Leeroy_25

I am doing a engine conversion in my car and thinking of depowering the factory steering rack to give some extra clearance and rid a few bits from the engine bay. I wanted some feedback from any of you out there driving street cars like this as I am a little concerned that it will become very heavy to steer and I might regret it?

Thanks in advance.

Lee

VTECthis

iTrader: (4)

I had no power steering on a previous FD. Steering is a little heavy at very slow speeds, but not bad once the car is moving. From what I remember, there are some mods that are necessary to depower the FD rack, and there were also some concerns about stress to the steering mechanism. You should be able to search those issues.

K-Tune

iTrader: (26)

I'm used to not having power steering on my cars so I may be a bit biased...

In my opinion the FD feels fine without power steering, especially with a stock sized steering wheel on stock sized tires. My car has a 365mm Nardi wheel and 255 front tires and is still just fine to me. I can normally negotiate parking lots with 1 hand (while holding a drink for example) without any issues.

raul arrese performance

I have done a few , I install grease fittings and havnt had any problems ... a little tight but once moving they are fine.

Leeroy_25

Thanks for the replies chaps. I have heard that there are concerns over stress on the rack from a few people and someone suggest the correct way to do it is use a gen2 non turbo rack which I assume is not a straight bolt in swap. Have all you guys just depowering your Fd3 racks and put a bit of grease in or grease nipple as above. Sounds like they are not too bad to drive without. I will have 225 maybe 235 up front decent size aftermarket wheel too.
Cheers
Lee

Spalato

iTrader: (33)

We are arranging a group buy for a Quaife quick ratio manual rack, check the 3rd gen group buy forum.

raul arrese performance

make sure you grease them up good , they work fine and we havnt had any bad results .

Alpine

On my FC, the previous owner de-powered the steering rack by looping the lines. The steering felt abit strange, like you can feel the friction between the seals and there were some dead zone in the middle.

I sent mine to Chips Motorsport to get it converted to manual properly, and it was a night and day difference ! The steering feels fantastic now, very smooth, no play, and i can feel every bump on the road very precisely.

Highly recommend it ! I'm now thinking about sending my FD rack to him as well =)
Steering - chipsmotorsports

Leeroy_25

Quaife rack or Mod mine... Hmmmm A jazzy rack sounds nice!

Monsterbox

iTrader: (6)

No room for PS on 20b swap, pulled the rack, welded the quill and holes up.

Its super hard to turn at a stop, but move 1inch per hour and its substantially easy. Its a little freakish around turns as you must put a little effort into turning the wheel, but you get used to it. Propensity to overcorrect is much less.

Do it.

Leeroy_25

There is room.. Just cleaner without. I have it in there now but the rack is weeping oil where I modified it to relocate the lines. So it is has to come out anyway and I have been thinking it would be nice to free up a bit of space. There is literally not a spare space in sight! Wish I had thought more seriously about this when I had it all out and apart before. Would have saved me some dollar on shiny pullies too!

t-von

iTrader: (8)

The friction would have never been there had the lines been looped correctly. I looped mine with a 3/8" hydraulic line loop on my 20b Fd and it as smooth as glass. If the rack fittings aren't modified to increase the amount of fluid to loop, that's when you find resistance because the inner piston is trying to force the fluid through those tiny fitting orifices. If done correctly, you wont have to go through all that hassle to remove the internal piston. I've been trying to find an adapter to help with the conversion but it's some stupid British fitting. If I wanna put the power steering back, I can.