re: "... No more dragging butt and bouncing side to side."
I hope it works for you, but I wouldn't count on it. My Mustang has one of the
most highly-developed--if not the best
ever--live axle rear-ends, and I still get axle hop on rough pavement, even
with the best tall, wide, high-performance
summer tires I could get. Miatas have IRS; I doubt Miata experts know better
how to design a live axle rearend than
Ford's engineers, who are pretty damn good when they get a chance to be
(witness: Ford GT and Boss 302, among
others). Sounds like you'll have Miata components on a rearend that wasn't
designed--bad or not--for them.
The 'side to side' is controlled by either a panhard rod (pre-BJ8) or radius
arms (BJ8); you'll still need one or the
other (stiffer bushes might help). My BJ8 has no discernible 'side to side,'
even with some pretty spirited driving;
if your Healey does, you may have had a problem. And, unless you've put a
serious 'cowboy rake' on your Healey--not
sure how you'd do it with the frame in the way--you'll still drag butt. My
BJ8's rearend rides high and its springs are
plenty stiff but my resonators still take a beating, despite my best efforts.
I get a bit incredulous whenever anyone criticizes older machinery as a 'bad
design,' esp. when using hindsight to
compare to more modern machinery. You could claim, with just as much
authority, that the gorgeous and timeless Big
Healey body is a 'bad design' because it doesn't have the same coefficient of
drag as a Honda Accord. Also, from what
I've read the 100 was made as low as possible for looks and handling. It would
have been nice if Big Healeys had come
with rack-and-pinion, but the available components wouldn't work and Donald and
Geoff made the call and that's good
enough for me (that doesn't make it a 'bad design').
Please let us know how it works out. You'll doubtless have some improvement,
but you won't have an original
Austin-Healey any more.
Bob
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