Okay I have the idea; just not the knowledge if this could work.
It seems that the steering rack is a real pain in the butt for us 240sx owners trying to do an ls1 swap. What if we got a company to make us some custom manual steering racks? I think this would help for three reasons.
1. A manual steering rack, no more power steering, leaking lines and custom adapters to work with.
2. Since it’s a custom rack we could ask for what ever steering ratio we want.
3. We could move (I hope) the placement of the steering box farther to the left so that it wouldn't get in the way of the stock ls1 headers. That’s the main reason do to this.

What do you guys think?
I made a quick photo shop picture so you can see what Im talking about. Stock is the first picture.

Website that makes manual steering racks for all kind of cars.
http://www.flamingriver.com/index.cfm


photoshop rack

 

That would be nice. What kind of price are we talking here?

 

it's still by far cheaper and easier to just work around the stock rack IMO.

cost me a whole $8 in fittings to hook my PS up and doesn't leak a drop or even weep. i just don't see a full custom manual rack to be a cost effective way to do it. secondly, there's not much room in the s13 to move the rack input over until you run into the frame.

 

alot of extra work for almost no real gain.

 

Cool idea, but I love the feel of the stock steering and wouldn't want to risk affecting that.

 

Here goes nothing. Btw, I'm not able to see your photoshoped pic for some reason.

1. Leaking lines, if things aren't done correctly that could be an issue but it can be fixed. Custom adapters really aren't that big of a deal if you find the right place to help you out or if you know which adapters to buy it doesn't sound like it's that big of a deal. The effort is worth it though for having power assist is nice.

2. Custom steering ratio, that does sound neat but are you talking to increase the speed of the steering? If so, you need power assist if you are going to go wild for the faster you have the steering go the less mechanical advantage you have and the more effort you will need to turn it. That is unless you are trying to really bulk up on the muscles in your arms that is! If you are talking about drifting though, the caster does a lot of the work when doing fast counter steering.

3. I think you mean the input into the steering rack and not the steering box. I don't think you could move it out all that much more for it can only be out as far as the rack needs to move to when turning left all the way if that makes sense. You'd maybe be able to move it out some but how much is the question and would it be worth it? The biggest issue for the LS1 swap and the rack is that it's a rear steer car. No matter how you change it around with having the height of the car being different, the shape of the frame being different, and also the shock tower being pretty close you will still need custom headers. Most are able to work their way around the steering shaft. If you went with a custom rack you'd have to come up with a new steering shaft and stuff like that.

That's a lot of work to change things around and it doesn't seem like it's worth the money when an off the shelf set of headers wouldn't work anyway so you'd lose your power assist in your steering, have to pay a bunch of money for a manual rack, change around the steering shaft maybe, and also still have to make custom headers. Just doesn't seem like it would be worth it. Maybe I'm off on that though but I'm just throwing my $.02 in.

 

hummm....
I was thinking a manual steering rack would be cheaper than custom headers. Headers cost over $800....the manual racks I was looking at for the cobra kit cars where $369. Cobra have run 275/17/45 they have large Iron block engines in the front and use manual steering racks. (I don't hear them complaining about it being hard to steer the tires, yet I'll need to do mroe research)
I was thinking that we could save money if we could get a manual rack for under $400 and the use the stock headers that came with the ls1...this would make swapping in a ls1 easier...just need to find out if the rack can be moved over far eought to the left to infact clear the stock ls1 headers.

the second image should be fixed

 

so you're talking about buying a $400+ rack setup just to use the stock manifolds? then you'd still have to spend some coin on custom headers if you want them. off the shelf stuff just won't fit even with a custom rack except maybe some shortys. longtubes still won't happen without modification.

 

I believe he may be looking at this option for BAR certification/passing emissions in CA?

Where's the link to the manual racks have you looked at?

 

Yes, I forgot to say that.
CA legal would kick ***
link I was talking about
http://www.flamingriver.com/index.cf...rod/prd239.htm

 

hmm, just buy the hinson headers, it's worth it in the long run, they'll last the life of the car, and no steering issues...

if your looking to increase the rate, what i found is to runa steering quickiner, it's unknown technology to drift guys so far, but me coming from circle track, it's a lot more common. check this out!

here's one in eBay,
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...7051532&rd=1,1
you'd just need to weld in 2 GM 36 spline joints and get it mounted under your dash, above the pedals, and your good ot go!

 

oh and btw, if yo haven't heard of it yet, please check out silviav8.com, it's an online 240sx forum for only v8 silvia's! my setup's on there too.

 

I hate you have to be a member to see everything I want to look at first.

 

Ahh yes, those circle track guys... Rhys Millen has been running a steering quickiner in his GTO for years now... In a lot of cases when swining the car around they use the caster to counter steering quickly and the steering quicker doesn't seem like it's needed as much. Plus, you add a steering quicker and you don't have a pump and a rack set up like those circle track guys have and you are adding a lot of stresss to your power steering system as well.

If need be later on I was going to look into upgrading the pump and the such to see if that will help if I needed or wanted a quicker steering ratio but that all depends on if it's needed or not. Going to have to go out and pitch the car sideways some first to see how the steering is just the way it is now.

 

I'm honestly not trying to be an ***, but how much have you drifted? have you ever tried a set of consecutive s turns, it's very tricky, that's where the quickener comes in nicely, for most people, you'll find that throwing the wheel is very hard to do, because your tendencey is to go hand over hand as in normal or even some road race, driving. with the quickener, going from full lock to full lock is 1.5 turns, if your setup is correct, then yeah it'll be easy, and it should counter for you, with a good throw.

i don't see why it's any harder on the rack, i mean we're both talking about the same amount of force in turns at the rack, just the quickener is less turns at the wheel. i mean going through s turns, means that you need to throw the wheel back and forth, and make those 3 turns but the quickener, still makes those 3 turns at the rack, but it makes only 1.5 at the steering wheel.

i do wanna say again, i don't want to come off as an *** man, i'm honestly not trying for that. I know i may be repeating myself, but i kinda feel bad about saying that because i don't know how you'll see it..., catch my drift? =)

anyhow, i think you'll have a great setup either way! I actually just recieved my quikener in, so i'll be sure to let you know how it is =)

 

How much have I drifted, well, on pavement I've done one event with my T/A but growing up on gravel and the such, I've done it alot. I know where you are coming from when it comes to a quickener for I grew up on 4 wheelers where lock to lock was as quick as you could move your arms back and forth. Trust me, I like the idea of a quickener and like I said in my post above would like to look into modifying the power steering set up to handle it if it's needed. More on that in a bit.

The second corner I went into with my LT1 T/A when I drifting it I threw the belt off for when I went to counter steer even with the totally stock steering set up I was turning it fast enough to the point where the pump got a demand to move the rack but pump had to go from very little pressure to high pressure that I'm guessing that it put a big load on the belt, caused the tensioner to spring and then the belt came loose around the power steering pump and flew off.


Not really harder on the rack per sae but the pump is more so what I'm talking about. In a every day power steering system they are made to have the least amount of resisitance as possible when crusing around and you aren't turning for daily use to make the best gas mileage as you cruise down the highway. For fast movements of the steering wheel though that isn't ideal for the pressure in the steering system when you are going straight isn't much at all. You move the steering wheel quickly or if you add a quickener into the mix and demand a very fast movement of the steering system and the pump has to all of a sudden build up a lot of pressure from nothing quickly. The circle track guys that run those really fast steering rack ratios or the quickeners are running the racing pumps and racks that are set up to keep the pressure at all times (be it 100 psi lets say, don't know the exact pressure, just using that as an example) so when they demand alot of movement quickly the pump and rack's valve already have pressure there on tap and also have a pump that can flow the volume needed to move the steering as quick and as far as possible.



I know you aren't coming off as an *** man, it's all cool. Lets put it this way, Rhys Millen in '05 when my brother and I were talking to him about the GTO. It was during the non-seated drivers were practicing. We probably BS'd with him for about 20 minutes or so and we took the oppurtunity to pick his brain. Hell of a nice guy. He's running a quickener on his set up and he's been doing it for a while now. Anyway, we asked him about alignment, tire pressure, how he likes to set up the car and he was all cool until my brother asked the big question about his power steering. He didn't reveal anything for he said that he's put a lot of time and developement into making it so his steering system could handle drifting in so far as it created a lot of heat and it sounds like he worked on getting his set up to the point where it wouldn't overheat and would work the way he wanted it to. (again, remember, he's got a quickener on his set up and it sounds like he needed to get his steering system set up to handle his quick steering inputs) Basically that's all I could say for he wouldn't talk about it anymore. It's understandable though and I don't blame him for not just revealing what he was using so I don't want it to come across in that way.

When it comes to the 240's, the tensioning rod in the rack I'm assuming should be set up to allow more assitance so turn in for corners and the such shouldn't be so bad. Haven't driven my 240 yet so I don't know how the steering is going to feel. I will say though that the counter steering part of things if you watch the jap. drifters they use the caster and the whipping of the wheel to make it happen. Sure those guys are very good at what they do and there is a lot of skill into play there as well. With that being said, I won't know more until I get my 240 out and drive it around some and see how it works out.

Let us know how the quickener turns out for you. I'm not trying to rain on any parades here but my brother does a lot of reading up on how the circle track guys can do what they do with their steering rack set ups and he's the type of guy that likes to do things the way they should be done. Not to say you can't run a quickener on a stock steering set up but how it's going to work in the long run and how many issues you may have with it are the questions that come to mind. Alot of those circle track guys are running quickers on their set ups for it can make the difference of being able to go into the corner, pitch the car in and then counter steer and be able to increase your reaction time so you can go faster but they are also changing out tensioning rods in the rack to get the steering feel they want and running racks made for a circle track racing enviroment. Some of them have their steering so assisted that they are able to drive the car through the pits by using their hand to steer the car around just by using the steering shaft for they have the steering wheel sitting on top of the car as they are moving it around.