Chassis
Chassis
Starting from the ground up, the Cooper Healey chassis is fabricated in the Cooper’s business workshop and is predominantly made up from 75x75 mm square 3 mm-thick mild steel tubing, which is powder coated when complete.
The BMW’s front strut casing and hub are modified and located by upper and lower control arms that were designed and fabricated in-house. Adapter plates are fitted to the hubs to allow for fitment of centre-lock wheels.
The wheelbase is the same as the original Healey although the universal joints of the 325i’s prop-shaft are modified and the drive-shafts are each shortened by 35 mm and strengthened. GAZ three-way adjustable coil-over shock absorbers, imported from the UK, are fitted up front.
The front anti-roll bar is also an in-house design and is made from 16 mm EN19 tempered steel. The BMW’s rear suspension is adopted as is, save for some re-tempering of the (usually tired) springs to ensure the desired ride height is achieved.
The BMW’s pedal box assembly is adapted to fit and a Ford Cortina steering rack is employed.
A 50-mm diameter stainless steel exhaust system has been designed to tuck into the chassis and ends with twin 40-mm diameter tail pipes to replicate the original Healey’s outlets. A custom, coated-steel 50-litre baffled fuel tank is used with a VDO sender unit.