I have 93 civic hatch, Im curious if there is a quicker rack I can swap in out of another car. I autocross and the steering seems kinda lazy to me. Any help would be appreciated!

 

Quaife quick rack& pinion.

 

That is exactly what i was hoping to find thanks!

 

yep

 

what's done to the car? how are your tie rods? rack bushing? front sway bar? what's your alignment?

 

A dc2 power steering rack is quicker than a quaife.

 

The car is just lowered with a stock alignment (nothing special yet). I replaced the tie rod ends and all the front end bushings incl. steering rack bushings. At the moment the car only has the oem front bar on it.

 

you're going to have to change your driving style until you get a rsb. and even then you have to incorporate the new type of driving with the rsb.

you basically have to jerk the steering wheel, basically force the rear to come out, making the car rotate. let me see if i can find a vid......

kind of like this; true it's a mini, but it's still front wheel drive and running stock class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCDSGDuZuR0

there are also alignment changes that you can do to help you in autocross. i for one run at 0 toe. others run with some toe out, to help a little.

 

I have raced without before, its no fun but ill have mine before next race season. Also once the season kicks back in ill reset the alignment to something a little more agressive. So i guess my question is is it better to go with the integra power steering or the other???

 

The integra GSR power rack is a good replacement. It offers a signficant upgrade to the eg rack.
Though if your manual, I guess your left to aftermarket.

 

You don't have to run the integra rack as power, you can loop it, and keep it manual.

Would likely be cheaper, as well as easier. No taking the rack apart. But, you may need to swap the subframe.

 

imop, just drive it as is, and just learn how to drive faster.

 

Your options are Integra PS gearbox with matching PS sub-frame OR the Quaife QSR kit in your standard manual gearbox.

Yes the Integra rack with it's 2.98 lock-2-lock seems shorter than the Quaife units advertised 3.25. But it turns out that is not the case. The 92-95 Civic's manual and PS racks are different from the Integra. When you compare the design specifications of the two cars, you will notice the Civic actually has 11.1% more steering angle than the Integra (40* vs 36* on the inside wheel). Since the two cars have identical suspension geometry, we can deduce the Civic rack actually has a longer stroke. Therefore you cannot directly compare lock-2-lock numbers. Instead we need to compare actual steering ratios.

EG Civic with manual gear-box is advertised as being 19:1 ratio with 3.88 L2L. That means the Quaife kit with it's 3.25 L2L is 16.24% shorter. If you apply that percentage to the actual steering ratio, you find the Quaife kit is an advertised 15.92:1. This is just a hair SHORTER than the Integra's 16.1:1

Now there is still another catch. Quaife's advertised rack ratios are known to be bogus. The EF rack has been proven time and time again to be only 2.4 L2L when it's advertised as being 2.85. This is a huge error. What I'm finding is that Quaife has cut the gear teeth further down the rack than OEM. Therefore they seem to be basing their L2L number on the number of teeth and not the actual throw of the rack inside the gearbox. You could cut teeth from one end to the other and it still wouldn't add more steering angle. That is purely a function of of the width of the rack vs the width of the gearbox (because the end washers hit the gearbox to stop you from turning the wheel).

The 92-95 kit may be CONSIDERABLY shorter than the Integra PS rack. Not to mention that you don't have to fuss with PS fluid, or looping and venting lines. But we won't know until someone actually posts the L2L of a finished install. Unfortunately in all the EG Quaife QSR install threads, NOT 1 PERSON has though to do this.

PS: The Quaife kit no longer includes the pinion bearing with their kit (and you cannot reuse your old one). For whatever reason, they cannot seem to tell me what size this bearing is and Honda doesn't sell it separately. The CRX bearing is a 6202 size. If the EG bearing is the same, you can get them on eBay for like $3. Unfortunately you know for sure what size bearing it is until you take the old stuff apart. Quaife sure makes this difficult don't they.

 

Well given all that info im gonna stick with my stock power steering set up. I hope that a more agressive alignment will bring it to life a bit.

 

Ya know.... you never mentioned your Civic had power steering (most hatches don't). lol I take it you have an Si?

If that is the case, then the integra PS rack would be the best/easiest/cheapest upgrade (since you already have the PS subframe) Unfortunately you would also need the complete pump and hose system to go with it if you wanted to keep the "power" aspect alive. The Civic PS system is completely different.

If you didn't want to keep the "power", then you would ditch all the hydraulic system, loop the input lines on the rack and vent the case to ease steering effort (leave it half filled with fluid for lubrication). There are several write-ups on doing this already.

 

My car is actually a DX I was surprised to see it had power steering also. OK so what im thinking is Im gonna snag a integra steering rack ditch the power aspect of and go from there. I know I should prolly post this in its own thread but im gonna do it here anyway I just ordered a set of konis and gc (500/400) with top hats, I am think sway bars now. Any input on what combo is best for the eg for autoX?

 

Sway bars are a tuning device. You won't know what "works" for you until you try it.

I'm sure your gonna want something bigger than 14mm (gsr) in the back though, so an ASR rear subframe brace is gonna be a good idea to start.

 

switch the spring rates and start from there. like i said. learn to drive your car man.

and i don't think it's legal to swap out your rack for a quicker one(correct me if im wrong)? what class are you running in again?

 

ITR rear sway bar

 

Currently im running ST(street touring). But the car will be evolving to SP(street prepaired) maybe SMF depending on what I decide to do motor wise. I have a lot of varibles to figure out before next season.

 

hmm.... fsp is pretty doable. tires get expensive after a while though. and dude, you can run a STS preped crx in smf and do pretty good in smf. it's all down to the driver, in smf. that class is a crap shoot. get a good driver in a prepared car for that class and he'll win all the time. right now that class has just a bunch of guys just playing around.