What are the thoughts concerning the placement of the steering arm on the front upright; top biased, in line with the axle, or bottom biased? Which is best, orientated to the front of the car, or rearward? Thanks John

None of those factors matters if taken on it's own, it is the interaction between the steering arm and the track-rod which matters.

All of the above will be dictated by where you can place your steering rack and the resultant angles of the track rods created by the rack placement.

An impossible question to answer without more details I'm afraid.

[Edited on 17/5/05 by NS Dev]

When you say steering arms, do you mean the track rods (the ends of the steering rack)?
Using an Escort rack and Cortina hubs, the track rod ends should be bolted underneath the steering arm (which is part of the upright) and the rack should be forwards of the front axle line so the steering arms face forwards.
You could probably change the track rods to mounts on top of the steering arm if you found it gave you better bump steer etc although if some calculations a friend did are correct, it would make it worse on top. As far as I know you couldnt change the uprights to point the arms backwards though (at least not with radically different geometry in the wishbones) because the castor / KPI would all go awry.

Chris

[Edited on 17/5/05 by ChrisGamlin]

Perhaps I wasn’t quite clear; I’m either going to weld up the front uprights, or have them cast. My question concerns the arms attached to the uprights. I will be using Spitfire axles although I don’t think much of the convoluted way in which Triumph attached the suspension linkages and also have some reservations about the frailty of the axles, but do like the idea of pressing in rather than welding. So, as I can make the uprights to about any configuration that will fit inside the wheels which would be the best way forward ?

as long as you can position the steering rack somwhere where you end up with the correct steering geometry (ackerman, bump steer etc) then it doesn't matter where the steering arns go.

To be honest, if you need to ask this, are you doing the right thing making your own uprights? I know that sounds critical, but there is a lot more to it than just the steering arm position!

I'd have to agree with you there.
Have you looked at Triumph Herald uprights for comparison with the Spitfire ones? They are used on lots of club race cars (clubmans cars etc) as well as Caterhams. If the Spitfire ones are the same / similar then Id say there's not a lot to worry about with using them standard.

[Edited on 17/5/05 by ChrisGamlin]