I have recently been noticing what I can only describe as a slightly vague feeling to the handling and since I upgraded my engine I thought it would be a good idea to get that department sorted as well.
It seems to have crept up on me gradually and playing with tyre pressures didn't make much difference within the range I would normally work at. (between 21 & 25 psi)
I checked the tracking and that was fine at about 3mm toe in.
I did make some changes to the damper settings but in the end reverted back to my old standard settings. I tried 4 clicks up and down.
The vagueness seems to manifest itself on turn in and it was as though I could not turn in with any great precision and the car seemed to want to tighten the radius as though the back end was a bit loose. As a caveat to this I am still on the old Contis until Friday when I'm going to see Paul Harris to change to T Trac 2. But it was not quite the same feeling as having the backend lose grip.
To me it felt as though the car was rolling more into the bend so my thoughts turned to roll steer. The geometry of my track rods does mean that my car is slightly susceptible to roll steer but it had not really been noticeable until recently.
The roll at the front end of the Morgan is largely controlled by the relationship between the main spring and the smaller rebound spring and when you set up the SSL front end you adjust the spring platforms so you get the rebound spring just kissing the bottom of the stub axle after bouncing it a few times.
This is critical because if there is a gap above the rebound spring then you lose some of the roll control and I was very careful with that when I installed it about 5000 miles ago.
So I decided to recheck my adjustments and I now had a gap of about 5mm above the spring which I guess is to be expected after the initial bedding in.
I then got a mate to sit in the car and bounce up and down a bit as though on a bumpy road which is in effect matching the laden ride height as opposed to the unladen static ride height that I originally set the suspension up to.
After he stopped bouncing in the car, I checked the rebound spring gap and it was more like a 10mm gap which is way too much and does indeed allow the car to roll too much on initial turn in.
I readjusted the spring platforms to get a 0 - 1mm gap at laden ride height and I think it has made a big difference to the feel of the car on initial turn in without making it any harsher over the bumps.
So I think it is well worth checking the rebound spring gaps after a significant mileage and readjusting them, if necessary, as in my case I think it was affecting the handling.
BTW, If Peter Ballard is reading this and thinks I'm wrong, I would defer to his advice as I'm not a suspension specialist or indeed a qualified test driver but I'm convinced it has made a big difference.
