Racey steering racks

[edo]

Who makes steering racks for race cars? Not for formula cars with 1/2 a turn lock to lock but for bargey sedany things, sort of 2 1/2 turns lock to lock ish?

[hamish]

These guys ? http://www.woodwardsteering.com/hot.htm

[edo]

Fark, how nice are they...its a bugger they cant be seen.

[Wobbler]

Damn those are nice, have you decided if you are leaving the rack or moving it?
What about the quickrack from http://www.palmside.co.nz/parts_ford.htm ?

[edo]

Im going to move it, but now Ive seen pics of a factory Perana & I can tell from photos what theyve done...& that it would produce bumpsteer to rediculous levels. Amazing really.
So Im going to get another rack & mount it on custom mounts at the rear of the crossmember (actually the front but it will be spun around) in the right spot...or at least somewhere near it.

[coyote]

There's a suspension shop in Melbourne, can't recall their name. They do a lot of motorsport setups and I've been told in the past they have excellent customer service. I've been in a 200SX and TypeR they did and they have supposedly just got the BA Falcon sorted.

Worth a try?

[Nero]

is there not a range of ford racks that will fit?

[edo]

Tony, Im going to respond to that as it deserves to be responded to...

Nero, probably, I just want a manual rack with a reasonably quick ratio. Btw, now Ive seen those ones above, I just want one of them (yes, I am hopeless)

[bahaimus]

The rack in our Ford Fiesta is 2.8 turns. Does that help? I didn't think so.

[edo]

The only thing that matters now is that it looks like this!

[coyote]

Clayton,

I'll bring the blue paint if you can arrange the red.

[bahaimus]

Clayton,

I'll bring the blue paint if you can arrange the red.

We can do that Tone, but how will Catherine steer?

[edo]

Yeah, she is going to hate you both when you pull out her steering rack, paint it so its pretty to my liking & I stick it in my car. I will of course let her know that I discouraged such silliness & will not be disliked.

[bahaimus]

Yeah, she is going to hate you both when you pull out her steering rack, paint it so its pretty to my liking & I stick it in my car. I will of course let her know that I discouraged such silliness & will not be disliked.

She won't believe you and you are already disliked

In fact I can probably blame you partly for the new bike.......

[edo]

You probably already did...

Oh, all this talk about racks must have you thinking about someone youre not supposed to

[bahaimus]

Hehehehehe

[roastbeef]

check out the pilbeamracing rack as well.

http://www.pilbeamracing.co.uk/index2.html

[Nero]

there is a co in UK that does quick racks 2.2 turns L/L I think...were in the D-T catalog

[BT]

I'm sorry, but the Woodward rack is like porn for race cars. Buy it. But it now. Buy two and give me one.

[John]

Edo,

What exactly are you looking for?

2.5 turns lock to lock, well most aussie power steering gears are around this.

What car is it for? Manual or power? Are you wanting just a rack and pinion, or a complete gear?

What is your budget?

I do this for a living........

J

[bigmuz]

What about one of those dirt speedway ratio doublers- they are the shit!

Muz

[oneday]

dunno if this sounds dodgey, but what about just lengthing your steering knuckles? then steering will be lighter too.

[edo]

John, It is a mk1 Capri that I am building as a tarmac rally car, as a capri Perana (ie with a 302w & toploader). Part of the change from Capri to Perana back in the day was to move the rack from in front of the cross member to behind. So I need a new rack. What they did back in the day (as far as I can tell) was used a lhd capri rack & flipped it over. They also made a balls up of the mounting, by running all sorts of bizzare angles that just has to result in bump steer.
I'll be fabricating new mounts so as to not be quite as stupid.

Can you simply unplug & block the lines for a power rack though?

I really just want something reasonably quick steering, but obviously it cant be so heavy that I'll need 2 years of gym

[HoonBoy]

Can you simply unplug & block the lines for a power rack though?

I really just want something reasonably quick steering, but obviously it cant be so heavy that I'll need 2 years of gym

You can loop the two lines of the power steering pump and fill it with fluid, that way you don't end up with it running dry and killing itself.

Depending on where it came from, it may heavy at low speeds, but I don't think that will be much of an issue. It shouldn't be any different to a manual setup to drive, but will be physically heavier due to the extra components (ie weigh more).

[Passion-Fingers]

What about an FC rx7 rack(powersteering)?
I made mine manual by looping the lines together, wasn't hard at all even in a lard ass S4.
Relativly low turns to lock, 2.5 sounds about right and (now I know nothing about this sort of crap) looks to me like it'd be easy to transplant into another vehicle..

[edo]

Yep, that might work, as might many production racks. That just depends on lengths of the various bits. I think a purpose built manual one must be better though, just because its doing what its designed to do.
Plus I really like those red & blue ones

[John]

Edo,

Power ones are 2.5 TLTL simply because they can be, ie with power assist you can run a much higher ratio. Manual gears are typically 3 -3.5 TLTL ie lower ratio so they can get the mechanical advantage.

I've heard of people looping the lines, but it's very backyardish.

Because you will still by trying to move the piston back and forth in the housing, you'll still be twisting the torsion bar, you'll still be opening and shutting the spool valve which will all be adding resistance even with no oil in the system. Steering feel would be crap. The overall effort required will of course be these effects added to the general steering geometry and the weight over the front axle.

Don't underestimate the cost of getting anything custom made when it comes to steering gears. If you want to change the steering ratio, you can only change the length of the steering arms, or the gear ratio, which means a new rack and a new pinion. Expect to pay minimum of $5000 grand for these, I'm not kidding. It's simply out of the question for most poeple. Your only option of getting something else to work is from another car, or buying these nice pretty things from Woodward. However, I will gaurantee they won't be nice to drive on the street. Hydraulic valving for power steering systems is extremely complex, so what they are doing is taking something standard and adopting it for all their products. Means a massive compromise. They'll be designed to offer bags of assist over a wide range of loadings, and been american I dare say they'll be completely overassisted. But I reckon they are actually quite cheap.

One of the VL manual gears (it was an option back then) runs a Variable ratio gear, and I reckon these are definitely the go for a project car, assuming you can get them to work. It offers the best of both worlds, ie good steering feel because it's manual, and a power assist type steering effort.

Otherwise, I'd by trying to start with at least a manual Capri gear, and trying to get it to work. A manual gear will always always be a nicer thing to drive than an older power steering gear in terms of steering feel, so this is where I'd be starting out. And trying to get an old capri manual gear to work will be far better than blocking off teh lines of their power gear.

J

[Passion-Fingers]

Edo,
I've heard of people looping the lines, but it's very backyardish.

Indeed but it works.

Steering feel would be crap. The overall effort required will of course be these effects added to the general steering geometry and the weight over the front axle.

1) Steering feel improved for my case dramatically over the power assisted setup.
2) When I did this to my FC it felt only as hard as any other non power-assisted steering when stationary. Once moving I honestly couldn't feel any difference to any other non power assisted car.

But meh I'm just ranting, edo doesn't want a mazda rack in his capri I like your thinking though, go for the red and blue.

[John]

Steering feel is not the same as steering effort. Drive a late model porsche and then jump in a late model Merc and you will pick the difference.

I agree your steering feel may have improved over your power system, but it would still be crap compared to a proper manual system due to the amount of hysteresis and inertia in the system.

But I agree you can get used to anything. I ran about 6 deg castor on my old car, together with a few degrees of neg camber. It was a pig to steer at low speed, but I was happy enough with it and drove like that for years. It's not until you drive a proper system that you know what you are missing.

J

[Passion-Fingers]

I don't think I need to drive either a late model porka or merc to distinguish between streering feel and effort..

I took my rx-7 around the hidden valley circuit a fair few times and I could not complain about the steering one bit after I manulised it. I'm sure if I bought a red and blue anodised rack it would have been far better than my ghetto rig'd one but really I dont think I could have picked much of a difference.

I've driven a few manual rack cars aswell, albeit not as 'racey'(and yes im using that term very loosly..) as an rx-7 but I think the tradeoff of less turns to lock in my manualised p/s rack was well worth it.