I have upgraded with QA1 adjustable coil over struts and the adjustable control arms and now I'm looking to upgrade the rack and pinion and was wondering about using the manual steering 20-1 steering. Just wondering if anyone has experience with using the manual steering set-up on a daily driver
Rack and pinion options
- Thread starter Bronco Bart
- Start date
gkomo
now i can hopefully expect to receive the shaft
I'm going through a rack upgrade as we speak. Doing everything, the pump, lines, rack, inner/outer tie rods and steering shaft. I'm 'upgrading' to a 99-04 GT rack and a MM "hybrid" steering shaft to make it work. Everything else is just off the shelf replacements. Pump is a remanufactured Motorcraft pump. Hopefully all goes well. I'm just getting through the pump replacement now, and have already swapped Fox inner tie rods onto the newer rack, then will move onto the rest.
Doing manual steering on a daily driver really depends on how often you do low-speed turning, like a 3-point turn in a parking lot. If you live in a city and do a lot of cutting of the wheel hard at slow speed, manual steering will get old fast.
If you live out in the country and do a lot of highway cruising or dirt roads and very little 3-point turns or parking lot navigation, it's manageable. You can plan better for the few experiences you will have where you wish you had PS. Really something you need to figure for yourself.
If you live out in the country and do a lot of highway cruising or dirt roads and very little 3-point turns or parking lot navigation, it's manageable. You can plan better for the few experiences you will have where you wish you had PS. Really something you need to figure for yourself.
Not that big of deal at 20:1
If you have wide tires on the front it gets harder.
But if the tire is rolling when you are turning, then it is not bad at all.
You lose a bunch of weight off of the nose of the car, and free up a few HP to boot.
Plus no P/S pump noise or potential P/S leaks.
It all depends on what you are willing to tolerate.
Like every other part of the car, race car parts make race car noises and have race car NVH.
If you have wide tires on the front it gets harder.
But if the tire is rolling when you are turning, then it is not bad at all.
You lose a bunch of weight off of the nose of the car, and free up a few HP to boot.
Plus no P/S pump noise or potential P/S leaks.
It all depends on what you are willing to tolerate.
Like every other part of the car, race car parts make race car noises and have race car NVH.
I don't understand how it would be an "upgrade" to go from power steering to manual? If this is a dedicated drag car and you're looking to save a few pounds then I could see it, But you said daily driver so that'd be a hard no from me. @gkomo already gave the perfect answer.
On my car I ordered a Cardone 22-2000 rack from rock auto which is supposed to be the replacement for the 03/04 Cobra rack, replace the inner tie rods with fox style and new fox outter tie rods. Get the Maximum Motorsports solid mount rack bushings and hybrid steering shaft. Replace your PS pump while you're in there and you'll have a true upgrade to your steering.
On my car I ordered a Cardone 22-2000 rack from rock auto which is supposed to be the replacement for the 03/04 Cobra rack, replace the inner tie rods with fox style and new fox outter tie rods. Get the Maximum Motorsports solid mount rack bushings and hybrid steering shaft. Replace your PS pump while you're in there and you'll have a true upgrade to your steering.
I do live in the country and I was thinking maybe changing the steering ratio would make it handled better like not be so touchy on the hwy. I do have wide tires all the way around 275/30r17. Everything is new except the rack and pinion and the car is darty now. Ruts on the hwy pull the car around. Iv played with the steering in and out but didn't seem to make any difference. I wanted to get the new parts before taking it in the proper alignment. It handled the same before I replaced every in the front end
Scrapla347
Active Member
My rack leaked out the fluid and I drove it up and down the street and it was a PITA doing 3 point turns. Remember if you go with a manual rack you also have to buy a new steering shaft. I wanted to go manual but the new shaft costs as much as a rack. I'm undecided at the moment and curious what other advice you get.
The flaming river rack you posted is for drag race cars. If you have 165 front runner tires up front, then it's great. If you have the tires that I saw you post in the picture, you are going to be regretting your decisions. There is no performance reason to remove the power steering other than the couple of lbs of weight it sheds. The upsides to getting a manual rack will be that you won't have to be like Robert Frank at the gym on Tuesdays doing arms to get the tang tang.
Kurt
Kurt
The reason your car is so "darty" is that you are running a tire that is a lot wider than what came on the car from the factory. The Fox racks have a very light torsion bar in them which makes them very easy to turn. When you add a wide tire to that it will make them feel twitchy. Get a larger power steering pump pulley to slow the pump down. Ford number for the pulley is YR3Z-3A733-AA however you can get a Dorman pulley that works just as good under P/N 300-003. There are several threads on this over on the Corral in the road racing section so these are verified.
IF this still does not solve the problem then crack the wallet open and move to a SN95 rack with the MM hybrid steering shaft. Several threads on that here.
If you drive on roads that have alot of heavy truck traffic they tend to get worn down (compressed down actually) where the trucks travel. I have 255/35/18s on the front and when I hit those kind of roads my car wants to lurch side to side bouncing off the ridges from the depressed areas on the road. My car tracks perfect otherwise so I know is the ruts in the road (sometimes you can even see them as you approach).
Purchased an 02 power rack at the junk yard. Sent it to " Turn One" for a rebuild.. Using the MM hybrid column... All bolted right up to my 83 vert car..
Rebuilt my PS pump using 5L5's post on here and my FSM.... Hand bled the system ( be patient here) then when I did a first start I had the cars front end jacked up and turned the wheel back and forth SLOWLY, lock to loc, { be patient here also).... Its very quiet and I wish I could give you the " road trip" finale, but the car is STILL NOT on the road yet.....
Rebuilt my PS pump using 5L5's post on here and my FSM.... Hand bled the system ( be patient here) then when I did a first start I had the cars front end jacked up and turned the wheel back and forth SLOWLY, lock to loc, { be patient here also).... Its very quiet and I wish I could give you the " road trip" finale, but the car is STILL NOT on the road yet.....
gkomo
now i can hopefully expect to receive the shaft
Kind of off topic, but for new sports cars with wide front tires, how do they get around not 'tramlining" (i think thats the term) in ruts/grooves/indentations in the roads? I'm thinking like a new GT500 has a 305 width front tire from the factory. Do they tramline or have they figured out how to mitigate that affect?
Totally different chassis and a front end that was built for those tires.
What we need is a piece of software where you put in the tires width and backspace and have it tell us what the rest of the geometry should be.
Even the space between the upper and lower A-Arm mounting points, has an effect. It's crazy math that makes me head hurt.
This is the difference between a McPherson strut type front suspension and an SLA front suspension. If it wants to Stevie Wonder it up then you have two things you can do to help. One is get Maximum Motorsports (I would say any but they are hands down the best) caster camber plates and yank the top of the struts toward the windshield as far as you can get them. This is positive caster and will help. The other thing is a bump steer kit from MM. To set this up properly is a huge pain in the ass but you can definitely get some benefit out of the bump steer kit by adjusting it so that the inner and outer tie rod assemblies are as parallel to the lower control arms as you can get them. This is with the car on the ground the suspension fully loaded. Racers will frown upon this but I have it this way on both of my Fox street cars and they are way better than before.
Thanks for the reply. I was thinking that the 3.5 turns lock to lock would make it handle the wide tires better and help it with getting pulled around. I might change the rack with one from a parts 92 gt that is in good looking shape and see if that improves anything because the one I have on now is leaking pretty good and I will also order the pulley you mentioned at the same time I was going to order new lines because I don't want to get stranded at home for the weekend if I break a line. I broke both on the parts car
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