Hye guys i was just wondering if there was an affordalbe way to convert my 89 camaro to a rack and pinion setup? I've been planing on redoin the front suspension this before summer hit and thought i could go with a rack and pinion. If not what would your suggest i know i'm redoing the ball joint tierod ends centerlink idler arm and I have energy suspsion bushing for the A arms so what else could i need ?

 

um...no, sorry theres not. Not that anyone has found anyway. The geometry is all messed up so no there really isn't a reasonable way to do it.

 

actually im pretty sure plenty of people have done it. Ive seen it on a few cars that have a LS1 swap in em.

 

i've seen a few in person, told me that the steering radius turns to crap afterwards. AJE racing builds some tubular crossmembers with that setup in mind.

 

It takes LOTS of work to get the set-up right to maintain a decent steering radius. -

 

there's a couple ways to do it. none of them are worth the effort though.

1. you put a rack in with unmodified spindles and your steering radius turns no crap

2. you modify the spindles and risk them breaking when your going 90 down the high way, or

3. spend 1500 to 2000 on a modified rack with all kinds of special valving and stuff to get the radius to a decent level

thats the only choices i've found and i've been looking around for a while.

 

The best solution I have seen to fix the steering radius problem would be to machine the spindle as seen in this post in this thread

Machining the spindle should not affect the strength and integrity of it since you would just be milling a flat spot and drilling a hole. If you were to cut and weld the spindle this would greatly decrease the strength of the spindle. The only problem would be if the spindle is thick enough at the drilling point shown in the picture.

The best solution would be to have custom spindles cast but that would be very expensive unless there was enough demand to make a large enough quantity.

 

from what the pick looks like, there wouldn't be enough meat left on the arm
to be stong enough. Not for my taste anyway

 

get an aje k member with mounts for a fox body mustang rack. it works...i talked to the guys at ajeand they tell me they've done several cars with this set-up....the racks are the right length for our cars. call them and get more info.

 

Just getting the rack to fit is the first part of the problem, the second part is the steering radius issues. The third part and probably the most important part is getting the bump steer and ackerman worked out to something acceptable.

This is race car engineering at it's finest, and completely not worth it for a little bit of increased steering feel. I suggest you look into a power steering pump with an adjustable pressure regulator, this will help tone down the assist and give you the feel you're after without the geometry headaches of the rack.