Manual or depower rack?
 

I am installing my Energy Suspension bushings (THANKS EMILIO!) on my turbo NA this weekend, and while I have it on the rack I am going to:


A. Depower the rack using the loop method (done it before)

B. Install the manual rack I have off another car


I have read on both, but I have never seen the question asked like this.


Which do you prefer, and why?

I like the power rack's ratio, so depowered power rack for me.

I just purchased a manual steering rack. The reason I went with the manual steering rack is that it is smaller/lighter then the depowered rack, also from what I have read, there is less resistance then a depowered rack.

I don't have any first hand experience, this is all just what I have heard, I can tell you for sure in about 2 weeks.

i like power steering personally :)

This.

What do you mean lighter/smaller...?

I was told by the shop that I bought it from that it was smaller, as in diameter I think, as well as lighter, and that he will ship the mounting brackets that was used on the car because the p/s rack ones will not work. Like I said this is all what I have heard, I will have some comparison pictures when I have both out.

I can't imagine that a manual rack would be the same size/weight as the powered one. So this made sense to me. We will see I guess.

Thanks guys. From looking at the two racks, the manual one looks like it would be lighter b/c the housing is smaller, and fewer internal parts. I will try to take comparison shots too.

But I have decided my course of action. I am going to remove my power rack and most likely send it to Maval Mfg. to get it depowered. That is if they will weld the pinion gear when they depower it. I am doing this b/c I spoke with Emilio and he suggested that when depowering the rack you will get ultimate steering response when the pinion is welded b/c otherwise there is a small amount of "slop". This, and I am paraphrasing, is b/c the pinion in a power rack actuates a valve to direct fluid according to which way you are turning. Since you no longer need to direct fluid one way or the other, it is best to remove that from the steering system. I hope that makes sense.

I and all my friends run depowered racks and love it. Take caster out if the wheel is too hard to turn. I run 4* and I've driven 6* cars before and it was much more of a work-out.

So far fate has not let me depower a good rack, so I can't comment on the difference in feel between looped and truly depowered, but my new looped '97 rack (which I couldn't depower, but packed full of grease anyway) feels much better than my dirty '93 rack.

My caster's around 5.5*, I don't think it's all that difficult.

you have to consider that our arms are like a glorious mountain range and most faegs on here rock spaghetti wimpy shit.

I loved the de-powered rack on my 96....and that was with a 320mm steering wheel. It truely felt like a go-cart.

Depower....just do it....never look back.

Unless you just don't like to listen to what your car is trying to tell you about the road.

I had PS, so was used to the ratio, and just looped the lines. At first a little tough under 5mph, but you learn to automatically turn the wheel just a little as you are rolling up to a stop, and a little time in the gym doesn't hurt when it comes to parking effort.

Depower.. I've had both looped and "proper" I couldnt tell the difference.

Having depowered steering also keeps people from wanting to drive your car, mostly because they are pussies. This alone is worth depowering.

Another vote for depower. Love the quicker ratio.

Is this a pic of you hussla??
http://realclearfit.com/wp-content/u...gvalentino.jpg

I de-powered mine by the FM method (cutting the seals out inside and plugging all the fittings) and I'm very happy with it.

And yet another vote for depowering...

I'll put another vote for the depowered rack. I did the FM method and plugged the holes.

I'm running 6.5* of caster and its on the heavy side on the street (skinny azenis), but awesome on the track (big NT01s).

Man, im excited to get my car back on to its wheels and try out the depowered rack.

my old NA was looped and I did not like it. Why do you want to take out the PS?

Steering feel is much better without the PS. I depowered mine, reduced the caster to about 4 degs. and I really like it. I'll never go back.

"It iz naht ah tumahh"
Attachment 205352

Depower the rack. The quicker ratio makes the car feel like a go-kart. Plus, the steering will feedback everything to you, like "hey, you just ran over a pebble", or "yo fool, you're understeering like a sucka, stop cranking in more steering".

Manual rack is 13# and the power rack is 17#. Not a lot of difference between the two with regard to weight. I just installed the new bushings on my manual rack, but have not driven it yet. It's still in surgery with a complete new drive train being installed.

KMag

This.

http://smiliesftw.com/x/127fs4573872.gif

I'll throw in my :2cents:... Hear a lot of people crying about how the power racks are "over powered." I've auto-x'd the shit out of mine (Worn out stock suspension though..) and its perfectly fine to me.. Maybe there is a difference between good suspension and bad suspension with power / non-power racks??

It's overpowered IMHO in that you can't feel jack through the power steering, it just feels disconnected.

Yeah it is not so much being overpowered IMO; it is the lack of feel. In my experience, going from PS to a FM style depowered rack, feedback is really a lot better. If the PS setup transmitted the tire activity to the wheel as well then it would be as good, but it does not, so IMO it is not.

Resurrecting a dead thread. Anyone DIY'd this, or is no one bothered by the amount of play?

I've been driving without a PS belt for a week now and it's really not bad at ALL but I do work out every day...

I've sourced a manual rack and am pulling the trigger on it very soon. I bet the manual steering will feel like power-assisted compared to how it feels right now without a PS belt...

I've done it four times. Can't comment on the difference because I've never driven with a de-powered rack that didn't have a welded pinion shaft.

I better not be the only one who hasn't...:facepalm:

I think most folks don't weld the pinion because it's much easier to drain the fluid and loop the lines, and if it's not done really well it can be a big problem.

If you decide to go with a welded shaft, have a good look at those posts about adjusting the yoke to rack pre-load. This is the adjustment that determines if your rack is crap, or a thing of beauty.

Here's a description from a thread on Miata.net:

I follow this procedure (using the metric equivalent torque) to get me close to where I want to be but I finish the adjustment by feel.

Within a few degrees of either side of where this procedure will get you you may find there's a noticeable change in steering resistance as felt at the pinion. I check resistance at the pinion by attaching a small vice grip to the pinion splines which I protect with a thick layer of paper towel. Whatever you do don't harm those splines or you'll have a hell of a hard time hooking the steering shaft up to the pinion.

Anyway, once you've followed the factory procedure you can gently swing the vice grip back and forth while slowly tightening (or loosening) the support yoke adjustment. I aim for the point where the turning resistance just begins that climb to becoming more difficult to turn. In other words, you want the yoke to give maximum support without it imparting significant friction. You may have to search for that point, but it's really pretty obvious once you've done it a couple of times. Once you're there, tighten the lock nut but be sure the yoke adjustment doesn't move (and tighten) with the lock nut or you'll have to redo the adjustment. You may have to hold the adjustment nut with a box wrench while cinching down the lock nut.

The net result (along with using P/S fluid in the rack cylinder) should be a really great feeling, quick, light, and essentially totally play-free steering rack. And yeah, it will be completely worth the time and trouble.

Here's the link from whence it came: http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=335874

Re-resurrecting a twice-dead thread.

If you want to see exactly how much slop you still have with an un-welded pinion shaft, there's a video in the middle of my Miatabusa steering rack depower story:

http://photos.motoiq.com/MotoIQ/Proj...52_XYVhE-M.jpg
http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_artic...ring-rack.aspx

I really can't imagine going to all the effort of an FM depower without spending the extra 20 minutes to weld up the input shaft.

-Dave

I depowered but not fully. Plugged the holes with miataroadster plugs. Didn't bother removing the rack to cut the seals out.

Nor could I.
Jim

You really need to cut the seals out to get proper depower.

The only seal I now remove is the rack piston seal. It's probably completely unnecessary, and a lot of added work, but I remove the piston as well.

The rest of the smaller seals are actually useful to keep some P/S fluid in for lubrication of the passenger side end of the rack, and to keep grease within, and dirt out of, the pinion body. The contribution of the little seals to friction is negligible, but the reduction in friction at the passenger end of the rack using P/S fluid rather than a thicker grease (like I used to do when I removed the seal there), is huge.

How difficult is de-powering the PS without having the engine pulled?

It is pretty easy to do if you remove the header.

I just took the lines and pump off of mine. I can't even tell the difference. Maybe I'll plug the holes someday, but probably not. the steering on it is still lighter than my power-steering equipped ford pickup.

if you have trouble turning the wheel on reasonably sized tires there is something wrong with your car or something wrong with your arms.

Just de-power the rack. It's not that difficult at all to tear the rack apart and cut the valve out of it. It took me like an hour. Although I had the engine out so removing the rack itself was easy.

There's no need to remove the header, and the added work would be far greater than any possible benefit. If the header was already out, or it was coming out anyway, that's different, but I wouldn't remove the header to facilitate removing the rack or any other part of the P/S system.

my .02:
First NA I had was factory manual rack. I've owned a few with PS as well. Did the FM depower on one car. Drove another with looped lines.

My own feeling is that the factory rack was the best. That's just personal preference, I understand that a lot of people don't like the ratio/number of turns. I don't track my car so maybe that is more important there. To me the feel of the factory manual rack was just better than the depowered ones. Maybe because of the difference noted in the miatabusa article.
I have a (crappy) welder, but I understand that the weld mod described must be done very carefully and properly, so I opted to purchase a factory manual rack and swap. Note that there are different part numbers for the inner tie rods, and the washers.

I've heard that the NB's manual rack, which is pretty rare, is much better than the NA's manual, though I did not hear why. The two aren't interchangeable, so far as I know only because of the mounting differences, though there may be others. The NB's mounting method is superior, never felt great about how the NA's mounts up. Purchased superpro rack bushings to try and stiffen up the assembly. FM sells them. Note there are different parts for PS/MS

Manual racks are usually available on ebay for $120 or so, I got mine there for $60 because it was encrusted with rust and crud, but it was nothing that a wire wheel couldn't fix. because you'll need to change the inner tie rods, might as well change the outers too, and maybe the lower ball joints. There are sellers on ebay that sell no name brand combo's of the 3, I think about 70 shipped or so.

I say listen to this guy