Well after what seems an eternity and after many requests I’ve finally accepted that try as I might, the guy, Peter, who installed my Fast Cars front end for me either can’t or won’t forward me the photos he took of the work in progress. Pity, because I’m otherwise extremely happy with the amount of thought and effort he put into this project and the quality of his work, but I really would have liked a photo of the original MGB front end sitting next to the new one at the start of proceedings, leading on to shots of “stuff happening”. Maybe he’ll get around to sending them at some time but for now I’ve just taken a few shots of the completed job.
So, to recap, the Fast Cars IFS is now in place, the brakes are working properly after a fair bit of trial and error with the balance bar and wondering if we needed to go to smaller or larger master cylinders (we didn’t), the front sway bar which initially looked like a snow plough and was easily the lowest point on the car has now been “flipped” and new mounting linkages made so that it’s now pointing up and out of the way, and most importantly the steering which was causing all sorts of grief is now working perfectly. While everything was apart a new alloy radiator went in because the old one was weeping terribly and had been repaired at least once before, so the decision to replace it was an easy one.
Here’s the sway bar upside-down and now well up out of the road.
The Fast Cars IFS was originally made for MGB and other British sports car V8 conversions. The Cobra version is basically the same only 2” wider. The IFS wouldn’t fit straight up into my car because the main chassis runners fouled it slightly. Question. To notch the chassis or the IFS? Answer. Take a very small piece out of each side of the IFS and up she goes. (Before you ask, this is one of the things I want to get clear photos of. Pete showed me where he had removed the material and said he’d be taking shots of it for me but now that it’s installed it’s not possible to show you properly.)
Solid brake lines are fabricated
and some lovely stainless flexible lines complete the job,
apart from the installation of a proportioning valve, supplied by Fast Cars, because the master cylinders are mounted under the floor and thus below the bleed nipples.
The brake assembly fits snugly into the original 15” wheels.
The master cylinder area presented problems of its own. There was an awful moment when I was taking the car for its first test run, and almost ran up the back of a little BMW, despite driving very cautiously and giving myself plenty of braking/stopping distance. The brakes were almost totally non-operational!!! After my heart rate returned to normal I became bloody annoyed. I remember thinking that we’ve just installed an IFS that’s about eighty pounds lighter than the old MGB unit, the ancient Girling system has been replaced by state of the art Wilwood callipers and vented discs, so with a lighter front end and far superior brakes, why the hell wasn’t the thing on point of lock-up instead of having next to no stopping power??!!! There were no leaks. We’d used the pads Fast Cars had supplied. Back up on the hoist, remove the cover over the master cylinders and there we find the balance bar is 1) loose! and 2) set so that what we figure is 80% of the braking effort is going to the back brakes! Pete then basically moved the balance bar as far to the left as it would go without fouling the clutch master cylinder and the problem was solved.
Here are the Arntz underfloor master cylinders. It's a two person job bleeding the brakes and a hoist is almost essential.
I then took the precaution of bedding in the brakes pretty thoroughly over a fifteen mile run which brought to light the biggest and most perplexing problem of the entire job….
I’m going from my far from reliable memory here and some day if I can get on to Pete again I’ll try to confirm what the procedure was but…. I remember driving the car for the first time out on the highway where I required it to behave like a normal car and basically point straight ahead unless asked to do otherwise. Up ‘til now I’d been taking it for short runs “around the block” with almost constant steering input. I’d noticed that it seemed much more direct than before but I hadn’t taken too much notice of it--in fact I’d thought it a good thing! On the first highway run the car would not steer straight and alarmingly it would not self-centre. It would say point left and then with very minimal steering correction it would go right, past centre, and keep going right. If I ever managed to get it pointing straight ahead momentarily and relax my grip on the wheel, it would almost instantly head off, either left or right, of its own accord. There was no steering feeling at dead ahead at all and the problem was exacerbated by its having a certain degree of “stiction” or binding at just either side of dead ahead.
The Fast Cars IFS steering rack comes with a universal attached to a very short shaft with a male spline. It is necessary to fabricate a joining piece of steering shaft with the correct (different at each end) splines to connect up with the middle universal joint. This is where my memory becomes hazy but after considering and then rejecting the idea that the rack itself could be binding, Pete deduced that it was the steering’s three universal joints that were binding due to their not being phased properly. He tried disconnecting the unis and refastening them in all manner of positions, depending on whose advice we were listening to at the time, until in the end he decided to replace the original, and sloppy, universal at the top of the shaft, ditch the intermediate one altogether, and have a new shaft made to run directly from the new uni at the top down to the uni on the steering rack. Thank goodness the Arntz motor is set so far back. The new direct-route steering shaft misses the front of the block by about two inches. The steering is now nicely weighted, the new rack comes with gearing that’s just right, and mercifully the car now points and self-centres beautifully!
I’d like to say that all of these little adventures are in no way attributable to the Fast Cars product. Ted Lathrop produces a first class IFS that has been proven over many years. It’s always a bit of a gamble dealing with somebody on the other side of the world, more so when their product is reasonably expensive and is so important to the efficient and safe running of your car – well I think that steering and braking are reasonably important! My son and I had done our homework on this product before deciding to go ahead with the purchase and Ted was most approachable and helpful in my initial inquiries. He kept me up to date with the progress of “my” IFS, commiserated with me when his work load caused a short delay and arranged prompt shipping when it was ready to go. I can thoroughly recommend Fast Cars and their product. Everything from disc to disc is included in the price. The unit arrived exactly as described and very firmly packaged. The only thing you have to sort out is the steering shaft and this obviously varies from car to car.
Finally here’s my good mate Scott (OzVenom) giving the Jag rear end some TLC while I play photographer up the front.
I’m sorry that this report will be found wanting by some of you. I’ll keep trying to get hold of those progress pics and if I do, they’ll be up here pronto together with any further useful technical information about the installation I can glean from Pete.