front suspension or braking improvement

looking for advice from the pros on this forum. i have a bj7 with sbc conversion and trying to determine if i should spend money on better front brakes or converting to tube shocks on the front. currently my front suspension is in good order and the car feel very stable at lets say 100 mph on the interstate. i have bolt on minilite wheels. my transmission is a 200 r4 with overdrive. i just recently rebuilt the front calipers and rear brakes as well. i had already installed a wilwood dual braking system with an adjustable proportioning valve. the front end of the car is considerably lighter than stock i would think. thanks for any input.....

maxwedge5281 said:

looking for advice from the pros on this forum. i have a bj7 with sbc conversion and trying to determine if i should spend money on better front brakes or converting to tube shocks on the front. currently my front suspension is in good order and the car feel very stable at lets say 100 mph on the interstate. i have bolt on minilite wheels. my transmission is a 200 r4 with overdrive. i just recently rebuilt the front calipers and rear brakes as well. i had already installed a wilwood dual braking system with an adjustable proportioning valve. the front end of the car is considerably lighter than stock i would think. thanks for any input.....

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Stretchit2 can chime in on this -- IMO the rear shocks are equally important as you are sitting so close to the rear axle.

The Putzke Fahrspass kit noticeably improves the ride. I have adjustable SPAX shocks all around and my car doesn't ride as well as those with the Udos.

PS - what is the "sbc conversion"?

steve the car has a small block chevy with aluminum heads and aluminum intake...considerably lighter than the healey six....just in case that was not tongue in cheek!!!

steve could you clarify the two different systems...udos and the spax adjustables. also i have reviewed your site numerous times but at the present do not intend to add the adjustable camber plates. with the fahrspass kit can this be done at a later time without loosing the initial cost of the shock conversion on the front. i dont mind a firm ride just not interested in a harsh ride!

maxwedge5281 said:

steve could you clarify the two different systems...udos and the spax adjustables. also i have reviewed your site numerous times but at the present do not intend to add the adjustable camber plates. with the fahrspass kit can this be done at a later time without loosing the initial cost of the shock conversion on the front. i dont mind a firm ride just not interested in a harsh ride!

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I put the Tom's Toys plates on the front only because of stripped stock shock bolts. They don't really adjust the camber unless you elongate the holes in your shock towers. This is independent of the tube shock mounts.
For the Udo kits, see: https://www.putzkes-fahrspass.com/

I built my own front and rear tube shock setup (after the failure of my Cape rears) and so had to buy shocks for it, hence the SPAX shocks. At the time, the specially-valved Bilsteins Udo uses were not (probably still not) available independently of his kit.

Suggest calling Udo as he might be able to spec a different shock for your lighter front end.

Get some spacers and lower the front suspension about an inch. Very simple. Improves handling and looks good.

...and fit a 7/8th anti roll bar.

DerekJ said:

Get some spacers and lower the front suspension about an inch. Very simple. Improves handling and looks good.

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If the front end is, say, 100 lbs lighter, might need some spacers to lower it back to the standard height.

This was the front end of my BJ7 after the V8 swap. The distance to the center of the wheel arch is supposed to be 28" in stock configuration:



The fix was pretty simple. Buy eight Grade 8 bolts to replace the bolts holding the spring pans, but about 1.5 inches longer. Buy 24 matching Grade 8 nuts. Also get an all-thread rod of a slightly smaller diameter as the bolts and four matching nuts. The rod should be small enough that the original fixing nuts canpass through the rod without interference. Put the front of the car on jackstands and remove the front wheels. Place a trolley jack under one of the trunnions and remove two of the bolts securing the spring pan diagonally across from one another. Cut the all thread so you have a couple of lengths about 10" long and insert them in the holes where you removed the bolts and use nuts on the all thread to secure them in place. Now you can remove the remaining two bolts from the spring pan, leaving the all thread to secure the pan. Slowly release the trolley jack to let the front spring drop as far as possible. If you want to be as safe as possible you can pass a loop of chain through the coil spring to secure it in the compressed position. Now you can slowly release the nuts on the all thread until the spring pan drops out and you can remove the spring.
Reassemble but insert two of the Grade 8 nuts between the spring pan and the wishbone base. Wind up the nuts on the all thread until the spring is sufficiently compressed so you can insert the longer grade 8 bolts in the remaining two holes, making sure to install two nuts between the wishbone and the spring pan. Now just run up the nuts on the all thread and grade 8 bolts until you have enough clearance to remove the all thread and replace with the remaining grade 8 bolts. It's way more complicated to describe than it is to do. When you're all done, you'll have the spring pan secured by four grade 8 bolts with two nuts as spacers on each bolt between the spring pan and wishbone. This will drop the front end about an inch, like this:

I've been doing spring removal/replacement using this method for years (no room to get spring compressors in there). Will add that to tighten/loosen the nuts on the allthread to compress/release the springs takes a lot of wrenching; I use a deep socket on an air ratchet to make this much easier.

Brakes? How much do you want to spend? Best would be four wheel discs. Steve G has done this with mostly Healey parts (except for the Toyota front calipers) With a V8 swap, I'd look at doing a rear end swap with traction lock and rear wheel discs. I think a Ford 8.8 is a popular swap and places like Currie can narrow to suit. You'd then have the big Ford discs out back. For the front end, you'd probably want BJ8 discs in front with Steve's Toyota calipers, but you'll need some Denis Welch Racing caliper mounts to pull it off. Or Ah Spares is now selling a 4 pot conversion: https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcf/showthread.php?101825-Brake-Caliper-Upgrade&highlight=brakes
PM me if you want to discuss it further and I can tell you what I "think" will work, but not having done it before, I'm hesitant to offer it as advice.

that seems simple enough but i still have a question. if i had the udo shock package on the front does this interfere with that or the mounting poings for the shock hardware? thanks for all the help and advice!!!

Take a look at Steve Thomton's install on his BJ7: https://www.stevesaustinhealey.com/...suspension-upgrades&catid=2:projects&Itemid=3

HealeyRick said:

Take a look at Steve Thomton's install on his BJ7: https://www.stevesaustinhealey.com/...suspension-upgrades&catid=2:projects&Itemid=3

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Good link to a good site!

Re his rear radius arms - keep in mind that under-spring radius arms require the use of a side exhaust.

I redid my rear suspension to incorporate BJ8 above-axle radius arms, which only works on a 2-seater.

Randy Forbes under-axle triangulated trailing arm seems like the easiest solution to rear axle windup. Maybe Randy will repost his picture.

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that Steve T has reconfigured his exhaust to rear exit with the radius arms still in place. I am sure that there is a picture of this in another thread somewhere.

BBH said:

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that Steve T has reconfigured his exhaust to rear exit with the radius arms still in place. I am sure that there is a picture of this in another thread somewhere.

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Think you're right - there's a picture of his exhaust with a couple of sharp right-angle bends IIRC.

talked to udo last night. i will likely order the front and rear shock conversion kit monday!!! anxious to receive and see the ride improvement. he suggested that i lower the front suspension by using i/2 inch spacers. i can lower more later if need be!!! thanks for all the help...

maxwedge5281 said:

talked to udo last night. i will likely order the front and rear shock conversion kit monday!!! anxious to receive and see the ride improvement. he suggested that i lower the front suspension by using i/2 inch spacers. i can lower more later if need be!!! thanks for all the help...

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I had mine lowered about an inch, but I finally got tired of the scraping. Speed bumps are a killer and in one case, driving at ~70 mph in the fast lane on an Interstate freeway, hitting a dip and scraping raised some concern.

I raised the front about 3/8 of an inch and it helps. Remember, the amount of lowering is about twice the thickness of the spacers.

with the sbc with aluminum heads the motor is considerably lighter than the stock six cylinder. as a result my front end is up quite a bit. just like to get to a more normal healey height and look. just got a new set of rear springs from jule enterprises to put on when i do the front and rear shock kits from udo......my rear springs are about shot and the car bottoms at times.....

i ordered the shock conversion kit today. anxious to get the new rear spring in place as well as the shock conversion kit. hopefully the combination of the two changes will greatly improve ride quality as well as handling over present suspension....thanks for all the input.