techead wrote: Before you go to a lot of work and expense. You might want to experiment with the tire pressure on the front wheels.
A long time ago I owned a Hillman imp. I put all the tyres at 36psi and the drive was worse than frightening. It was twitchy in a straight line and if you tried to turn at any speed over a slow walk it was like driving on ice. A neighbour who was involved with building the cars spotted the problem. I had no manual or anything for the car as it was old when I got it. He let the front tyres down to about 14psi, doing this from memory it might have been a bit more, the car was brilliant after the change. It was like driving a go cart, straight line was perfect and any corner at any speed was a possibility. I don't think I spun or oversteered again.
Research showed that the car had almost no weight at the front and that the tyres would not flex properly when pushed. At the low pressure the tyre didn't look soft but had enough give to perform better all round.
It is a cheap and easy check to see if you have a similar issue. Let the front tyres down a few pounds at a time and see what the handling is like. As I have said the old Hillman was almost undrivable, then became one of the most planted cars I have driven.
Thank you, if you look at my avatar that was my last kit, mid-engined 1.8 K series in a 475Kg frame, I used to run 18 psi rear & 12 psi front, but even with that it needed 1 degree of negative camber to get front grip, on standard Mini arms it was 2 degrees positive & a handful, but I do take your point on Imps having had a Stiletto.
I was sort of hoping somebody had found another bottom balljoint that was a bit longer in the bracket to throw the bottom out a bit, or swapping the bottom arms out for MGF ones or something simple of that nature.
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