What is the place that sells the late-model Jeep steering box conversion? If you have your own box, what other parts do you need? Seems like somebody did this a few months ago with photos, any links? I have a non-computer-using friend who wants to do this swap on a 70 small-block Vert. Any tips, tricks, or suggestions? Thanks

 

http://www.corvettesteering.com

I have this one installed on my car. works great.

The kit is actually under the 55-57 chevy link.

 

So you buy the box from them and use your old pitman arm?

 

Anybody else do this swap? He has access to a junkyard, just trying to determine if we need to buy the box from Corvettesteering or can use a stock one.

 

I have never heard of doing this, what are the advantages?

 

I am wondering the same thing

 

See their website. The advantage is getting rid of the leaky, finicky control valve and hoses that move. Cleans up the bottom of the car. It is a middle alternative between factory PS and a rack-and-pinion conversion. Still curious if I can buy the box from a junkyard and use my stock Pitman arm?

 

Just talked with the guy on the phone at corvette steering. They disassemble the boxes and remachine the shaft so that you can use the old arm so I would assume that you would not be able to just grab one from a junk yard and slap it in there.

FYI...You have to collapse the column to get his box in there. He also told me there are sometimes alignment issues with this style box. You have to shim it to line it up with the column sometimes.
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I would hardly call this a 'middle of the road' upgrade in comparison to the Speed Direct rack and pinion. I think this upgrade has significant advantages over the R&P, not the least of which is price.

It is a simpler installation.
It does not hang low like the R&P.
It has fewer parts.
The box is intended for heavy duty use.
No 'weak link' parts.
it is significantly cheaper.

I have one in my car and love it. Not a single issue, unlike the list of "recall" or other threads attributable to the R&P.

Cheers
Chris

 

Then why is it installed on performance cars if it is superior and costs less? Seems like a no brainer if true.

 

The guy at corvette steering told me they are used on race cars. I believe he said NASCAR cars. I would consider that a performance car

I don't like the idea of the universals apparently being installed on the verge of binding with the R&P. I know from experience that the more they are required to bend the faster they wear out. I also just learned the other day that the R&P reduces turning radius. Just a few more cons against it.

I don't like the idea of having to collapse the column for the PS box install either though. Anybody know if the R&P requires this? Is it possible to reverse it? Can the column be re-lengthened if going back to stock?
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The Corvette steering column has a nylon "pin" connecting the 2 sections of steering column together. The external body of your column has a steel mesh section that is designed to accordian in event of a catastrophic impact to prevent major chest trama to the driver. The column pin is not really a structual part and the only drawback I can think of would be some more noise in the interior of the car (small rattle.) I drive a 400+HP solid lifter cammed M22 "rock crusher" equipped LT-1 with lots of motor/transmission noise so, I don't forsee any complaints in the shearing of the column shaft pin to install the steering box. I have installed steering cloumns that have had the pin sheared because they were dropped on the shaft when they were pulled out of the car and they have never had any problems. I am going to do this conversion this Winter to my LT-1. The racer reviews from vintage Corvette racers are giving this set-up excellent feedback at my good friend's shop. The intregal boost box is the same design the NASCAR cup cars use and Corvette Steering Service has an excellent reputation for a quality product (including "stock" steering box and tilt-tele column re-builds.) I wouldn't touch a Steeriods set-up with a 20ft pole! You install your set-up and I'll run mine and we'll meet at the racetrack to make the final determination (heck, why don't we just put a little wager on it so we know no one is holding anything back!)

 

I was talking price. He is considering it for all the reasons you mentioned.

 

Would not use NASCAR as my basis for useage, they don't have doors and I am not about to glue mine shut. NASCAR cars are designed to turn left, they have road courses but I doubt they are going to redesign their steering to add r/p, much to costly. Most production road course type performance cars use r/p so there most be some reason. Not saying one conversion is better based on what is used in production since these are both aftermarket, just was wonder why r/p is used more often in production perfomrance cars.

BTW I drove a NASCAR/BUSCH car last Fri at MIS and the steering seemed a little light and not much road feel. But if you have to drive 500 miles like they do I guess you don't want to be fighting you steering wheel the whole time.

 

Solid LT1 is correct. The collapsible upper and lower steering shafts are formed so that they telescope onto each other in the event of a severe frontal collision. They are very precision fits. The plastic is injected to hold them in position at a fixed length and the plastic eliminates even the smallest amount of looseness in the interface of the upper and lower shafts.

The two shafts overlap by a large amount so that shearing the plastic will not cause any lack of steering integrity. The worst that can happen with sheared plastic is a very minor amount of looseness in the joint. (The looseness could develop over time.)

The modern Saginaw 600 gear should have more precision than the old Saginaw 700 or 800 gear. The bad news is that the mounting bolt pattern on the Saginaw power gears do not match the the Corvette frame mounting pattern. There must be an adapter plate or the 600 gear housing has to be somehow modified.

My study on trying to fit a Jeep 600 (1999-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee) power gear in the Vette indicated that you could not get the pitman shaft to align exactly with the idler arm. (They weren't off by a large amount, so maybe it doesn't affect steering or bump steer.) The largest difference was the fact that the gear no longer pointed directly back at the steering column. You want to keep that misalignment at a minimum so you don't introduce friction or lost motion into the system.

 

I should have said that there is a downside to the integrated steering box, and that is that there is too much assist from the stock corvette PS pump. I plan to address this with an adjustable flow diverter as soon as I finish the millionth project on the new house. The flow diverter can be had for less than
$100 with all fittings etc.

Chris

 

The issue is not with the flow or pressure from the PS pump, but rather the specific torsion bar and valve combination inside the gear. There are different tuning combinations for different vehicles that use the 600 gears. Which one would be best, I don't know. Maybe Jim has some input/experience on that.

 

If you chime in Jim do you know if the vette ps pump used for late 80's early 90's is diff or provides diff pressure/flow than the f-body pump? I will be using an f-body pump for my steeriods conv and am curious as to what my options are if the assist is to great.

Thanks

 

The pump has very little affect on steering feel. Nearly all of the feel is cause by the size of the torsion bar (inside the steering valve) and the porting of that valve.

If you somehow cut back the flow of the pump (mechanical droop flow or electronic variable orifice EVO) you can cause the steering valve to become less responsive and the steering effort will go up. A lot of Japanese pumps have mechanical drooping flow. I drove many, many of them when I was Competitive Analysis Manager at Saginaw. I could never feel any difference in effort with drooping flow.

The first generation Saturns and quite a few GM big pickups and SUVs had EVO. The electronics is integrated to make them operate, so you just can't plug the EVO valve in and go. The GM pickups and SUVs also use the Saginaw P-pump. So any EVO valve that screws into the discharge port of the pickups will screw right into the back of a C2/C3 Vette pump (assuming you have clearance behind the pump). The Jeep Grand Cherokee around 1996 or so had EVO with a stand-alone controller box.

If you cut back the flow from the pump too much, you run the risk of not being able to make a rapid evasive maneuver. (Not a very good situation if a dog comes running out into the street). That is why the mechanical droop flow pumps don't really cut back the flow very much.

EVO does allow the flow to be cut back quite a bit, particularly if you have a steering wheel rotation rate sensor. Then the controller box can shift the EVO valve to high flow if the steering wheel is rotated above a certain rate and the vehicle is moving above a certain speed.

Way back when I first started posting on this forum, one of my early topics was EVO flow control. I would guess that the archives probably don't go all the way back to 2000. If they do, look up EVO. I provided quite a bit of information to a couple of members. I never heard that any of them were successful.

I can probably dig out some of the information again. However, I am going away for the weekend so it probably can't happen until next week. (If there is interest.)

 

Thanks for chiming in Jim.
If memory serves me correctly, we had some conversations at work recently (past 3-4 years) where the concensus was that some cars without EVO had better overall road feel than cars of the same model without EVO. So EVO was an upgrade that wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Not a clue which cars though.

Someone asked about rack & pinion vs. a recirculating ball integral power steering box. In general, a rack & pinion steering system will provide more precise steering. That is NOT to say that every rack & pinion will be more precise than every recirc-ball. A well-done recirc-ball will be competitive with a good rack & pinion and a poorly done rack & pinion will be worse than a decent recirc-ball. But knowing which one is well done, and which isn't is the key.