I did a search and haven't found much of anything in the way of testimonials from people running a manual rack in a third gen. I currently have a full PA racing tubular frontend with the pinto rack installed on my 89 project car. There is no way I'll be able to finish the car before I'm done with school and get it out of my folks garage. I'm thinking about installing the components into my 91 Z28 along with the front rear coilover and chromemoly tubular rear suspension. I know certain racks will reduce the turning radius, but I believe this is the flaming river unit that has enough travel( 6"s i think). Either way if the travel is too short I will order racecraft drop spindle to restore the factory turning radius. My question is how livable is this on the street. The car will be getting a very stout 408 so it's by no means my DD. I just don't want to set it up so that I won't want to take it on a sunday drive but I would really like to drop the weight out of the nose and clean up the engine compartment. So who out there has a manual rack and how does the car perform with it?

 

im no pro here, but usually a manual steering setup has more turns from lock to lock, to compensate for the lack of power assistance. So what im saying is that you will be turning the steering wheel a lot more and turning slower. So it would be livable, but not good for fast corner carving.

 

the manual pinto rack is 3 turns lock to lock. not much more than the 2.5 in the standard IROC box.

 

The regular pinto rack is 3 turns lock-to-lock, not sure about the Flaming river unit. If they've extended the travel, it may be more like 4 turns l-t-l.

What 86TA said is correct. To reduce effort manual steering has a lower ratio, thus you have to turn the steering wheel further to achieve the same turning angle. For a "spirited" street car it is fine, but deffinitely not the best for pushing any corners.

You seem to be on the right track for getting it set-up properly. - The shorter steering arms on the racecraft spindles will help considerably with the ratio, but by doing so they increase the effort required to turn the wheels.

 

the pinto rack will not have the correct travel to match stock. the ratio however makes it a lil easier to steer.
i have a unisteer brand pinto rack which is 3.75 turns lock to lock.
i havent had stock wheels on the car, but it turns MUCH easier than my manual s10 box ever did.
a modified steering arm, or the racecraft spindles are a MUST. even for a track car, IMO.

 

some manual steering boxes are good, others bad. i've driven an S10 that was a bitch to steer, but I had a toyota pick-up that you wouldn't notice the lack of power steering. should be ok, if you take things slow on turns.

 

Well I just brought the car to the shop last weekend and I'm almost done pulling everything out of the engine bay so that I can POR15 it. After that it'll be time to install the tubular front end and rack and see how it all looks. If need be i'll order the racecraft spindles.

 

i forgot, where do you get that POR15? I'm going to do that to my underbody eventually.

 

I got mine from a napa warehouse near where I live. I get a good discount since I work for a garage. Originally I just ordered it from their web page. Just google POR15 and it comes right up. The stuff works very very well but it is a rather labor and time intensive process.. I'll post up some pictures of the spindles I did tomorrow. In my opinion it looks just as nice as powder coat and is a fraction of the price. You just have to be patient.