You are quite right of course Redneck, and it is always a matter of personal preference and what each individual owner is prepared to put up with.
Sadly, when Morgan re-designed the car, from the Pete Larsen original, for whatever reason they decided to allow a large degree of camber and toe change to be incorporated leading to bump steer and very odd steering behavior, made worse when they changed the OE Suplex shocks and springs for Spax and raised the ride height.
After over 2 years of very vociferous complaints about the dangerous way the car handled, they eventually copied a design that an owner had submitted. They may have eventually designed it this way themselves or not, but it is a sad day when an owner has to do the design work that we have all paid for when purchasing our cars.
Anyway, that is now in the past, the cynically named 'Comfort' kit, designed for the Americans, according to Morgans press release at the time, only addressed the height of the steering arms, to bring the track rod up to an acceptable level. This has vastly reduced the amount of kickback going through to the steering wheel, but has not completely removed the change in camber and or toe. It is very easy to demonstrate this by jumping up and down on the front of the car, and watching to see if the front wheels move - they should not, and do not, when the Empire kit is fitted, this in both directions i.e. toe and camber.
I have not driven a car with only the spacers, but the reports I read here indicate that it makes a huge difference. What the Empire kit does is to go one step further and completely correct the whole front end geometry, so that like practically every car on the road, unequal length wishbones are employed which means that with the revised pivot points, the top and bottom wishbones as well as the steering track rod all describe exactly the same arc of movement, and so the wheel stays exactly upright or in the position it has been set at, which is normally around 1.5 degrees of negative camber, and the toe also stays the same, no matter what the suspension is doing.
The fact that it is fully adjustable by the very simple use of two spherical joints is purely an added facility for those who want to play around with their adjustments. I have not touched mine since I got it from Empire, but I am hearing of very interesting results by going to more camber, which appears to give more front end grip - what we desperately need to reduce the understeer inherent with the basic design.
When Redneck say: "
I could not see spending several thousand dollars for it vs. less than Two hundred dollars for the Comfort Kit. " I have worked out that the Empire kit, at the current rate of exchange is $1350 and I was under the impression that the "Comfort" kit is actually around
£200 which equates to $340, so yes it is $1000 dollars more, but bear in mind that the Empire kit incorporates the spacer or riser that Morgan sell, although a slightly different and more elegant design, but also throw in a completely new set of wishbones, spherical joints billet ali. bracket and of course all the nuts, bolts and washers needed to fit it. These prices are all a little misleading of course, because post and packing and fitting all have to be added, but then again, many people with the kit have fitted it themselves.
For those who have the Morgan "Comfort" kit, but want the advantage of the fully adjustable upper wishbones, I understand that Bill at Empire is prepared to sell these separately, but I haven't a clue what sort of price he would charge, obviously substantially less than the full kit though.
It is gratifying for me, to know that everyone who has fitted the kit so far has been blown away with what it has done to improve the car, I was a bit reticent to be too enthusiastic in case my feeling was not echoed by others, and they would be disappointed, but this has not been the case.
On another topic, those that have opted for buy the new upgraded adjustable Suplex damper kit, have found that, because of the longer springs there has been contact with the exhaust on some cars, and this seems to be worse with the Empire kit fitted, but having spoken to Bill, he nor I, can understand why this should be as the height of the car is purely determined by the springs and shock absorbers, not the type of wishbone fitted. It is also interesting to note, that, to my knowledge, Bill has not been approached by either Morgan or Suplex for any reason, yet they are both working on a fix so that Suplex can be run in conjunction with the Empire kit. In my naivity, I might have thought at least a 'phone chat might be useful!
I believe that Bill is soon to be adding some Morgan stuff to his website at
www.empireracingcars.com
