[6pack] Ride height question

[Scott Tilton]

My superficial experience with rubber bumpered MGBs was that the car height
was raised because of headlight requirements.
Who knows - it could have been because of bumper height requirements instead
of or in addtion to the headlights.

The bodywork of an MG has the headlights fairly low.
Changing the body to accomodate a headlight requirement would have been
costly.
Jacking it up in the air - not as big a deal.

The headlights on a TR6 are actually up pretty high in relation to the rest
of the car.
Looks like they moved upward a tiny bit from the TR4/4A/250/5.

So If it was headlight requirements that drove the height change of the MGB
---The TR6 might not have needed to be raised.
(I don't recall any specified change in ride height for the TR6 thorugh its
life.  Once again though - I could be wrong)


I think the point people made earlier about the spring heights is important.
You can't just compare unloaded spring heights.
Imagine if you had some stock spring and you stuck 300 lbs on it and it
compressed 3 inches (made up numbers)
Then you have some substitute spring that is MUCH stiffer.  Its unloaded
height is 1 inch less than the stock one.
But put 300 lbs on it and it only compresses one inch.  (once again -
totally made up numbers)

The net result is that the spring heights with the 300 lbs on them - the
stock spring that was originally longer when unloaded is going to be shorter
when loaded.

Also - another point worth making - Any differences in the height of the
spring are going to be magnified at the wheel.
I mean - the wheel is out at the end of the trailing arm.
It is farther away from the pivot point than the spring is.
So if you go do the math and find out that your new spring, with the load of
the car on it is going to end up being 1/2" shorter - the car's height is
going to be MORE than 1/2" lower.

Same thing is true on the front suspension.
Don't think putting a 1/4" spacer under the spring is going to raise the car
1/4".
It should raise it MORE than 1/4"

Richard Good sized the springs so that spacers could be used to adjust the
height of the car in the rear.
He sells spacers to go along with the springs.
If your friend's car didn't have any spacers in it, i'm sure it was
significantly lower than stock and would end up with a lot of negative
camber at the rear.

Scott