I just purchased my first honda the other day! It's an 88 hatch. The previous owner installed eibach sportlines and the soft parts of the suspension could be as much as 20 years old.

I can't feel the road through the wheel at all!

I've never driven so light a car so perhaps I'm simply not used to the feel but i expected visceral, white knuckled, vibrating goodness. Instead the thing wanders, bump steers and has no feel what so ever. It seems very twitchy at highway speeds.

The obvious places to start are in the steering rack bushings, outer tie rods and an alignment but can it be aligned to a decent configuration w/o a host of aftermarket goodies? What kind of caster can I get out of this thing stock and lowered? Anyone else experienced this? Tell me please that it is not normal!!!

I'm not sure if the rack was once power assist and converted but I doubt it, it seems very sensitive to my inputs at higher speeds but again, it doesn't feel right, just twitchy.

Please spare me your response if your experience is limited to the forums.

Thanks

 

only the tow can be adjusted without modification(camber kit/adjustable balljoints) i would suggest as you said bushings tie rod ends you might as well go all the way and replace all of the balljoints they are probably all about 20 years old then get your allignment. the camber/castor shouldn't need to be changed at all if you are at stock ridehight. it is all determined by the suspension.

 

Replacing the rack end bushing will do wonders to eh steering feel. Get under thcar and grab the passenger side inner tie rod. try to shake it up and down. It you can feel that the tie rod inner joint isn't sloppy, yet it still moves around, then you need to replace the nylo9n bushing in the rack. I did this to my CRX and it improved the steering feel quite a bit.

As for the twitchy feel at higher speeds, the rear toe is probably the culprit here.

 

you should go over the whole suspension and check for torn boots at the balljoints and steering rack.

as snm95ls said, the steering rack bushing (inside the rack, not rubber) is HUGE in improving steering feel.

and then after replacing that, just get an alignment. should be fine after that.

 

So remove and rebuild the rack? Is that what's involved in replacing the "inner" bushing? Or is it simply a mtter of replacing a bushing at the rack end around the inner tie-rod?

It has been and still is lowered with eibach sport springs.

 

information is in the FAQ thread at the top of the forum.

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1117870

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hetersoapian &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">So remove and rebuild the rack? Is that what's involved in replacing the "inner" bushing? Or is it simply a mtter of replacing a bushing at the rack end around the inner tie-rod?

It has been and still is lowered with eibach sport springs.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Removing the rack and basically rebuilding it is the only way I had any success. They are very simple to rebuild, and you cannot buy a reman manual rack for these cars.

It cost me about $100 in parts and an afternoon.