Talk Morgan Forums Thread Like Summary - Nitron suspension and taller tyres

Whilst at Malvern with Mark driving we went for a good thrash around the local lanes in my car to check it out, Mark found for a standrard car mine was one of the best he had driven, so we discounted fitting nitron suspension for now..

I'm planning a continental tour for next year doing the various Swiss alpine passes and around the Italian lakes trying to avoid continental , autohbahns and autostrada's as much as possible, use the major national roads, which can be fun when trying to enter villages and towns with traffic calming measures. We plan to stay in Spa, Heidelberg, Lindau, Lake Como, St Moritz,, Andermatt, St Gallen, Bruges along the way and AI has proven to be very useful in identifying hotels etc., that avoid centres with heavy restrictions or traffic calming measures or humps.

However more ground clearance may prove useful, I still find the standard suspension can bottom out on speed humps etc.as I experienced the other day when sent on a detour off the motorway, which proved uncomfortable for us and the car, going through a village full of speed humps and despite best of intentions I grounded the car once....not nice and got me to thinking about raising the car height with nitron suspension and maybe if possible, with wing, suspension clearance, fit a taller 205/65R15 tyres, that should in theory give me another 3cm 1.2 inches of clearance.

Part of the problem with the standard suspension is it compresses much more than the nitrons. therefore more likely to ground more, even if set at the same ride height.

I'd appreciate any feed back from those with nitron suspension fitted as to whether they raised the ride heiight and has it i(raised ride height or not) mproved the car's ability to handle raised humps, traffic calming measures compared to the standard setup........the limited ground clearanc is the only real bug bear with the CX, and I'm looking for iinput on the possible solutions especially when touring fully laden, when the car will be more exposed to ride height llimitations.especially over traffic calming raised humps

If any have raised the car height, have they noticed any real material adverse difference in the handling of the car, I'm not into racing my car, but I do want to enjoy it to the full when the opportunity presents itself eg the Alpine passes. I'm just trying to find that sweet spot for what is otherwise a great car.

Thanks in advance

Jon thanks for that info, will give SSL a call in a week or so, as I wanted a spare set of of their links for the front antiroll bar.. You are right that it was just the Six that they produced a suspension kit for, I read that the Four from the factory was not bad, so they did not think it was worth trying to improve it at the time.. then came the Nitron's. With fewer numbers of Plus Six made compared to the Four I guess there was little overall profit, and once again there are Nitrons now available for the Six... Pity, as from a touring perspective the SSL suspension is a huge improvement for the Six, just needed the ride height adjustment on the coil over that the Nitron suspension provides.

my '22 CX has been around the alps/dolomites very year since I got it. on both standard suspension & nitrons. two chunky 100kg passengers & two 10-12kg duffel bags on the rack plus the rear shelf stuffed with water bottles , cameras etc. I take all the back roads including single track. there can be lots of road works on the passes too, with rough unpaved sections ......never grounded yet!
they do stick me on the single deck euro shuttle tho' (car identified as a low vehicle). in town, I just do the usual speed hump management.
ive also got lots of tips on routes if its the first time you've done it .. you're not too far away.

Morgan build the cars and owners finish them.
There are several after-market specialists ....
Mulfab,Librands,Wolf,SSL being main contributors.
Some dealers also offer upgrades.
Peter Mulberry designed upgrades that MMC copied.
Individuals have also done significant upgrades.
cearelsurfer and Monty recently.
Rog has contributed with some excellent parts.
DaveW has writtenbooks.
Others contribute to queries.
Development is often expensive. Also be aware of insurance issues as mods canlead to premium increases or even refusal.

Going back to suspension for a moment, I also feel there are other dampers which would work as well. Each marque has their own favourites, but most will do the job. I have the Nitrons as I bought my car pre-specced for a small saving, so am quite happy. Whilst touring to Laon and on to the Black forest in June, fully loaded, I did occasionally get a graunch from the rear, when going over speed humps and might wind the spring seats up a turn or two. I had already softend the dampers all round by one complete turn with a small but noticeable softening, when I got back I softened it by a further half a turn to fully soft, but found no difference. My feeling is that for road use I want comfort not to feel every cats eye, even when making progress. Why MMC have this idea that all their cars should be circuit hard I do not know, they are almost always driven by senior citizens who have usually done that and don't want to lose more fillings?

I was talking to Peter, late of SSL some months back and he felt that using their anti roll bar links would result in a better ride, sadly I decided to save the £200 for another day. Maybe there is something in that though?

Despite all the unresolved quirks over 110 years we still love Morgan. In part it's because of those quirks.

So much could have been better quality. Fixings, and door mirrors in particular. Lack of development comes out in cracked chassis, brake problems and radiator failures. Dodgy handbrakes started with the ARP4. Emissions at MoT was there with the 2011 P4 Supersports.

But we tolerate all this, because the underdeveloped assembly of parts provides something which nothing else matches.