I've been looking around for rack and pinion conversions for my 71 and the only one I see is the Steeroids kit. Are there any other options? What do Steeroids users think of the kit?

 

flaming River has a kit for a manual rack...

 

Steeroids is the second best mod you will ever make on your C3...the first mod is TKO

Steeroids

 

I installed the kit from VB&P. No instructions, unless video, good tech support. I downloaded the Steeroids instructions and it went pretty smooth. Hardest part was removing the 38 year old parts!

 

I will have to agree here also. I am very happy with my Steeroids setup. The car handles like it is on rails. Then as another great upgrade, add an LS motor and the car feels even more nimble going down the road.

 

I've seen tons of pics and opinions on the steeroids kit, anybody have info on the flaming river? I like the idea of a manual system.

 

Weren't there some problems with some brackets on the Steeroids kit at one time? I thought I saw a thread about cracked or broken bracket.

 

I had a problem with a cracked bracket a while ago. They quickly shipped out a new bracket free of charge.

I haven't crawled under the car in a while so I don't know how the new one has held up.

The kit was very easy to install. Don't get me wrong, it was a lot of work, but I am a complete novice and I had great success getting it installed.

Just a few days after I installed it I had to make a sudden swerve on the freeway to avoid something. At that time I was convinced that having the rack and pinion steering might well have kept me from having an accident.

Some time after I installed it I had Guldstrand do some suspension work and his comment on the Steeroids system was that "someone most have known what they were doing".

Generally speaking I have found that mods like this are of very poor build quality compared to stock parts. However, the benefits of rack and pinion on this car make the change a worthwhile investment. Including the time required to replace failed parts.

But don't fool yourself into thinking that your 40 year old car will suddenly feel like a new car... it won't... but it will feel much better.

My recommendation is to carefully compare this the the "jeep box" mod that some other have done.

~Jay

 

I would love to drive a 'Jeep box' shark sometime, hoping the tires are similar to mine....lo profile more modern rims....

not on a track or anything, just around some hood would be well enough....

 

Isn't the Rack Attack out there too??

 

VBP version about same as steeriods...

 

If you search the archives there are several of us who did there own version of the steeroids using the Grand Am rack. Its been a couple of years since I did mine so I don't remember who it was that posted the measurements for everything and then each of us added some twists. If your into fabing it is a pretty straight forward mod. No matter which you choose you absolutely will not regret it, its what these cars should have had to start with.

 

Accept that the Rack Attack system has a slip joint steering shaft, which makes it less prone to binding, and easier to install.

 

I think I remember a VBP rep telling me at Carlisle last year that the rack attack had beefier bracketry.

 

Having not seen A to B on that, I really don't know, but for sure, they still did not take the easy way and properly triangulate that damn lower portion of the mount so there was no inherent twist to the mount when force is applied laterally....I have maybe 25% as much steel in my mount, that will twist the freeking FRAME before it moves....and I swear, I"m not all that much of a genius....

to me it's SO obvious.....

much less those adaptor plates on the center output of the racks.....that travellor/car in the rack just can't have all that much purchase in the mounting/slide tracks...so the issue is, when twist is applied to the plate, and it having some 2-3" on one side and 3-4" on the other, unequal loading makes that car travel in a uneven wear pattern, which is compounded by the leverage to the plate, exerted by the tie rod ends....especially with the outboard wheel in a turn....

which is why I went the short block with stock tie rod ends adapted to the rack and longer sleeves to the wheels....

I also figgered on stock tie rod ends as being used for since the Roman Chariots, hell I saw one on Ben Hur's front end....

they just GOTTA be better then open pivot heim joints....

don't forget MY goal was a daily street high perf DRIVER not some track/show queen.....

BTW, some guy showed a bent heim joint on the pass side for some reason....

NOW having done MY install back in '01-02 I got the concept off the web, and our TT knows of him....the fellow was in north europe...Idar Anderson....had a shark with this Grand Am rack installed some 3? years before I did mine even....his concept and he referred to a Saab 900? rack something not crossed into American GM parts bins.....so that delayed my parts search by quite a bit....

 

The saab rack is the same as the grand am rack, it was also used on some opel vectras.

 

Not true, they couldn't get it to work so they are using a double u-joint just like ours. Believe me; if a single u-joint system would work then we would do it. The problem is the variation of the frames and bodies built by Chevrolet and the age of the cars. In a perfect world a single u-joint will work. This is why mrvette was able to do it (because his frame and body line up enough) but there is too much variation for this to work for a product that spans 20 years of vehicle production.

Correcting bump steer is the reason we went with spherical rod ends. It can't be easily corrected with conventional tie rods. With regard to the bent tie rod, that was a direct result of an alignment shop binding things up when they aligned the steering. The tie rod didn't bend until the car was jacked up and the suspension exceeded the diminished angle that it could accommodate. That was a one time occurrence.

 

UHH....I have TWO universals on my install, one at the rack, on on the column.... when mocking this up, I did use a DD slip joint with a rag joint from a junkyard car on the intermediate shaft, just ONE of them....and so set the length, marked it, and got it welded in length/position....
my rack maybe sets about same height/position as Steeroids/VBP, but I cut the back lower portion of the engine horn with a hole saw to allow enough clearance to get that input to work well/smooth with just two joints, and no adjustments....

I should start selling mounting brackets and do a junkyard raid for specific parts sources/cars.....

whole project is only 200 bux...TOTAL with machine shop making the center link adaptor....which really as I think of it, could be done much simpler and lighter, but it remains cause it works....

 

If I were to do it again, I'd just use the Steeroids kit, Maybe beef it up a little, maybe.

I did my own, BIG job, info and history here;
http://temp.corvetteforum.net/c3/427v8/c3randp.html

 

How many universals did you use between the rack input and the column output??? any pix of that?? I used just two universals...