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Need a new rack... electric options?

1K views 4 replies 2 participants last post by  Allan 
#1 ·
My '97 needs the rack replaced. Has anyone broken new ground on electric steering swaps for our vehicles?

I know about the Saturn Vue swap but are there any late model electric racks that could fit in these cars? The Mustang version below looks a bit problematic.

Whenever something is getting worn I try to plan an upgrade. Justifies the cost a little bit: bigger sway bars during a suspension rebuild, dual exhaust conversion when the exhaust is old, etc. Just checking before I replace the rack with a newer version of the same.
 

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#3 ·
That's what I was worried about.

Thought maybe a manual rack with the Vue EPAS swap and loosing the rag joint could work. But I have the stock iron block 4.6L so it is heavy. All of these type of EPAS swaps I've seen are on older lighter cars.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Shaft actuated electric steering is awful, every car I've driven with it feels identical to the next with about as much feedback as video game joy sticks provide. Plus I don't know if you've seen one of those units but they're quite bulky, definitely won't fit in the engine compartment and doubtful they'd fit under the dash, let alone mate to the factory column, without a big reengineering effort. Best option IMO that's realistic for these cars is an electric hydraulic pump from a Toyota MR2, that gives you the efficiency benefit but means you'd still need to retain the lines and hydraulic rack, so it wouldn't be a two birds with one stone solution

If you were to persue the column mount though, you wouldn't need a manual rack, main purpose of those is to change the ratio to make turning the wheel easier, with the trade off of requiring more turns of the steering wheel. What you could do is disassemble the factory rack, clean it out, gut the piston seals, plug the holes for the lines, grease it up and put it back together. Unless there's play between the rack and pinion teeth that's a cheaper and equally effective alternative to retrofitting a fast ratio manual rack
 
#5 ·
My rack works well, 70k original miles with a rebuild suspension. Problem is a big chunk was taken out of the mounting boss on the rack body itself. Picture a 3" long shark tooth made out of aluminum. That's what I found on my garage floor a couple weeks ago. Did an oil change Sunday (fun times!) and saw part of the rubber mount bushing and realized where that "shark tooth" fell from. Something hit my undercarriage last month on the highway during a storm. Now I know the whole story.

Anyway, I help my son change his rack on his old '95 LX and thought that I would send it to the shop if I ever had to do this again. Here I am now!?!

I like the gutted power rack idea but this would hardly be a weekend job at the moment. Especially with the underdash motor/column fabrication. Would be a great project to plan for though.
 
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