Healey Sports Cars

Hi guys and gals just picked up a 1954 Austin Healey I am new to the European car thing I have always had American muscle cars . It is a 1954 an I believe this car is a 100Z it is a little coupe Not up on the abbreviations on these yet. it has a small block Chevy 283 mated to a muncie 4 speed with what look like a 55 56 56 Chevy open rear diff.
It needs lots of attention in its current state.

One of the first things I would like to tackle is the front brake up grade to disc It has stock drums on the front right now ,I have been checking out the photo gallery and doing some research on what is a simple and good disc upgrade,and I figure I would get some opinions I am not going to be racing this car just want a nice reliable fun driver that is safe.

I would also like to update to a rack and pinion steering system any opinions on this I have seen everything from Mustang II to MGA to Mazda what are the pros and cons, The mustang appears easiest and plentiful here in the states.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and I will post pics as soon as possible
Thanks Andy

Does it look like this??

Andy, sounds like a nice project, would love to see some photos. As for the front, the Healey like most British cars is very narrow compared to most American cars so steering racks for such as the Mustang tend to be too wide to get good bump steer characteristics when used on a British chassis. I'd stick with the MGB rack and pinion unit. These have been used in lots of kit cars and work fine. If you have wire wheels and want to keep them your choice of front brakes and spindles will be a bit more limited. From looking at the VB catalog it looks like the front design is similar to that used on the MGB so perhaps you could adapt MGB kingpin assemblies to the Healey lower arms and shocks and get disc brakes as well as keep the wire wheel hubs. Those would also work well with the steering rack.
The correct hubs for converting your drum brake car to discs are hard to find and you'd probably have to have a machine shop actually create some for you and you'd still have the steering set up for the worm and sector box.
If you have bolt on wheels then I'd suggest adapting MGB uprights and using a hub kit from Bill Guzman at CCE to convert to a 5 lug pattern. One plus of using the MGB components is that they have been used on a lot of kit cars for years and there are lots of upgrades such as bigger brakes etc made for them.
Hope this information helps.

Hi all, I realize this post is old but I have a 55 100/4 with a SBC in it and was wanting to do away with the knock offs and update to disc brakes and rack in pinion steering.....what year MGB parts are usually used? Am assuming the spindles can be used also. Thanks for any help.

Phil