Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Hi guys,
Pictures will be coming soon.

Intrigued about the 'teg manifold.

Interesting mods - pics would be good (via Flickr or similar).

The ARB bushes and new dampers should help you with steering response but won't change the amount of handwheel angle you need - to do that you'd need to change the steering ratio by fitting a different steering rack. All R8 PAS racks have the same ratio and this is shared with R3. The later R3s have a different valve arrangement and reduced rack travel to allow bigger tyres to be fitted on the MG ZS versions. The 'valve under' design of the R8 steering rack makes fitting any different racks very difficult, if not impossible. The ZS gear is probably your best bet but that would need to go in with the matching ZS rear subframe which was designed purely to fit with Rover engines and so would need careful modification to fit the rear engine mount and PAS pipe runs.

Another small change worth considering is to fit the slightest shorter front suspension tiebars from the R3 along with polybushes where the attach to the front subframe. This increases the castor angle slightly, adding a little extra weight to the steering. Remember to get the wheel alignment reset after you do this.

BurtonM
The Teg manifold is 4-2-1 similar to 416gti but has air sensor hole threaded into it.
https://flic.kr/p/2hhGEDN

Clearer in this pic:
https://flic.kr/p/2hhGvAs

I intend to try swapping over the front wishbones

It's only the forward-facing tie bars that need changing to affect the caster as the bushes in the lower arm and the lower balljoints just take up the little bit of twist.

If your lower arms are worse for wear it would be worth changing them at the same time though.

Thank you, I was told that the top wishbones on all Rover 400s had them fitted contra their markings. ie the wishbone marked as L was fitted to the RHS and visa versa.

The Origina lNom wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 1:57 pm Thank you, I was told that the top wishbones on all Rover 400s had them fitted contra their markings. ie the wishbone marked as L was fitted to the RHS and visa versa.

The R8 400 is a Macpherson strut front suspension. The latter HH-R 400 has double wishbones at the front and I think the clever chassis chaps reversed the fitment of the upper wishbones as you say, on the MG variants to get more castor angle. Of course that's then a nice little upgrade you can do on an other HH-R.

Update: The ZS120 front springs may made the front sit too high with my 16 inch Hairpins and 50 profile Falkens and still bottomed out under braking. I am using Spax S032002 rear lowering springs and the rear sits very low indeed.
I think ZS180 springs will be the way forward.

Fitted length and rate are the 2 main variables for a spring. A spring is too short if its fitted length is shorter than needed to cope with full suspension travel as it can become loose. You'd have spotted this when you put the strut assy together.

Indeed, the ZS120 spring was only just under tension when fitted to the new shock. I think it makes the body sit 40mm over the tyre which is too much.