Steering rack compliance questions.

[Ivar Revolve]

Hi.

We are a new team, and I have som offshelf questions that i hope someone have the right experience to answer:

1:
I have been looking for steering racks for a while now, and have found a couple.
Some are wery light and simple, etc at chassis shop and at mark williams, looks like this: http://secure.chassisshop.com/partlist/6108/
However im concerned abaout them beeing dragster racks that do less cornering forces and that the mounting bolts is very close to each other creating higher clamping forces, more compliance and so on... ??

2:
Has anyone experienced trouble regarding the adjusting the backlash on different rack types/brands? ie very tight backlash giving more resistant or choppy steering, or minimum backlash is not acceptable?
Also, we have a discussion on wheel travel lock to lock :/ some say 270 degrees lock to lock, i say 360, any comments? know its a silly q.



Right now woodward steering racks (manual MC rack) is of our best candidates.
http://www.woodwardsteering.co...inion%20steering.pdf (http://www.woodwardsteering.com/images/rack%20and%20pinion%20steering.pdf)

Some other racks we have been looking at:
http://www.markwilliams.com/ch....aspx?CategoryID=159 (http://www.markwilliams.com/chassisSteering.aspx?CategoryID=159) 30400 and 30100

https://www.pegasusautoracing....tails.asp?RecID=3091 (https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=3091)

In advance thank., Team Revolve, Norway

[Ivar Revolve]

Hi.

We are a new team, and I have som offshelf questions that i hope someone have the right experience to answer:

1:
I have been looking for steering racks for a while now, and have found a couple.
Some are wery light and simple, etc at chassis shop and at mark williams, looks like this: http://secure.chassisshop.com/partlist/6108/
However im concerned abaout them beeing dragster racks that do less cornering forces and that the mounting bolts is very close to each other creating higher clamping forces, more compliance and so on... ??

2:
Has anyone experienced trouble regarding the adjusting the backlash on different rack types/brands? ie very tight backlash giving more resistant or choppy steering, or minimum backlash is not acceptable?
Also, we have a discussion on wheel travel lock to lock :/ some say 270 degrees lock to lock, i say 360, any comments? know its a silly q.



Right now woodward steering racks (manual MC rack) is of our best candidates.
http://www.woodwardsteering.co...inion%20steering.pdf (http://www.woodwardsteering.com/images/rack%20and%20pinion%20steering.pdf)

Some other racks we have been looking at:
http://www.markwilliams.com/ch....aspx?CategoryID=159 (http://www.markwilliams.com/chassisSteering.aspx?CategoryID=159) 30400 and 30100

https://www.pegasusautoracing....tails.asp?RecID=3091 (https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=3091)

In advance thank., Team Revolve, Norway

[whiltebeitel]

The chassisshop rack are robust, but as you mentioned, the bolt spacing for the mounting requires a very beefy mounting system. On the plus side, the cost is half of the competiton, and I haven't seen any of our cars develop play in the rack.

[Dash]

You might also want to look at the following link if you are worried about price. http://www.dansperformancepart...sp%20rack&pinion.htm (http://www.dansperformanceparts.com/buggy/susp/buggysusp%20rack&pinion.htm)

I do have to agree with you that the bolt spacing is pretty small. We have been using a similar rack for the past 4 years. You have to bolt that sucker down tight! I have been thinking of making a custom rack for a while, but haven't had the time to do so.

[trhull]

Western Washington University used the Chassisshop rack for the past 4 years. We did not utilize the center mount because of the loading it would have seen. Instead, we made some machined mounts that pressed (lightly) onto the brass rack guides and included guides for the rack to slide on to reduce deflection. For the cost, it's a hard rack to beat, total time to design and build the was less than 2 weeks.

As for your travel lock to lock, I would talk to your drivers, and also look at examples of other vehicles that operate on tight courses (i.e karts). You will likely find that you want to be able to go lock-to-lock without having to remove your hands from the wheel.

[Dr Tron]

i would suggest making your own, in talks with design judges they did not like the center mounted racks that everyone seems to be going to so on that note i would either buy one and modify it for different mounting or manufacture your own. I made my own and it was not all together difficult and has been working great in testing aside from lack of adjustable lashing which gives me about 4 degrees of play at the wheel after the break in period however the next rack will have adjustable lashing. As for cost of the rack I made we had most of the material (aluminum stock) and had to buy a rack and pinion gear set for about 30 dollars, then lot of time in the machine shop.... lots

as for steering wheel lock to lock rotation degrees we use slightly over 360 and this was decided on after speaking with my drivers about what they liked about our previous cars and what they wanted to improve, in events we only use about 280-300 degrees however rather than clamp it off at that point i left it be for better turning radius for pit maneuvers/low speed stuff... i did however get knocked for a lack of external bumpstops (mine were internal and not visible to judges)

[Ivar Revolve]

I thought the rack support/housing ended right after the expandable rubber hose. Do you have some pictures?
Thank you

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by trhull:
Western Washington University used the Chassisshop rack for the past 4 years. We did not utilize the center mount because of the loading it would have seen. Instead, we made some machined mounts that pressed (lightly) onto the brass rack guides and included guides for the rack to slide on to reduce deflection. For the cost, it's a hard rack to beat, total time to design and build the was less than 2 weeks.

As for your travel lock to lock, I would talk to your drivers, and also look at examples of other vehicles that operate on tight courses (i.e karts). You will likely find that you want to be able to go lock-to-lock without having to remove your hands from the wheel. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Dash]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Ivar Revolve:
I thought the rack support/housing ended right after the expandable rubber hose. Do you have some pictures?
Thank you
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Here you go. This is the steering rack off Dan's Performance Parts website with the covers removed. I'm fairly certain most of the other ones will look very similar.

Edit: Ok my pictures still aren't working, just right click on the little icon and open the picture in a new tab on your browser.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsr92/6220343284/in/photostream

[Dr Tron]

make sure you post just the URL and make sure it has the img code at the end. it automatically adds it in when you use the insert picture icon at the top of the post page.

If I was you and i bought a steering rack like that I would do the same and devise a different mounting system