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T-GRRR's Tale
Suspension Upgrade

The Tiger's front suspension is an old design and when modified by Shelby to make room for the Ford V-8 it became a compromise in handling and function.

The original Sunbeam Tiger front suspension has had issues since it's initial production, notably the awful reverse Ackerman angle as well as the bump steer due to the steering rack's location. When the Tiger was built, an Alpine front crossmember served as the basis and parts were simply modified or added during the car's limited production. Over the years, people have sought improvement, but usually a major change involved extensive modification of the car and not many people were willing to sacrifice the parts due to the rarity and value of the car and components involved.

A few years ago, my son Mike and I began seeking the possibility of utilizing a different front suspension or components, but gradually came to the realization that those pieces wouldn't provide the geometry we were searching for or wouldn't fit the car due to it's small, narrow stature. So we set out to fabricate our own scratch-built suspension utilizing off the shelf components that are readily available and offer adjustability. We wanted adjustable ride height, caster, camber and toe. Having previously adapted larger brakes to my car, I wanted to incorporate this improvement as well.

Early in 2006 we started working on the task involving the replacement of the complete existing Sunbeam suspension using my larger vented front rotors and multi-piston calipers and adding adjustable coil-over shocks with tubular control arms. The main objective was to improve the poor Sunbeam steering geometry and provide updated braking technology within a unit that's fully adjustable. The entire front suspension could be installed in a car providing a complete replacement with no permanent modifications.
A Ford 302 shortblock was positioned using Tiger motor mounts in Mike's Alpine to simulate the engine's location. A jig was placed under the car locating the spindles along with the new crossmember which had been partially fabricated with the steering rack mounted in place. The unit was removed from the Alpine and a trip made to install it in my Tiger to ensure sufficient clearance around the oil pan, crank and headers. After doing further research, we continued with the fabrication and installed the completed unit in the Tiger in late May. Different fixtures were made to enable quick and simple upper and lower control arm fabrication, and they allow different track widths due to wheel offset.

New and Old Crossmembers.jpg

The new complete unit is pictured next to a stock Tiger crossmember and steering rack assembly just prior to installation. You can easily see the steering rack re-location as well as the position of the upper and lower control arms. The rack in this particular unit was moved 5-3/8" rearward of the original's location, just under the crank in front of the oil pan.

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The binding due to severe angles is gone and the new suspension has the control arms positioned 90 degrees to the centerline of the car. When fully loaded, the new unit has the upper and lower control arms parallel to the ground as well as the steering arms

tsusp1.jpg

After installation, a few minor adjustments were made and the steering shaft was fabricated using Sweet Mfg. U-joints. We decided on the initial alignment settings and took the car for it's first test run on June 1st. The turning capabilities are simply amazing. The suspension doesn't have the reverse Ackerman steering issues that have plagued the Tiger and the turning radius is substantially reduced. Since the car was fitted with adjustable shocks and control arms we made a few alignment and ride-height changes and put some more miles on the car over the next few days with good results. Bump steer appears to be gone and the car handles nicely and is very predictable. We'll do some more road tests as well as run an autocross to really push the unit and see how it performs. It seems the performance upgrades were well worth it, not to mention dropping 45 lbs. from the front of the car.

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