Is any one out there running a pinto rack on a street/road race car? I'd like to go with the rack because of the simplicity of it and looks, but I'm not sure how hard it would be to turn the wheel. I'm gonna be running wide front tires and doing some local autocrosses/road courses with it. Or am i better off fitting a power rack in there?

 

a power rack would be better (like one from a 4th gen)


you also need to address the issue of getting the turning radius back to normal.

 

A Pinto rack is a poor idea for a couple of reasons.

It was designed to steer a car that weighed half a ton less than what you're contemplating using it in.

The location of the inner tierod pivots is almost certainly wrong, meaning you'd likely end up with bumpsteer that cannot be remedied very well.

The manual steering in a Pinto even at the early years weight of 2250# or so, on skinny 6.00-13 bias-ply tires on 4" wide rims, and 4.2 turns lock to lock was fairly heavy at very low speed.

Does 4.2 turns lock to lock sound like a slow ratio to you? It wasn't too bad in a 94" WB car, but will be slower still in a 101" WB car. And that's before considering any difference in steering arm length.


I'm not saying it would be impossible, just that there's a LOT more to consider beyond things like "simplicity" and "how it looks" (that second one shouldn't even be anywhere near your list of design criteria for autocrossing).

BTW, I had a Pinto.


Norm

 

The larger unit off the T-Birds would be a better choice, also available with power steering... As Norm mentioned, pay attention to the length of the steering arms, has a lot to do with steering quickness. I build Hot Rods and won't use the Pinto unit on anything over 2500 pounds....

 

The reason I chose a pinto rack was because it looks fairly straight forward, racecraft sells a rack that comes shortened to fit f body's, and also the bumpsteer kits that fit the stock spindle. I'm gonna do a bit more research and try to find a good power rack to use instead.

 

I have the pinto rack from Racecraft on a street car, with their spindles with shorten arms, no problem to steer, have no bump steer what so ever with the car. I believe the lock to lock is 3 and 1/2 turns, but will check for sure. I had a pinto rack in one of my first generations cars with a BBC, it was easier to steer than the manual steering box it came with

 

What size front tires are you running?

 

MT Sportsman 28 x 7.5 x 15, also rims are 15 x 6

 

If the inner tie rod pivot points are moved, then a "bumpsteer kit" will not correct the problem. Lowering the mounting point of the outer tie rod end is to correct the angle of the tie rod relative to your control arm. If you get a taller ball joint or run a ton of caster you would need a tie rod spacer. Moving the inner pivot points inboard or outboard will not be corrected by spacing the tie rod end. You could up making things even worse.

 

Your caster setting would figure in to how easily it steered, particularly at speeds under 10 mph. I'm afraid that I don't know enough about those particular tires to even guess if they'd steer "easier" than any of the 13" tires that I ran on the Pinto with around +3° caster.

FWIW, the required pull at the steering wheel rim was 28 lbs (about the same as the manual steering on the bigger Ford cars of the same year). That wasn't undriveably firm (though probably too high for commmercial success today), and it lightened up quite a bit once you got it rolling. Definitely "autocross-able" once you'd gotten accustomed to it (and had probably improved your upper body muscle tone as a result). But definitely on the high side for a car of that weight.

I do get the feeling that your BBC 1st gen wasn't a corner-carver kind of car.


Norm

 

This car was designed for pro street, in his initial question he asked if anyone has one street driven, with 20 inch wide rear tires and narrowed rear end, this car was not designed for a corner carver, but the car corners better than I would have suspected. We have a corner that is a 45 km/h and I have taken it with the Camaro over 70 mph, I would not try it with my daily driver, but the camaro does this without body roll.
I will try a pull guage of the steering when the car is back on the ground in the summer. Also, I have taken a couple hundred pounds of weight out of the front of the car

 

I've decided to go with the racecraft road race kmember, and their shortened pinto rack. I will be posting pics of the car/build once i get my welding shop all set up and ready to go.