240 General: New 240 suspension/engine advice

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

All good advice Dave, but I think this has been a thinking aloud exercise for Olly. He is just acquired an interesting car and is floating ideas about what he should do with it. From what he has told us, it would seem he does not have the cash to do any serious modifications, so the 250HP bit is just a pipe dream.

I think it is marvellous that a young chap (which I assume he is) at university likes the same motor cars as us old fogeys, and has taken the time to join this forum and float a few ideas (even if they sink quickly). I hope we will hear from Olly for years to come and that his 244DL becomes a fixture on our forum.

That was a very good point about not cutting suspension coils!

Alan

That was the impression i got Alan, floating ideas, looking for feedback on them and also others. My aim was to provide food for thought really, the 240 is quite an adaptable body shell so will take a wide variety of engines relatively easily. It was engineered to accept the PRV V6 which is a 90 degree Vee so will easily accept V8 engines but that said, it will also take the B230FT is he wants an all-out screamer-turbo jobby.

The worrying thing here is nobody (including me although i deliberately omitted it earlier) has mentioned brakes! Add extra grunt and extra brakes will be needed.

The other thing i didn't mention is fitting stiffer springs isn't all it's cracked up to be especially on a limited budget. Usually if you have to wait a long time to do something like that, by the time you can afford to do it, your body no longer appreciates the gesture!

Also coil-overs, unless the car was orignally designed and fitted with them only really serve a useful purpose for track days to alter the ride height, rates and damping. I know someone who fitted a set of Koni front dampers and coil-overs on a Rover 800 which in fairness isn't that far removed from the original Chapman Strut, even on the softest setting (softer than the OE springs) the ride was crashy and harsh - in his words he "ruined it".
Fairly sure he said they were Koni, might have been Gaz thinking about it.

Also Tom down in the west country with his 740 hearse project has removed the coil-overs and found the ride is vastly improved.