When you order a steering rack...
Thread Starter
Team Owner
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 30,856
Likes: 293
From: Boston, Dallas, Detroit, SoCal, back to Boston MA
I found out what the deal is.
(I stopped by my friends restoration shop, nice to have friends in the business).
The racks are all the same, save ratio.
It's the inner tie rod ends that are different.
Which you have to watch when you order one.
Seems the rebuilders don't know enough about Corvettes and they get it messed up all the time.
I'm going to place my order through him so I can get a fast ratio rack with the proper inner tie rods.
(I stopped by my friends restoration shop, nice to have friends in the business).
The racks are all the same, save ratio.
It's the inner tie rod ends that are different.
Which you have to watch when you order one.
Seems the rebuilders don't know enough about Corvettes and they get it messed up all the time.
I'm going to place my order through him so I can get a fast ratio rack with the proper inner tie rods.
Burning Brakes
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 755
Likes: 32
From: Roswell Georgia
This I Believe...
My days as the "Perpetual Corvette Mechanic" are now limited to my personal Vettes; however, this is what I remember from working on C4's in the past:
1. Fast ratio (13:1) steering racks were 2 turns (nominal) from lock to lock and marked "NS" for easy identification.
2. Standard ratio (15.5:1 or 15.6:1 depending upon which GM literature you believe) were 2.25 turns (nominal) from lock to lock and marked "FH" for easy identification.
3. Steering racks can be interchanged between years; however, installing a '84-'87 rack in a "zero scrub radius" suspension ('88 onwards) required changing over to longer tie rods.
4. Fast ratio steering racks were discontinued mid-year on the 1989 models as GM received too many customer complaints that their Z51 Vettes were "darty" at high speeds. (Commonly known as dumbing down the suspension to suit the customer pool.)
(I went back to my '89's, one's a Z51 while the other is not, just to double check my memory on the number of turns and external markings just to make sure I wasn't having another "senior" moment. Remembered to jack the front wheels off the garage floor when checking turns from lock-to-lock the second time around.)
1. Fast ratio (13:1) steering racks were 2 turns (nominal) from lock to lock and marked "NS" for easy identification.
2. Standard ratio (15.5:1 or 15.6:1 depending upon which GM literature you believe) were 2.25 turns (nominal) from lock to lock and marked "FH" for easy identification.
3. Steering racks can be interchanged between years; however, installing a '84-'87 rack in a "zero scrub radius" suspension ('88 onwards) required changing over to longer tie rods.
4. Fast ratio steering racks were discontinued mid-year on the 1989 models as GM received too many customer complaints that their Z51 Vettes were "darty" at high speeds. (Commonly known as dumbing down the suspension to suit the customer pool.)
(I went back to my '89's, one's a Z51 while the other is not, just to double check my memory on the number of turns and external markings just to make sure I wasn't having another "senior" moment. Remembered to jack the front wheels off the garage floor when checking turns from lock-to-lock the second time around.)
Last edited by mr.beachcomber; Jun 18, 2009 at 06:25 PM.
