A bit about the car, it's a 1991 crx lowered on some sort of springs (neuspeed if I remember correctly) with Koni dampers, poly bushings. ST antis way bars, cusco lower and neuspeed upper brace bars.
The issue is a heavy steering (which is half expected) and more tiring a very tight and numb spot about 5 degrees each way of centre. The steering wheel will not self centre at speed and will remain in the position left.
I have rebuilt the rack ages ago since the issue was persistent then.
Any ideas as to what that might be?
Another interesting thing is, since getting this car back in my possession, the wheels have become a bit unbalanced and induce a slight vibration to the front end at speed, which surprisingly makes the steering behave a lot more civilised.

 

All the suspension parts are new/replaced. The imbalance is what makes the car manageable at speed.

 

any suggestions?

 

Have you put the front end up on jack stands and tested the range of motion for the steering rack there? If anything, you could try jacking up the front end, and removing components connected to the steering rack to diagnose the source of the resistance (whether it be ball joints, tie rod ends, the steering rack itself, etc...). You can also check for clearances, and see if something isn't rubbing or binding on the suspension.

If you can't reproduce the issues, whilst the car is on jack stands, I'd see if you can't get your hands on a pair of car dollies to lower the front wheels on to. That way you can test while the suspension is under normal vehicle load.

 

i did lock to lock sweep on a jack stand, everything seems normal. i need to get a recent alignment measures done to see what is really up, but the issue has been persistent for a decade now

 

i did install DA knuckles at one point and replaced them with stock parts again. i am not sure if i replaced the UCAs with stock ones though.

 

To be honest, I wouldn't expect that to cause as much binding as you're reporting... but then again, I'm not an expert on suspension troubleshooting for all chassis.

 

Have you ever tried loosening the bolt at the bottom of the steering column? (the one that bolts the universal joint to the rack) and tightening it again. I've seen people install a rack before and not get the splined end in the U-joint far enough and it caused similiar issues (binding, not returning to center on it's own, heavy steering) It's worth looking into.

 

i'll give that a try

 

Any updates on this Ash?