Morris Minor Owners Club

Yep, that's about it in a nutshell, but of course it depends on HOW MUCH you plan on lowering the car. To be honest, if you are lowing it a lot then you DO need to think about where the various suspension points are.

A highly simplified version would be:
Raised car: When the wheel rises upwards it also moves outboard slightly due to the arc-type movement of the suspension.
Lowered car: When the wheel rises upwards it also moves inboard slightly due to the arc-type movement of the suspension.

I have lowered the front of mine by about 1 1/2 inches and now (if I remember) the lower arm sits virtually horizontal, so it has not changed THAT much practically and uprated torsion bars reduce the overall suspension travel and firm things up a bit. It's fine for me, and I can't see any benifit at all in lowering it more. The rear of mine is standard height, which coupled with the lowering of the front does not make for 'perfect' handling, but I prefer a slightly 'stanced' look. It handles pretty well at the rear anyway due to the radius arms locating the axle firmly and also acting as a rear anti-roll bar through the chassis (something I did not expect when I bought them!).

Oh the difference in the effective length of the bottom arm when 'lowering' is just tiny - not even faintly significant. I'm sure that is not what was being suggested !

It's not the length of the bottom arm, obviously that stays the same, it's how the suspension reacts when the wheel is more inboard due to the arc movement of the wheel when it's above (or below for that matter) the horizontal. Like I said, it depends on HOW MUCH you alter this angle.

I'm sure that is not what was being suggested !

I figured you'd still miss it, so

For those who hadn't worked out what JLH meant...

Oh dear!.
Thought I should try to avoid any confusion about my remarks on torsion bars. Ray and Cam you are both correct in what you say. Ray has deduced correctly the main point I was trying to make. The torsion bar has a given setting/spring rate, the only way you can change this is by shortening it. The length of a torsion bar is determined by its diameter and spring rate, hence the only way you can have a shorter bar but with the same spring rate is by changing the diameter of that bar. When lowering the minor one spline you are changing two criteria. The amount of travel allowed and the amount of spring rate available throughout this length. If the amount of compressed travel is say 6" then from rest to full compression this translates to an incremental increase in the spring rate used. If you have shortened the amount of travel then the % rate you have available to use is less, hence a lower achievable rate of spring. An easy test is to have the car at standard ride height, and bounce the front of the car, then alter the ride height(lower) and the car will be much softer sprung. To achieve the original stiffness you should increase the diameter /rating of the torsion bar.
This is my understanding of the effects of torsion bar tuning. We have successfully worked on Minor suspension for a long time and this theory has worked for us. The introduction of the more stable and adjustable coil-overs has now taken president in our quest for the best sympathetic solution to improving the suspension and handling of the Minor.