Manual Steering: Ok for a DD?

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Active Member
Aug 16, 2004
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So I had a couple tires put on the car yesterday and they told me I needed inner and outer tire rods. Now my rack has a really bad dead spot, my power steering pump is starting to whne and the fluid has always been black with metal in it (I have run at least a dozen quarts of flid through this over the years) stays the same.

So since I am looking at either an entire rack, PS pump, etc. I was really thinking manual steering to clean up the engine bay a little as well. Who has actually done flaming river conversion and how bad is it to live with every day? I live in the country not the city so that should help a lot (not many slow speed turns).

Also what P/N kit from flaming river would I need?
 
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Most people who do it use it for drag racing. It's ok when you have skinny tires up front, but if you have wide tires up front, it's very hard to turn. If you get the flaming river setup, you also have to get the stronger steering shaft. It's going to run you about $400. A factory replacement rack is pretty cheap. Don't bother just changing the inner tie rod ends. Once you pay for those, you might as well have just gotten a whole new rack. Something to consider on the outer tie rod ends regardless of which rack you get. When you replace the outer tie rod ends, consider getting a bump steer kit. It makes alignment adjustments easier. It's about $40 more than just changing the outer tie rod ends.

Kurt
 
Yeah, it's pretty bad. I think it might be one of those things that would sway you against driving the car as often as you would like too. Unless it's your daily, which is going to make you not want to drive at all. When you go to 275 tires up front, you can feel it get harder even with power steering up front.

Kurt
 
My power steering pump starting squealing, and I thought of doing the same thing. I pulled the pump off and ran a short belt for a day. Going around town wasnt that bad with my 255's, but I tried to take a curve on a country road at 70 and could barely keep the car in my lane. I bought a new power steering pump right after that... Not sure how much the FR rack would help, but its not for me.
 
Unless you've changed any of your front end geometry (changed from non stock spindles, A-arms, ball joint design, or rack location, etc), you will be wasting your money on bump steer adjustable tie rod ends.
 
I was looking into this because removing the ps pump would make my turbo install much easier. I loved the manual steering in my old RX-7, but that was a ~2400# car with super small tires on it. The 3350# Mustang with 275's up front wouldn't be very fun imo.
 
Unless you've changed any of your front end geometry (changed from non stock spindles, A-arms, ball joint design, or rack location, etc), you will be wasting your money on bump steer adjustable tie rod ends.

Come on, how many Mustang owners actually intend to keep the stock ride height forever.

Kurt
 
Didn't say anything about ride hight. You can lower the car with shorter/stiffer springs and still not need bump steer ends because the suspension pivot points are still the same. It's when you start swapping to different spindles or control arms that change the original suspension geometry of the car and you will need the bump steer rod ends.


Some good (and true) info here....
There's a rampant internet misunderstanding that the relationship of the tie rods to the ground matters to bumpsteer. What matters is the tie rods' relationship to the A-arms. More specifically, the line described by the tie rod pivot points needs to be parallel to the line described by the arm's pivot points, so that they follow the same arc when they move. Bumpsteer comes from the steering knuckle following an arc that has a different pattern than the one the balljoint follows. If you don't change the pivot points' relationship to one another, you don't change the bumpsteer characteristics. The factory characteristics are pretty good to start with, so unless you've radically slammed it, nothing's going to change much as far as bumpsteer.

If all you do is lower the car by shortening the springs, then all the suspension knows is now it's compressed a little more. The bumpsteer characteristics are the same as if you added a bunch of weight to the car and lowered it that way.

If you start changing the underlying geometry, changing the pivot points' relationship by moving the rack up or down, moving the steering knuckle up or down, moving the A-arm mounts up or down, or moving the balljoint pivot up or down, then you've changed the bumpsteer characteristics, because now you've made the arcs different.

Think of it as a parallelogram when looking at one wheel's suspension from the front. Lower the car? Raise one side of the parallelogram, but it's still a parallelogram. Move one corner of the parallelogram without moving the other three, then you no longer have a parallellogram. Now you need a bumpsteer kit to move the odd corner back into place.
 
I think the primary advantage of the bump steer kit is that it has a double adjustment screw, so you don't have to bust the ball joint ends out everytime you make an adjustment.

Kurt
 
I wouldn't do it, My rack went bad and had to drive like that for 20 miles, Hated it, If it's a street car, you want the power steering, i am replacing my rack and pump and lines, I NEED the power steering :)
 
I wouldn't do it, My rack went bad and had to drive like that for 20 miles, Hated it, If it's a street car, you want the power steering, i am replacing my rack and pump and lines, I NEED the power steering :)

PS rack with no PS is harder to turn than a manual rack... ive considered switching but untill my car makes like 500rwhp... its not worth it..:shrug:


And i got a brand new rack for free it would suck not to use it...