Hey Guys,

This might be a long shot, but i live in Sydney Australia and have had my rx7 for about 5 years, for me personally i've always thought the rx7 steering was slow/sluggish for my personal liking.
I've been looking at improving it and came across manual steering rack which i would like. i've looked at many Grannas-racing, Chips-motororsport and Maval, looping the original and all the feedback/reviews says nothing comes close to the atomic rex one made many years ago, with the feel, design and responsive of the unit.

I have found the company that designed and built the first racks for Atomic Rex many years ago (they still have the design/drawings for both RHD & LHD cars)

I've been in contact with them and they are happy to reproduce them to the same standard as it was, but it would be rack assembly + drawing charges on top, The only problem is i actually don't know the price of the unit at this stage. (but no harm in putting it out and seeing what comes back)

I'm not doing this to make money - I actually want this rack for myself, but also thought if there were more people we could share the cost of the item with me then great.. (doesn't mean i'm in the business of giving it to you cheaper then what the company is asking for)

Would anyone be interested in this item?? If not ill buy one just for me. lol

 

I'd maybe ask Ric Shaw his impression of the original Atomic rack in the Wakefield 300 car before committing?

 

Well you seem to know something i don't know, i don't really know Ric and don't really want to message someone out of the blue to ask him about a rack.

You could pm me privately??

 

Do you know any other options for something for the fd3s?

 

Thinking further, user "munroman" on here was the owner and had a bit of feedback in the dim distant past, attributed to Ric, if you search his posts.

Don't know of any RHD alternatives today. Only things I know of are exxy professional electric P/S columns and home grown versions of same, whether they'd deliver the feel you're chasing - dunno. Vaguely remember A/R before he was banned, mentioning Jack Knight. Hopefully, if you get one, they're more reliable than Jon on freight cost...ended up costing me a few hundred quid extra for one of his shipments, ha.

 

I have the second gen Atomic Rex (Minotaur) rack, I've been using on track for years.

It feels and works great. The second gen rack was designed to be configurable for multiple cars so the actual mounting wasn't as good. I had some custom mounts made that were stronger. But the rack action is great. I'd be maybe interested in one of the original FD specific mount design.

 

When converting my 93 from street to track I mistakenly had them remove my power steering-originally Chip Motorsport (hack attack) modified the original rack for manual; it was terrible. Then Chris at Banzai put in a Maval and while better, it is still very heavy steering. I would like to go back to power steering. I know a manual is going to be much harder than power, but I would be interested in hearing what your price is.

 

Are you sure your dissatisfaction with the steering is in fact the steering and not the front end setup generally? Responsiveness and turn-in is influenced dramatically by tyre/wheel size and grip, dampers/springs, alignment settings and front end bracing. Every independent review and opinion from owners I've heard has regarded the FD has having one of the best steering setups they've driven. For me, the RX-8 has been the best and the FD not far behind.

If you consider it "slow/sluggish", converting to a non-powered steering is possibly the worst thing you could do.

 

^^^^^

True that. If the stock power steering feels slow and sluggish, either something is wrong or you have unrealistic expectations. I went manual in part for track use, where the power steering felt over boosted and too sensitive. But that's different than a crisp turn-in and responsive steering, which my car has—that's a function of setup, tires, etc.

 

The moment you grab a steering wheel of a manual rack FD with 255 square tire setup you'll be trying to figure out how to get the Powersteering working again. Been there played that game, got the t-shirt covered in ATF.

 

I had previously run 285's R-comps all around, and with the manual Atomic Rex rack at low-speeds, it's a PITA. On the track, it was fine.

Just recently I went with 245 Michelin Sport Cup 2 up front and no issues at low speeds with the Atomic Rex rack.

:-) neil

 

Yup. My street tires are 255 Pilot Super Sports, and I honestly have no issue. And I'm using a 330mm wheel to boot. I'm not parallel parking the car in the city or negotiating tight parking garages or anything.

literally once you're moving at 3-4mph, its no issue, even with 285 Hoosiers.

 

I would definitely be interested in this if it actually happens!!

 

I have interest as well

 

I have had the original Atomic Rex rack since it was available. Maybe around 2010. I think it makes a big difference. A big improvement over stock. It is a bit difficult to turn at parking. speeds as Peter noted. Both myself and Paul Imbrogno have added the epowersteering.com electric assist and that gets rid of any low speed difficulty. You can add as much assist as you want at various speeds. You can set it to only come on from 0-10 mph, for example, as well as how much assist you want.

 

Haven't been quite so jealous after reading a post on here in a while... Sounds like such a neat setup. ugh

 

Checking back in on the steering issue and re-reading some of the above. I reached out to a race shop in Florida looking to see if they had any power steering parts/pieces. After lots of discussion about car set up, they recommended that I change out my tires and my alignment specs. Previous I was running BF Goodrich slicks and airly straight forward alignment; after, I am running Toyo 225 Front and 255 Rear with an aggressive alignment (I dont have the set up specs in front of me but if anyone is interested I can pass them along). This set up is drastically different than where I was and made a very big difference on the track-much better handling, although still not very good at paddock speeds. Today I see the post that identifies the electric assist steering-I am going to seriously look into that.

In the continuing saga of my street to track conversion: my entire instrument cluster is a problem-thought I had it all squared around but I don't ! In my last track session in September my Turbo blew after 2 sessions. I see people mention a couple of shops here in the forums: Chip Motorsport & Banzai Racing, both of which have worked extensively on my car; so far I don't have much use for either one.

 

Why not just get the grannas rack?

 

Or just run a steering quickener, unless you really want an unpowered rack for some reason

 

People have done many different things to improve the steering on FD's from de-powering the existing rack in some way, like the Maval or Granna racks. The thing is that these alternatives are really not the best way of doing it. The Atomic Rex racks are or were CNC-machined racks made out of aluminum with -- on at least the earlier versions -- an aluminum mount. The Ato,mic Rex racks had a quicker ratio than the stock rack. So, maybe 2.5 turns lock to lock instead of 2.9 IIRC. Also, remember that an important characteristic of steering racks is their "feel". The Atomic Rex rack has incredible feel.

 

Yup, it's 2.4 lock to lock, and built as a manual rack from the get-go. feels great. I had a Maval to compare it to.

 

I am trying to figure out how to describe the differences. I've driven Maval-equiped cars and homemade conversions and they are just not the same (as the Atomic Rex) in feel or turn in, but I can't put it in words.

 

@thread OP, are you still in talks with the manufacturer for the AtomicRex manual racks?

post up their info, if you're not going to coordinate a run of these racks.

 

If the Atomic Rack is what has been claimed I would be interested in taking a look. I have searched the web for a powered rack in vain. Easily one of the biggest mistakes I made when outfitting my car.

 

I don't know who the thread starter is, but they made all of 3 posts on this forum, all in this thread.

It would be great to have contacts at all of the vendors who made Atomic Rex stuff, not just this one, because they made cool stuff. Maybe some UK folks would know. Their old widebody rear fenders are literally the only ones i'd cut my fenders for.