Quote:
.....Even a Sprint is okay on 140lb springs as long as the shocks and bushes arent too tired......
I'd have to agree with that. Don't forget that the Dolomite is, especially by modern standards, a very light car. So if you fit springs so hard that the rear
doesn't droop when you've a full complement of passengers, the ride will be atrocious when you're one-up.
I've 190Lb springs up front, 140ish ones at the blunt end and that, for me, is a great compromise since it all but prevents dive under hard braking, all but eliminates the body roll that can threaten to roll those 155s off their rims yet is still comfortable for the odd rear seat passenger.
Exhaustive testing (on a privately-owned old airfield and not on the public highway of course...) has shown that those stiff ones up front don't make the car any less predictable, on the contrary, they actually serve to reduce the severity with which oversteer arrives at the limit. It's still possible to get all four wheels slithering sideways simultaneously, and other alliterative bull, but the last time I drove one with hard (175Lb ISTR) back springs, it was most unpleasant as the whole car pitched violently on anything but the smoothest road surfaces. I believe that a slightly softer rear end serves to reduce this pitching, since the front and rear tend to bounce at varying frequencies rather than in harmony which would be carsick territory.
So the rear droops when you've rear passengers? That's fine as long as it doesn't ride along on the bump stops. With a car full of Human Beings, you wouldn't expect it to handle at its best in any case.
Fit standard rate rear springs, go as mad as you like up front. Works for me!