Funny you should start on this subject again, Johnny, Alberto and I, had a little session earlier this week, developing an idea I had some time ago. I don't like the "Watsons" idea for a Midas! Not that there is anything wrong with the springing, but I don't like the idea of attaching the shock absorber to the underside of a fiberglass wing. So what we did the other night was make a cardboard template with the same dimensions as the attached drawing. I've sent away the drawing to have four brackets made. Which will take two or three weeks!
The idea being, to have a coilover attached to the top suspension arm, then incline it under the wing box section and attach the other end of the coilover to these brackets, which are fitted and welded inside the hydro gas tower. So it is simply an inclined coilover, which takes its load from the top arm and transfers all of the loading into the hydro gas mounts on the subframe, which in my opinion is where it should go, with no fiberglass contact. I've not put any holes in the bracket as yet, because we don't know what length coilover we are going to use, but it looks like we can get away with a standard 13" coilover (330mm), which would give us lots of travel if needed!
I have thought about putting a bell crank pivoted on the hydro gas towers, with an inboard horizontal coilover, but the idea doesn't work very well with an A-series engine, as there is an engine mount in the way!
I'm away in Scotland tomorrow doing my chambermaid thing (
http://www.scotlandchalet.com ). (Let the photos on the front page scroll through, you just may see a Midas!) But I will rig the cardboard template up on Monday and add some photographs, so you can see where we are going.
Just an after thought, ( Sorry off topic). Johnny and I are working on another project, i.e fitting Mazda Eunos (MX5) seats in the Mk 3 convertible. Rich can you make us some spacers in that hard plastic stuff you use!(plastic is far too modern for me!). We've altered the runners and I've got some spreader plates being cut. The gimmick in using Eunos seats, is that they have speakers in the headrests! Handy in a noisy convertible
Alan
- Coilover bracket A-series.jpg (156.33 KiB) Viewed 8579 times