Springs

[Ian Williams]

Denis, if you are attempting to use a Big seven front axle with flattened spring and std Big seven radius arms mounting on the front cross member I am afraid it will not work, the radius arms will foul the chassis. It you attach the radius arms to the side of the chassis as many do with this conversion if will handle badly, understeering dreadfully, you also will need to bow the beam a'la Ulster/Nippy if you wish to achieve Austin sports ride height, this is for your Nippy I assume. As far as working out spring rates is concerned I have no idea, in my case it has been trial and error over many years, I finally had my special handling extremely well, a couple of years before the accident. Precise, nimble, quick turn in, little understeer, manageable roil oversteer, but that was all on a track with relatively smooth surface, on the road it would skip on bumps and needed the dampers wound back. A friend drove my car, he was used to having a slow handling Big seven axle on his own special and and mine scared the living crap out of him even though I loved it, so perhaps results are somewhat subjective. To achieve this happy state, ( well for me! ) I had unknown spring rates, certainly not soft rides which is what I started with 35 years ago, but not Ruby springs either, I chopped and changed adding and subtracting leaves altering lengths, adding damper arms, stiffening chassis etc, etc, etc.