Front suspension

When I bought the car, its shock absorbers were in reasonable condition. A squirt of oil every couple of weeks and the damping was fine again. However, it started to get worse. And as I grew accustomed to the ride and power of the GT V8 I was looking for different solutions for damping, ride & handling.

The MGOC bulletin board showed that there were all kinds of alternatives for the front (and rear) suspension. From reconditioned levers through to Koni kits, culminating in fully adjustable front coil over kits and independent rear for the rear using Ford Sierra components. But Roger Parkers word again came to mind: I realized that the perspective from which I was looking was incorrect. How could I ever know if lever arms were "wrong", if I did not try a good set at first? After all, it is only 25 years ago that MG dumped this solution, but I never drove a car that was setup well, with good components to original spec.

Another thing is that the lever arm setup is raced at high speeds in the MG competition. So I called David Vale (V8 Conversions), one of the people who developed the MG V8 back in the early seventies. His advice was short: see that you get some brand-new lever arms. The reasoning behind it was clear. The lever arms have been around more than 25 years at least. So a reconditioned item in the UK or in Holland has been around for that time as well. How long do you believe that reconditioning is possible? And how much can be done for only a few pounds?

As in a lot of cases, I called for a second opinion. This time to Doug Smith (MG Motorsport). Doug races MG B's and C's on all kinds of races. And wins a lot. I thought that if anyone should know how to get the best from the B, he would be the one. So what's his advice?

The third thing I considered is that Paul Wiley drives around with the setup Doug recommends, though at the rear it is slightly different, with panhard rod and traction control arms. Paul's car is equipped with a massive 4.6 pumping out close to 300 bhp, with torque to match. Surely if his car is doing alright, my car should be fine as well with a close-to-standard setup?

I made the decision to stick to Doug's recommendations. The look would be perfectly standard, but handling would improve. A positive point is that all parts were available; no exotic setups. So let's see what I needed and what the cost would be:

Yes, a lot of money, but I take small steps at a time. First I removed the old lever arms and bolted on the new ones. Mmmm...what a good ride! Of course I also replaced the trunnion bushes. The ride felt very compliant, yet very surefooted. Could this really get better? Would I really need uprated valves, different springs, neg camber? I doubted it.

But okay, at a day here in town where we - the member of a local oldtimerclub - can tinker around with our own car, I replaced the wishbone arms and bushes by the neg camber arms. So now I had -1,27 degrees of camber instead of -0,02. I also used Superflexes for the anti roll bar, together with new droplinks from the anti roll bar to the wishbone arms.

The result? ...incredible! The steering is light, but weighs out beautifully as cornering speeds get higher. It is not like powersteering, but it is very sensitive. On the straight it is not noticeable, but in corners the car starts to hang on its outer tire. This tendency has increased when I dropped the rear anti roll bar (the one from the Hopkinson kit). The removal of the rear anti roll bar was a very good move. The rear does not want snap out anymore "on demand". The rear wheels stay on the tarmac and just keep on gripping. At the moment the limits of the car exceed my own daring. Only on wet tarmac and a quiet highway junction or a quiet roundabout do I try what happens. But I really have to push to unstick the rear.

I can now see where the stiffer springs and uprated valves come in. If the car hangs on the outer tire, the stiffer springs and valves will counteract. So the effect is that the force will be on the outer wheels, but the force is not strong enough to lift the inner wheel. So it will again push the envelope. Though it is already far beyond what I ever expected from this old technology.

As for tires: I use Vredestein Pro Trac Si 185x70 R 14 H on the original wheels. From MGOC members I heard that Bridgestone makes very good tires, as does Goodyear (Eagle). A recent test from a consumer magazine had "best buys" for Nokian NRH 2 and Michelin Energy E3A. I don't know if the results can be applied straightforward on a 30 year old MG B just like that; the tests are done with new cars.

The items I've replaced are sold by the following people:

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