Looking to upgrade steering on 79 corvette while 93 LT1 engine is out and being turned into 383 monster. What does everyone like and why, Which is better? Help please.

 

i like my steeroids because it makes my car drive and feel like a newer car..... i no longer have any vagueness and if i move my steering wheel 1/8 -1/4" i can see the wheels turning.

 

Been wondering about this myself. How do they compare as far as road feel, responsivness, etc?

 

I have not driven Steeroids but I have driven a Corvette Steering box car and it was impressive. This is the direction I would take. The Steeroids brackets look flimsey to me. I know many people have them, but I don't like the way they look.

 

How do the costs compare?

 

Anybody try the Flaming River manual rack yet?

 

I think the Corvette Steering kit is like half the price. Seems easier to install too. AFIK it's just a slightly modified Jeep Cherokee box. If you have the fabrication skills of someone like Norval you can save some $ by just buying the box and making it fit yourself.

 

I still say a properly built box and good steering parts are pretty good and fit.

 

Well, my front end was brand new with about 30k miles on it when I did my rack install....and it was sloppy as hell with my wide tires....pulled like a muvva at freeway speeds unless the road was fresh concrete....the box was tight, ALL the gear in nearly new shape....

then I put in the rack, and it was one hell of a change, not to mention getting rid of that stupid silly 16;1 ratio and going to the much better 12;1,......the responsiveness of the car NOW is like a new car....

and the cure for brakes is hydroboost....

GENE

 

Cost of Steeroids Not worth the cost!

 

Is there another rack and pinion option besides steeroids for those of us who cant fabricate?

 

Some years ago, I did send for posting some diagrams and so forth...to another site member here....what I did for mounting brackets and so forth, all I know is MY solution is a hell of a lot more 'flimsey' than what anyone sells, and it's been there since about 4/02 or so....maybe longer....1/8 inch steel, triangulated, and the pass side just two bolts...

It wold take a bit of search to find any old documentation on just what I did....

GENE

 

Mr Vette I am not understanding your reply. You do or do not like the "corvette steering" box with 12 to 1 ratio. Seem there isnt alot of members who have done the "corvette steering" conversion? Thanks for your knowledge.

Tony O

 

G'day,
I've read a lot of these posts and have to say that I admire companies that invest a lot of money to make products like the Steeroids rack and pinion kit. Even the Jeep box kit is good because it replaces fewer parts, but they are both compromises.

What I think that most of us would like is a straight bolt-in steering box that has integral power, better ratio and uses the factory bolt holes.

What I would like to see is someone like Flaming River or Tom's, come up with a new casting that externally mimics the Chevrolet/Saginaw box, and uses the standard bolt hole positions, but with either the Jeep gears or custom built gears with the 12:1 ratio and with an integral power unit. It would have the same length and spline Pitman shaft so that we could use our original Pitman arm or have a Pitman arm fitted at an extra cost.

It would also come with two hoses with the correct bends to bolt straight onto the standard pump and have a fitting that would take the place of the power control valve on the steering linkage so that we could disconnect the ram and its hoses.

There are about half a million C2 and C3's out there that would all benefit from a conversion like this and if only ten per cent took it up, there's about 50,000 sales. Even it only one per cent bought it, there's still around 5,000 sales. How much would it cost? I don't know, but I'd be prepared to pay around US$800 for such a unit.

Is that too much to ask for??

Regards from Down Under

aussiejohn

 

I installed steeroids on my 79 hoping it would solve my wondering problem entering ruts on the highway, I was wrong it didn't help turns out that the problem was front tires badly worn on the inside, 2 new tires in front a good alignment with the specs supplied by one of the sponsors of this forum and voila all my problems where solved, mind you everything is up to spec in the front end, I have gone back to original setup and llke it over my steeroids which is now gathering dust, just my opinion but don't discard original setup until it becomes to expensive to repair

 

A good recirculating ball steering system can feel as good as a decent rack & pinion system, but such a system is not very common.

A rack & pinion system with a proper (stiff) mounting and a lack of compliances in the system will probably feel better than what you'd get out of a recirculating ball.

I haven't seen a steeroids setup in person to evaluate, so I can't make a proper assessment of it. On the surface, it doesn't look like abad setup. I'm not wild about the peculiar looking intermediate shaft & joints. I suspect there would be a good bit of steer ratio variation in the system, but again, without seeing one in person (and without knowing the clocking and position of the joints, it's impossible to tell).

 

I'd like to see such a gearbox, too.

What I'd like to see is a ZF gearbox that meets those specs. That should improve the steering feel quite a bit over the Saginaw box.

I wonder if parts are available off the shelf to build a Saginaw box like that. The mounting would be the difficult part. The C3's have a slight taper to the mounting surface where most cars are perfectly fore/aft in their positioning. Not sure how interchangeable the other parts would be.

 

din1780, from MY experiences, I could not disagree more....course your car is differant from mine, and YMMV....


GENE

 

My 2 cents, I put the jeep box in before Tom at Corvette steering finished the kit, about 4 years. I now have put over 25000 miles on the system and could not ask for a better mod. I have said it before, if I had one mod to choose, it would be the jeep box. (tilt, cruise, air, disc, overdrive, xm radio, fiberglass spring, 96 seats, rubber body mounts, 17 inch wheels, L98 FI engine, etc etc etc). After logging over 250000 miles in the car the jeep box gets my vote.

And the kit is a bargin for all the problems Tom has solved, I put one on my sons 73 in a afternoon, have not touched it since.

SSS

 

From one alter boy to another, well spoken...