there were a couple threads floating around about Maval's manual steering rack conversion, and there seemed to be some confusion over the price. a while back the price was $165, several people said the price went up to somewhere between $250-270. i'm planning on doing this, so i contacted Maval to ask what the price was and why the increase. here's the response i received:

"...I was forwarded your email by John. The price for the Rx7 conversion has
gone up to $279.00. When we 1st started doing these we didnt think we would
do alot of them so we priced it very low. The cores are not available so it
is impossible to do these in large batches which raises the cost. If you are
still interested we need your core before we can ship..."

i'm still planning to do the conversion, i just thought i'd share my findings.

 

I paid $215 or something around that just a month or so ago. They have a core charge which gets dropped if you send yours in.

 

I paid whatever it was for new boots and whatnot from Malloy as I did it myself (with the help of imapctwrench). It's quite a simple process and all you need are a couple of small welds to be made on the quill shaft. There's a how-to that the Miata folks did that can guide you through most of the process as it's virtually the same. I don't know if there's a how to here...I should have taken pics...but I can write one up I suppose.

 

the before and after pricing sounds about right. I had mine done a few years back for around $165 or os, and it was much cheaper than what others mentioned they paid recently. It's still worth it.

 

its worth every penny! i love the rack...

 

and Railgun that link MIATA is broken... can you get the link up?

 

Did it reduce the effort at all? I wonder if you remove the piston/guts to further reduce the steering effort.

 

"When we 1st started doing these we didnt think we would do alot of them so we priced it very low."

That's pretty funny. I don't think they believed me that there would be more to follow.

 

mono...I don't know what link you were referring to, but this is the one I was talking about...

http://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/depower.php

What I did that was different was I cut off the fittings from the rack and used a little JB Weld to plug them. Just a little and kept it hole side down so the stuff wouldn't get into the rack. A little sanding and paint later and good as new.

 

Anybody have Maval's phone #?

 

^ 1800-338-9080