I beleive most of us already know efforts where made to increase the steering feel.....in 2008...but did you know changes existed in 2009 as well...below are some technical details.

If Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter said “Corvette is the poster child for continuous improvement. Making our car look, feel and perform better is what we do every day.”

“Last year, we added a premium steering gear in response to owners who felt that Corvettes could benefit from improved on-center feel and precision,” adds Juechter.

For 2009, we found another means of making Corvette steering even better.
Quicker steering ratios make a car feel nimble and responsive. But if the ratio is too quick, the car is nervous at highway speeds. Juechter’s ‘even better’ development is a variable-ratio rack-and-pinion steering gear that provides the best of both worlds.

Terrel Johnson, a Corvette engineering team member for five years, is the lead steering design engineer.

Johnson explains:

“The new variable-ratio steering provides the same 17.1 to 1 on-center ratio that we’ve used successfully for years. But when the steering wheel angle exceeds 15 degrees of left or right turning, the ratio begins speeding up.
The change is so gradual that the driver notices nothing unusual, but after a little more than half a turn of the steering wheel, the ratio has changed to 14.6 to 1. This trims the number of turns lock-to-lock from 2.78 to only 2.54, a 9-percent improvement.

“With multiple ratios in one steering gear, we’re able to tune the on-center zone for excellent stability and reduced sensitivity at highway speeds without making Corvettes feel sluggish around town. The quicker off-center ratio helps the car feel more nimble and highly maneuverable while parking or negotiating a U-turn.”

Asked exactly how the variable-ratio gearing is achieved, Johnson answered with two words: helix angles. Some digging revealed what he was talking about.

Inside the rack-and-pinion steering system, the pinion gear teeth encircle their shaft in a spiral called a helix. This configuration increases the number of pinion teeth in contact with rack teeth.

The greater the gear-to-gear contact area (more teeth engaged), the less the likelihood of lash when the rack-and-pinion assembly is under load. Lash is steering precision’s bitter enemy.

Pinion gear teeth must be evenly spaced because each tooth contacts the rack at least twice during the two-plus turns lock-to-lock. But, since each rack tooth is engaged only once throughout the rack’s full travel, how the rack teeth are configured can vary.

At the center of the steering rack, the teeth are cut at a 14-degree helix angle. This causes the rack teeth to engage the pinion teeth at their roots, yielding minimal rack motion for each increment of pinion rotation.

At the end of the rack, the teeth are cut at an 18-degree helix angle. Now the rack teeth engage the pinion gear teeth near their outmost tips. That larger-radius point of contact causes the rack to move substantially more for each increment of pinion rotation. Presto: a faster steering ratio.

Variable-ratio steering is another example of a seemingly miniscule change that yields a noticeable improvement in the Corvette’s daily-driving behavior.