my dampers are nos girling with ~415mm centres so this will take it to the equivalent of 390mm which is fine for the rack and tre's and will be a lot better for the wishbone balljoints too. I know its not original and will need the farb block spacing forward by the same thickness as the front plate (4mm), lower damper sleeves shortening 4mm etc but I would rather not have the ends snap off the trackrods. its completely reversible. Obviously the proper solution to the problem is to have correct length dampers, Im definitely not advising anyone to do this modification.
**** having just fitted them, the damper to wishbone bolt head clearance is tighter than I'd measured and its not possible to shorten the lower damper sleeve.
Andy
ps Thanks to everyone for posting really useful stuff here, I know nothing about e types so its great to have all this information available.
