Morris Minor Owners Club

hi all i have fitted a marina engine and a inch and threequarter su carb bigbore stainless exhaust and it goes very well. apart from the handling. any suggestions for improvement. it will be very welcome. forgot to mention its a 2 door saloon . thanks wole.

Welcome to the Forum! Top priority of course will better brakes - either discs (often v expensive) or larger drum brakes from Wolseley 1500 which work well, are easily fitted and don't generally cost a fortune. To improve handling - wider wheels (steel or alloy) and wider more modern tyres are top priority. The lever arm dampers can be drained of horrible old oil and refilled with SAE40 for much improved damping and/or supplemented with tele dampers. Some negative camber on the front wheels helps greatly - easily done by adding packing washers between the front suspension arm 'eye bolt' and the chassis leg - and then retrack! These are basic/simple steps you can take - obviously much much more can be done if you have the money to spend........ JLH are very helpful - and Jon runs a track car to show us all what CAN be done !
http://www.jlhmorrisminors.co.uk/index.php

Radial tyres.
Might as well start with the obvious

hi thanks for replies the brakes are fine. they are marina discs and servo. but i have 13 inch front wheels. and standard 14 inch rear wheels. from which cars would the best wheels come from ? thanks wole

As with any car make sure the dampers work and renew all suspension bushes before you add any aftermarket bits. After that, I have read that the best add-on is an anti-roll bar on the front. There is also an excellent article in "Technical Tips" on this site.

An anti roll bar at the front will just induce understeer (which a minor has anyway) without doing additional mods to the suspension / geometry settings. Best bet as already said is a tad more negative camber at the front.....

You really really DO NOT want an anti-roll bar at the front - unless also fitting one at the rear to keep it balanced!

first question from me is how well maintained is the car?

Destroyed suspension bushes and pre-historic smelly oil/slime in the dampers will make any Minor poor to handle.
Poly bushes are a worthwhile upgrade - followed by tele dampers and then stiffer torsion bars.

Anything is possible - including front double wishbone set up and rear axle 5 link arrangement... Added to that there are shell strengthening plates available. The shell is way ahead of other 1940's cars for stiffness (this was one of the design team's goals) so the amount of strengthening required on a saloon is pretty feasible.

BMC, I take it you didn't write the article on handling in "tech tips" then!

hi ray thanks for your reply. i know the car is quiet well maintained as i have been a mechanic since 1964. its only the last few years i have been doing recovery work instead. much easier. i only work on my own vehicles now. i am not looking to spend much more on this car as i have spent enough on overhauling the engine plus new complete stainless exhaust system. and carb. from the replies i have i will probably get a decent set of wheels. check out rear dampers and maybe some new bushes. anymore advice welcome thanks wole

Go with changing the damper oil as it's cheap and works well.
You don't say what about the handling you don't like, so I'm assuming the body roll, as it can be quite disconcerting.
If it's axle tramp, there are other solutions.

hi markyb yes it is mainly body roll. so i wil change damper oil first. thanks wole

damper oil will have very limited effect on body roll - it may slow it down a little at most but won't reduce it.

tele damper kits can be really cheap second hand - I've had a few of ebay for little cost. With good tele dampers and poly bushes and good tyres, the road holding can be a big improvement.

Increasing front spring rate together with a small amount of lowering is probably the next step of improvement.

After that, rear axle location is next step - some of the rear axle set ups will have anti-roll effect, which together with front ARB can really limit body roll (in fact it can feel much more sports car than Minor on a hard corner). Once you get to this level, shell stiffness is something that should be on the list.

damper oil will have very limited effect on body roll - it may slow it down a little at most but won't reduce it.

Just thinking about it this would seem to be the case, but I've done it to a car I was planning on fitting an ARB to and been very impressed with the results.
And that is just using 20/50.

It seems to not only reduce how fast the loaded side goes down but how fast the unloaded side comes up which is just what you want.

It's cheap and cheerful, and works, what's not to like? as they say.

You will do even better with SAE 40 oil - the 20W50 you have used is really only SAE 20 at 'damper' temperature. And yes - good dampers just change the rate of roll - so through a fast 'wiggle-woggle' they help greatly - but on eg a roundabout the car will still roll. Front arb is fine if balanced with a rear arb at the same time.

you say you are running 13" wheels at the front, are these the marina wheels? if so you can swap up to MGF wheels the stud patterns are the same. the space savers wheels are 14" are readily available and cheap this would reduce the height of the front side wall and with the correct tyre could firm up the ride at the front.

I know roy ( bmc ) is in favour of rear anti roll bars i ran a modified 2 door saloon 1300 Ital engine etc I used poly bushes and tele dampers all round, uprated torsion bars and lowered by 3 inch, and only a front anti roll bar and found the car cornered nice and flat and very predictably. I have never driven a moggy with a rear anti roll bar so i can not comment on the affect of fitting one of those

Ahhh - the uprated T bars and the 3" lowering are the clue there! The snag with just fitting a front arb is that it simply increases the already nasty understeer. So to get a balance other moves must be made - such as you did - or more simply by adding bars front AND rear if a 'bolt-on' solution is wanted. But other changes are possible - in particular adding some negative camber to the front wheels greatly reduces the understeer - and so a front arb could probably then be fitted in company with the neg camber mods and give a nice balance that way.