[ChrisL]

Chris,
Here are some conclusions I've made in my investigations, and I am not at all claiming to have any qualifications in this area at all, but I feel I can analyze things well enough to satisfy my own curiosity.

The "all wrong" comment is both true and false. All wrong, yes, by modern Formula Ford theories and for that matter all modern open wheelers. They use the reverse characteristics of the earlier race cars. Specifically, modern open wheelers are designed to be unstable under braking and stable through corners (see my next post), whereas the early race cars are designed for stability into corners and instability out. I guess time has shown that the modern way is better, but that does not make the old way bad by any means. The handling of my RF consequently is good at track speeds, as well as road speeds.

I'll briefly gloss over what I have done to the front suspension in this post and then post another larger one for the more complex rear.

Firstly, I have found that the steering is very sharp at the wheels. However, this did not translate to sharpness at the steering wheel. The reason for this was average quality rose joints at the suspension arms and the shockers. There was enough play there to allow the front wheels to minutely steer on their own and this was then amplified by the sharpness of the steering. I found I was constantly compensating for the self-steer and needed to concentrate to keep it going straight. Once I removed ALL play by both upgrading the rose joints AND eliminating play between the retaining bolt and the rose-joints, I noticed an immediate improvement.
Secondly, (for high speeds) I ensured that there was minimum air getting under the car by removing grill-mounted number plates and angling the small nose-to-radiator panel upwards, and finally by ensuring that the floor of the car was slightly higher at the back.
Thirdly, since the front has so much more grip than the rear, I stiffened the front shock absorbers to 3 notches from full and the rear to 7 notches. This didn't improve the handling through the corner but it did make it more predictable to the initial approach.

That’s basically it for the front. No massive camber or castor change and no spring or shock replacements.