so im rebuilding my steering rack on my crx, and im throwing around the idea of using the quaife rack and pinion in the rebuild. but i want to know if anyone has used it on track and if its worth doing or just keep the stock rack and pinion and stick with the refresh.

 

Search a bit, we had a few people try this out recently.

 

I did it!
I love the quick response and less steering input. No more getting crossed up in tight turns.

Here are my downs, it is a WORK OUT.
You feel every little bump in the road in your hands. Hoping to insulate the column more spehrical support bearing or rubber bushing it.
Ran in the rain was hard to get used to as you now had less steering input to recover the spin.

 

Ok something that could make the decision for me that I over looked. In my search I do see a lot of people liking the rack for autocross. But I will be doing HPDE road course and hopefully HC in the future. Plans right now with how the car is setup engine-wise is to go H1. Is the quaife rack legal in H1. If not I'll just stick with stock obviously.

 

reading the rules, it appears that a Quaife rack and pinion would be illegal even in H1. correct? the rules say that you can use any OEM rack as long as it bolts up without modification. and i dont see any exception in the H1 section. unless i am missing something.

can anyone confirm?

 

Yep, it doesn't say you can, so you can't. In H1 specifically the "power steering system" is open, but...I don't know if that would really fall in that category.

 

Yea. That's what I'm confused about. Since the quaife setup is for a manual rack. At least on the crx.

 

I thought the CRX rack was a decent speed when I drove my buddy's. I feel like if it was much tighter ratio, you might be past that performance curve where you're working too hard just to turn the wheel, not making accurate inputs... I haven't searched, just my honest opinion.

 

that may not have been the stock rack then. Stock is just over 4 turns LtL. I have the quafie unit in my autox car and It made a huge difference. I no longer have to shuffle steer in order to get the wheels turned fast enough. I really dont notice any extra difficulty turning the wheels unless it is completely stopped.

 

Hmmm. Maybe it was just because I was only out on the open road race track that I didn't notice how big the ratio was. The only car I've driven that I complained about on the track was an FA RX7 with a big ol' trucker wheel. That thing was a tractor. I am never against a faster steering rack, but I just know there are some serious downsides to having overly heavy steering. As I said, I haven't searched, if people say its not a bad upgrade, I say go for it. How is a class going to know you have quicker steering anyway?

 

Spin the steering wheel and see what it takes to get from lock to lock... pretty easy check

 

Yeah. That would be something easy to check.

Can anyone else in HC confirm whether or not a quaife rack is legal in H1? Just seems strange that "power steering system" is open, with no mention of the manual counterpart. So if I converted over to power steering I could do essentially whatever I want with it since it's open, but manual racks are stuck to stock? Maybe the rule is under the premise that the bad about power steering (weight, power drain) will even out the advantages of say adding a quicker ratio rack to it? Am I on the right track?

 

My rules are not HC but state steering must remain in stock configuration.
I took this to mean they didn't care as long as it was a stock housing.
If HC says p/s is open why not manual steering. Really no different than having transmission gearing open.

I don't actually know if i gained any lap time,but i gained more driver comfort/confidence.
minus the downs i noted above.

 

SuperDave,

Did you switch from Power Steering to Manual?

Or Manual Rack, To Quaife?

 

can't you fit an integra rack in there ? they are usualy much quicker...and with a belt driven power steering...they feel quite good.

 

integra rack wont fit a crx.

 

I think Benny runs a quaife rack in his yellow EG that he races in H2, IIRC he mentioned that when he was building the car a few years back. I'm sure he can tell you how it works compared to the stock rack.


Jonathan, sorry to see what happened at nationals. It's good to see that you're not hurt and working towards staying in the game. Can't wait to see you in H1. What engine will you be using in H1?

 

There are two schools of thought, how stink put it "if it doesnt say you can then you cant" or that even with the quaife unit the rack still mounts in the factory location, only the internal mechanism is changed which = legal.

It really is one of those grey items thats open to interpretation.

 

Power steering system includes the rack, pump, lines, steering column. It's the whole "system". If they said something like "power steering hydraulic system" then you probably couldn't change the rack out.