Nope, mine are offset (I was wondering if they were centered on the stocker) <G>. Hmmm, back to the drawing board.

Actually, I think I found one possible solution to the problem. I am waiting on a phone call right now from a guy who is going to sell me another Miata.

Car out of alignment? Buy another one!

QFT. Count carefully, and center the steering. Then, align without moving the steering at all. If the TR ends are tight, get some PB blaster on there. They need to be loose enough to set the toe anyway. Free them up now, or cut them off later, they will eventually have to be adjusted.

I replaced my rack, and this is what I did. Adjusted toe by eye, and the alignment guy was amazed it was so close. Use the string method described in the M.net garage section.

Also, the power rack has less turns L-L than the manual, I believe.

Not possible to use the tie rod ends to adjust it straight with a half way in the middle of lock to lock. I have about 1/4" of adjustment left and I need something like 1.5". Doesn't matter anyway, I just bought this ($3400 - don't mind what the bid says):


http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mazda...f479e21f#v4-44

$3400 Red 1997 automatic with 65K miles (for when the link no longer works). The car is supposed to be cherry. Wonder how many months it will take me to swap everything over? Like I said - Car out of alignment? Buy another one!

I will continue to contend that my Miata subframe rack mounts look far more offset than those on your BF one. I went outside and looked earlier when we were talking about it.

I would take a pic but it's dark outside and I'm already in my South Park pajamas. Ha!

You said they were centered on the BF frame. I was only saying that they were not (about 1" difference). It could very well be that they are off more than that on the stocker. Will be interesting to see.

I'll have to remove both racks when I do the V8 swap. It will be 10 years from now (I am dreading working on the car for hours every day) but when I have them both off I'll snap a picture and post it.

So when are you picking up the car?

It is sitting in the driveway (well, in the yard - too many cars over here) right now!

Ended up getting it for $3300...

I guess I should bring the engine hoist back up then. We we starting the swap?

The plan is to drive the ugly one for a couple of weeks (I don't have much seat time with it) so the bad stuff sticks out (i.e. car is too low, engine leaks oil, etc). I want to figure out what the PO did wrong with the car so I can take care of it before everything is back together. I think I am going to try to lift the engine up instead of dropping it in. I'll have to investigate it a bit first though. If you want some V8 swap experience I'll give you all you can handle.

You got my email and number, I am 100% game for learning how to do a V8 swap.

I had a similar problem when I first depowered and installed a rack. The steering column itself seems to have travel limiters. If you remove the rack from the car, the steering wheel will only go so far in each direction before it hits its stops. The solution is to center the wheel relative to its stops before attaching the steering column to the rack. At least, that worked for me.

The column is not hooked to the rack and the problem still exists...

In that case, get a used rack and depower it. Used racks are fairly cheap and then you can rebuild/depower it to your satisfaction and just swap it with the one in the car.

I went one step further and bought another car. BUT.... That doesn't explain what is wrong with the current setup. Why can this not be fixed?