Larry and all,
Let me first state that I am by no means the guru of steering!!!
My research consisted of talking the ears off of Norm Miller and Dr
Bob Palmer, as some of you know Bob is fast and his car is awesome. I
picked their brains and read every book on the Tiger in print. Norm
was kind enough to show me detailed pictures of the #55 cars front and
rear suspension. (Norm has pictures of everything) I then picked up Mr
Carrol Smiths books, Drive to win, Tune to Win, Build to Win, Engineer to
Win. Needles to say I like to do a small amount of research before I do
a modification. The above mentioned books will give any reader with an
intrest a better understanding of how the suspension and steering work.
The problem with a Tigers steering is the negative ackerman effect built
into the steering, the rack is mounted to far foward of the centerline of
the steering arms. If you look you will see that the track arms are bent
back toward the wheels. (this is not a good thing) It follows that Sunbeam
had to make short steering arms to get
everything to fit with the small 13" dia wheels. Doan Spencer built the
Hollywood sportscars Tiger for Sunbeam and the way he got the car to steer
was to move the rack back an flip the rotors on the stub axel carrier, he
also straitend the track rods comming out of the rack, and used alpine
steering arms (which are the same length as MGB arms). With all this they
decreased the ackerman efect and reduced the steering effort because the
tires where turning closer to concentric circles.
What I have done is fit MGB steering arms on my car, MGB arms need to
be bent up to the same angle as a Tiger steering arm. They also need to
be bent toward the rotor (or out) as far as you can go (there is a limit)
with a tie rod end installed so as to not contact the rotor, dust cover
or inner rim edge. Your individual rim backspaceing will determine the
ammount of negative ackerman that you can correct. To fit them you will
need a pair of MGB arms (20 bucks wrecking yard) longer bolts 4 ( the rear
mounting location over the upper caliper is thicker than stock Tiger) and
you will need two spacers the same thickness as the caliper mount. A torch
and a friend who knows how to bend metal. I would advise getting the arms
Magnafluxed after bending.
Completely correcting the Ackerman to neutral cannot be done to a tiger
front crossmember in stock form nor is it necessary or desired.
Sorry about the length of this post. Hope it was of some help
Bill Martin
B9470735
On Thu, 29 Jan 1998, Larry Paulick wrote:
> Bill, interesting concept. Would you like to post a complete how-to
> story to this list? I know you would have many interested readers.
>
> Thanks
>
> Larry
>
> Ground-Up rest on B9271874
>
|