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Suspension setups

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blkcorvair

Jedi Knight
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Its bout time to start copnsidering springs for my Midg. Its a 76 Rubber Bumper with no bumpers, Fiberglass fenders, hood and deck. Gotta be shedding a couple hundred pounds. Gonna put it mostly on the track. Any ideas for front rear setups? I suppose back dating to early springs would be approprite to obtain the lowest ride height. Any ideas are welcomed.
 
I used 400 lb/inch springs with a spacer on the spring pan that is about 1"
(due to the geometry, this spacer drops the car more than 1").

I could have gone stiffer, but I found these springs a good compromise on my club racer, especially since I run mostly enduros with it. If you go with anything stiffer, your eyes and teeth will rattle out at Lime Rock and Summit Point. And it's not just the driver...super stiff springs are hard on the chassis too.

You can get these 400 lb/inch springs from Winners Circle, Minimania or Moss.

~HERE~ is the Moss link. It's part # 264-615 (scroll down)

I did some other stuff to my front suspension, which is listed ~HERE~ but a decent stock setup with clean oil in the front lever shocks is fine at first.
 
Thats too funny, I just got done reading your page befor I checked this page. Didnt know it was your. I may keep my fronts at first, They are in good shape, Moss offers some heavier valvling springs at a reasonable price. Ive got 1/2" spacers in the front now. With that and those 400lbs springs I may be just where I wanted to. Although I think Ill run those front lever shocks I want to ditch the rear ones. Didnt you have a post in the past of what you did to the back of your car? I also like the trianulation you did on the front end. Very good idea.
 
Yeah, I see stuff all the time on the internet and then I realize I know the person. Funny how that works.

We have five Miatas at work and we all park together. One of the other guys wanted to get a stainless steel mesh grill for his Miata so he Googled "stainless steel grill" and it went to my Spridget page (the race car has a stainless steel mesh grill).

Anyway, on the rear I used the same Monroe shocks with the upper cover trimmed off. The rear lever shock attaches (by a link bar) to the leaf spring clamping plate (the big U-bolts go through this plate). Flip the plate upside down and attach the lower mounting hole of the tube shock to it. The upper shock mount can go through the upper mount for the axle strap (you can delete the strap or reposition it). With the ride height lowered about 3", you still have plenty of shock travle left (in other words, the shocks won't exceed their travel limit).
By the way, I added two extra leaf springs to the rear. Normally this would raise the rear, but I "re-arched" each leaf spring. I did this by cold-hammering on an "anvil" to flatten them out. The "anvil" was an old 1500 engine block with a hole in the side of it. I ground the top of the block so there was no sharp edges and I hammered it over an open cylinder bore to change the arc. I did matching ones from each side and kept eyeing them up...primitive, but worked well.
Cheap and a good excuse to do in a six-pack.
 
I like that. I would have thought the RB springs w/o the RB would be way stiff enough. But I like your custom mods. Very MacGuyvor like...
 
I get the same thing from all my friends. Seems I too usually fabricate some pretty interesting stuff. I guess that's why I find all you mods so neat.
 
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