My next concern was the lightness of the steering. It felt so light that when going down the highway, it took a bit of concentration not to move t he wheel which was very sensitive. A small steering input at speed gave the feeling that disastrous results were imminent. I thought this was a good time to try to tighten up the steering.
I have recently rebuilt the rack from (lightly) used Spitfire parts. The manual gives a procedure for getting the proper stack of shims under the cap nut to give the correct resistance for turning the pinion. Then they give the spec for how much turning resistance you want (2# on an 8" arm on the pinion). In my case, doing the first did not give me the resistance I was supposed to want. In the end, I think I went with the resistance regardless of the shims required.
Last night, I fooled around with shims to get more resistance. In the morning, I went to the local MG club breakfast and found that the steering was way too stiff. I reshuffled the shims to get to the next taller increment in shim height to loosen it a bit. I can't be sure, but I suspect that I'm back where I was after I rebuilt the rack but I'm not positive. While I did that, I gave the front shocks one more click (F: 5 clicks, R: 3 clicks).
The result was more improvement in all aspects. My speed and comfort in a twisty section were increased. Highway driving at 80 mph or more was a bit more stable. The surprising thing is that the steering seemed to be a little heavier also. The steering was less nervous and twitchy. I should also say that on normal roads, the stiffness in the suspension is noticeable but not bad at all. As you might bumps that are a "problem" are starting to get smaller. Also as I say, I can't be sure my changes to the shims under the rack cap nut but this effort really began when I read some posts on the yahoo group that cured their highway stability issues on their car with stiffer springs by stiffening the shocks so I don't discount it.
Future plans: There are some alignment issues I may address soon. Pfreen's earlier post saying he runs 0 camber in the front intrigued me. Clifton and I have been discussing things via email and his front has less camber than mine but more than Pfreen's. I'll probably try splitting the difference. As JB said, it's likely that I have a bent passenger side upright. I wouldn't dispute that (and I haven't gotten around to asking the shop that did my alignment if their rack measures included angle) but one of the benefits of having the car since new is that you know the history and while there was a hit on the driver's side front, there was never anything on the passenger side front so it seems unlikely. I wonder if I could possibly have the uprights switched and the original driver's side upright is now on the passenger side. In the mean time, I may see if I can get more caster on the passenger side without replacing the upright. At some point, I will go back to lower tire pressures but more immediately, I will experiment more with stiffening the shocks. I'm thinking my strategy might be to stiffen the front till I get some understeer (or it's just too stiff) and then I might experiment with the relative stiffness between the front and rear as well as the absolute stiffness. Another thing I'll be doing is setting less toe-in for the rear.
Don't touch that dial!
