damping slightly harder when touring laden, this has largely been eliminated except on the worst of bumps. I think a slightly longer spring would really be called for, which would lift the rear of the car a little more, this is probably what is now being used, however I cannot be bothered to spend money and time for what would be a small and occasional improvement and am pretty happy with the setup as it now is.

Peter Ballard was the designer of the SSL (previously Suplex) 5 link suspension. It was still in development when Morgan first saw it but for some reason or other they decided to develop their own design. I know that Peter did offer some advice as the system was developed from one version to the next.

A longer spring would allow an increase of the preload but the result would be a higher static ride height and the possibility of the suspension topping out on the rebound. As the spring rate would not change the travel, when hitting a bump, would remain the same. Because we had the same problem when touring I had SSL make me a slightly higher rated spring for our 5L suspension.

Peter

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