BritishV8 Forum

Put the car on the ground & did a short test drive today...  I knew brakes are too soft to drive much but it was fun anyway.

Did identify a few things to address
 -- need to raise the car up - exhaust scraped going out of the driveway
 -- leaking coolant -- I think it's coming from the bottom hose but I'll need to look closer to be sure
 -- need to adjust the shifter -- it's not fully engaging 1st & wants to pop back to neutral

But still - after several years it was great to have it on the ground & moving under it's own power.

Congrats, Rob.  Love the wheel and tire combo and looks great under the flares!

Damn that's purty, Rob!

"-- need to raise the car up - exhaust scraped going out of the driveway "

Fix the driveway. The car is perfect ( I never argue with perfect).

Yeah, Looks great,Rob!

Rob, I cant wait to be in your shoes!!! the car looks incredible and I bet it sounds great too!!!! Nice werk Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking good.

JB

Fix the F...in' driveway, nuthin' wrong with the car!  

My car is going lower than it was.

Great. Wheels really suit the car!

Great Job!   Rob , look fwd to seeing you in Townsend.  Love the color

Rob,

Car looks fantastic, I'd try and avoid raising the rear end if at all possible, whats the distance from centre of wheel to the the bottom of where the chrome strip would have been, ideally for road use this should be approx 15" If your car was originally rubber bumper it would have been a lot higher.

If you still using leafs spring at the rear then you want no more than a 93lb spring rate and thebest steel springs are the Moss reverse spring eye springs which will lower a rubber bumper car by 1 1/2" - 2"

I have these springs on my GT rated 110lb and dont have clearance issues with the exhaust although my tail section is for a rubber bumpered car and it now rides at chrome ride height so it could be raised for more exhaust clearance.

Kevin.

Congratulations from North of the border.
Teething pains will always be part of a new conversion - you'll get them sorted quickly.

Rob

Beautiful car! The stance is great, don't raise it up - I might even drop it another 1/2" in front. I looked through your journal and didn't see any pictures of how your exhaust is run but there are things you can do to gain some clearance. Could you post some pictures showing where you are having the clearance issue. I have my exhaust up inside the tunnel, not an option for you but I did have to clear a couple obstacles and I made some low profile ovalized sections to get underneath them. The 3" pipe flattens to 1 1/2" where it goes under the rear end and the        2 1/2" squashes down to 1 1/4" under the throw out fork on the bell housing without losing any cross section area (ie flow). If you are interested, I can show you how to make them - it's pretty easy.

I really like the mirrors also. Good mirrors that look good on our cars are really hard to find.

Very nice Rob

Rob,

Looking good!  I can't wait to see it in Townsend.

Jim, it scraped @ my H tube cross pipe.  I checked the car height & I am a little low.  Just shy of 14" front and 14.25 rear.  Raising to about 14.5 isn't likely to make enough of a difference so I may have to do something like you did.  Anyone ever measured a typical speed bump?  Unlikely I'll be able to clear one.

Rob, my Midget is real low, especially right at the center where the catalytic converter is mounted so I scrape that often. I recently raised the car a bit and it's much more pleasant to drive as I'm not worrying about every bump in the road. I had some worrying moments on the trip to Durham because of road construction where the lanes were uneven and you had to transition over that edge in a few places. At 60 mph you tend to clinch up the backside when negotiating something like that. I didn't get much higher maybe an inch but it made a world of difference.

Rob

I've has a couple questions about how I did the ovalized sections. I'll take some pictures and post a how-to on here in the next couple of days. You reduce the diameter of the pipe by 1/2 so you gain that amount as clearance.

Hey Rob,

Really nice sled you've built there!
I'd be talking to Jim about his airbag setup before changing that beautifull stance that your car has.

Cheers
Fred

Rob,

Lookin' good!

Brad

Rob, tuck your exhaust a bit tighter to the body. Jim's ovalized pipe is a great idea. You can also buy it already squashed.  

How do you measure when the chrome strip is missing?  Eyball it or masking tape? Measuring from the center of the axle to the bottom of the chrome strip, my MG is 13.25 front & 14.25 rear.  I rarely drag on anything, so I'm going down another 3/4 to 1" in the front & about 1.5" in the rear.  :-)

QuoteI rarely drag on anything

Had a bad experience once when I ran over a dead raccoon at night - made a helluva mess underneath. So, I now know that a dead raccoon is larger than my 4-1/2" min clearance.
Gotta have lots of roadkill in Tennessee, Carl.

Good one,Graham!

Quote from: ex-tykeGotta have lots of roadkill in Tennessee, Carl

I've shredded two ground hogs so far. They were alive when I hit them, not so much so afterwards.

WOHOOOOOO!!!

Looks fantastic Rob. I love the stance of the car as it is right now. Great work.

I'm a little lower than I thought...  I measured from center of hubs to the bend where the top of the chrome would be... Probably an extra 1/2" lower than I'd noted earlier based on that. Easy to adjust so that's what I'm going to do 1st.