Jasonty

Hey folks, well, I finally got my Steeroids all installed, and I got the car aligned today. I put the toe at an 1/8" toe in, just to make sure the car wasn't too wild over bumps or bad roads. The car drives EXCELLENT! When I used to drive it, the car would go wherever it wanted, and if I hit a bump, I was switching lanes. Sure, this had a lot to do with my old worn out components and a bad alignment, but this new setup feels great. It's very responsive, although not too touchy like I thought it would be. I'm quite pleased with the road feel. It's a LOT quicker steering, and it just feels good in the old Vette. Makes it feel like I'm driving a new car. Well, now on to the bad parts of the system. Installing it was pretty straightforward, except for the fact that I had to use a die grinder and cut off about 6 inches of my lower control arms lip so the inner tie rod bolts could clear. Not good when you have to cut off a structural part like that. I'm going to weld some thick metal plates on the other side of the control arm to help reinforce it. Next up, I took the car to the alignment guy, and I asked him to check for any play in the system. Sure enough, there's play at the tie rod bracket. Nothings loose, but the whole freakin bracket FLEXES! Front tires in the air, and I'm shaking the tire with my hands back and forth. I can see this plate flexing. No good. Eventually I'll be taking the tie rod bracket off, and get a thicker one made. There's plenty of room for something beefier, not sure why Speed Direct hasn't caught this. But, overall, it's a 100% improvement over the stock C3 steering. The alignment guy was really impressed and thought it was a pretty sweet setup. I almost bought the "lower volume" P/S pump from Speed Direct, but I'm glad I didn't now. The stock pump powers this thing very well. Not too much at all. Also, I read that some people had issues with their steering wheel and the turn signal cancel cam feature. Well, my steering wheel is dead center with the wheels straight, and the turn signals cancel out just fine... Not sure why other people are having problems with this. If you're even thinking about buying this kit, just do it. Money well spent. By far the second best mod I've done to my Vette...

Bryan52803

awesome! and congrats on the new system :cheers:
Mines still on backorder but I'm expecting it anytime now. how long/complex was the installation? take care

Solid LT1

Quote "Well, now on to the bad parts of the system. Installing it was pretty straightforward, except for the fact that I had to use a die grinder and cut off about 6 inches of my lower control arms lip so the inner tie rod bolts could clear. Not good when you have to cut off a structural part like that. I'm going to weld some thick metal plates on the other side of the control arm to help reinforce it. Next up, I took the car to the alignment guy, and I asked him to check for any play in the system. Sure enough, there's play at the tie rod bracket. Nothings loose, but the whole freakin bracket FLEXES! Front tires in the air, and I'm shaking the tire with my hands back and forth. I can see this plate flexing. No good. Eventually I'll be taking the tie rod bracket off, and get a thicker one made. There's plenty of room for something beefier, not sure why Speed Direct hasn't caught this. But, overall, it's a 100% improvement over the stock C3 steering."

Thank you for including this into your post. I re-built my stock Saginaw Vette steering box to factory specs in the Fisher Body manual and find that my car drives very well down the road. The Corvette is a unique car in that the rear differential, wheel bearings, and suspension (being IRS) have to be within factory specifications for the car to really drive well down the road. I wonder how many miles those brackets that the steering rack is mounted on will take to fatigue and fail. I accept my C3 for the car it is and compared to the Camaros and other Pony Cars of that era, it drives quite well. My car is used in autocross competition and with sticky Hoosier race tires, it will almost always turn a better time than a stock Z06 (I won the last 2 years WSCC C5 class championship in my wife's Z06.) I hope the Steeriods product is well engineered but, doubt much time was devoted to durability testing. I always wonder if people who purchase this product have had their stock parts properly re-built by a quality company such as Corvette Steering in VA before they decided to change over to something like the Steeriod rack/pinion steering set-up? My LT-1 performs very well because I took the time to optimize the original parts before investing a considerable amount of money into such a drastic modification. I would probably believe a slightly better steering system than a properly optimized stock system but, not a night/day difference over a properly re-built C3. I guess as you get older, you get more conservative but, I'm a FAST old guy (46yrs old.)


[Modified by Solid LT1, 9:56 PM 5/19/2004]

mrvette

Solid, no question having everyting in order and righty-tighty is the way to go, but no question either about the rack/pinion setup being far superior, I did my own and the differances are night and day.....hell, just having 2.7 turns lock to lock is lots better than that old sloppy nearly 4 turns right there, and on streets with severe truck rutting, ditching that old style truck oriented ran assist/controll valve is worth a LOT, you maybe cant see it in an autocross but on a freeway, yeh, you can, night and day, all the time fighting the wheel with the stock system, now the car tracks like on rails, and the wheel is steady and true.....none of that old herky jerky crap....

I too had some thoughts about that large plate Steeroids uses, but on my site you see I settled for unequal length tie rods and had done with it..using a heavy but stout steel block for the adaptor .....
I also used stock tie rod ends....

GENE

Shark Racer

Hm... my Vette is like 2.9 turns lock to lock with the stock setup... were you running manual before?

(Just checked the tech manual... 2.92 turns)

-Steve

Vette-4-Life

Mine took 2 hours to remove the old and 6.5 hours to install, hardest part for me was getting the low pressure hose onto the steering pump.

I agree with jasonty, car drives completely different. My steering wheel is centered and the blinkers work fine.

71coupe

Be carefull what you cut, the lips & curves in the control arms are what keeps it rigid. The flexing thing with this kit seems to be common as others here have posted about that. I would look into that soon. If it flexes with light/med pressure, how much do you think it will give if you hit a curb?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's an improvement over stock...But I would contact the vendor to ensure everthing is correct.

With all of the problems and shortcomings of the stock setup and all of the advantages of rack & pinion, there is one thing that a rack & pinion will never have... strength.

mrvette

Pacin, I think we have the same racks, I did limit my steering swing/radius because of 255/50/17 in front....keep them off the frame/swaybar...
the limits are NOT the rack , but the snubbers on the a frame....

I can assure you due to some jackass or should I say butt with a jack at a tire shop who placed it under the rack instead of engine cradle....he had the car about allmost off the wheels, when I looked....well the rack survived just fine, as did my mounts....got lucky on that one....
BTW, I think the mounts are just fine, that rack should be the later one with iron/steel core, heavier than the earliest versions which were aluminum, but these are strong as hell....

GENE

Jasonty

I agree, I didn't want to start hacking up the control arms, but I had to in order to resolve clearance issues. I'm going to weld some metal plates in the front part of the control arms where I cut the lip off. Should make it stronger then stock. I'm gonna drive the car for a while longer before I pull off the tie rod bracket and get a stronger, thicker one made. For $1100, I'm kinda disappointed with the flexing of the plate. I'm sure many hours of design and development went into this kit, but as someone said earlier, the actual "wear and tear" wasn't addressed. I'm not bitchin though, this kit did more then I expected it to, and I'm happy.

gkull

Not to high jack the thread, But I'm with solid LT1 on the stock type system with better ball joints, upgraded bushings, and proper alignment specs is hard to beat. That is other than the mods Norval did to change bump steer.

From the things you said I wouldn't go around a road racing track with a system that had flex like that.

Does anybody know what C-3 years included the two position steering so you could change the lock to lock steering wheel ratios?


[Modified by gkull, 1:16 PM 5/20/2004]

Captain Morgan

Jason,
Do you have pics of the part of your control arm that you had to cut? I'm just curious because nobody has mentioned having to do that yet. At least not that I've heard.

Speed Direct

We are happy to hear of your overall satisfaction with the kit but let me try to address your concern. I will begin by stating that we have thoroughly tested our system for durability. We have put at least 35,000 miles on our test car and have seen no fatigue problems with the center bracket. Durability in a high stress/heavy use environment is of paramount importance and it is what we design to.


I suggest that you are seeing the tie rod bracket move but not flex. The way the racks are designed is that the point where the bracket attaches can move slightly. An amount of up and down movement is normal. Many times customers see this and think that something is wrong but it is just how the system is designed. I assure you that the bracket is strong enough. If you have further questions please let us know what we can do to help.

barkingowl

I would have to ask Violater if anything was cut during my installation but I tend to doubt it. Everything in the front of the car was replaced too. He said that the install took 6 hours. Here are a couple pics...

Fevre

George my 73 has the dual position steering.

Vette-4-Life

I had similar clearance issues with the lower a-arms, actually put grooves down both tie rod sleeves. I used a file and ground down just enough to clear

71coupe

That's good. BTW - companies the stand behind their products as much as you do is your's is rare. :cheers:

I think the rack kit is a great idea & a good upgrade - could use a little Norvalizing tho :jester

:D

SmokedTires

Glad to hear your enjoying the steeroids :cheers:

George my 74 has the dual position also :)

Jasonty

I'll try to snap some pictures of the part I had to cut off for yall...

propellar

Just got the car back from alignment. The install was not too bad. The low pressure hose was a b__ch. I had to weld stops for my steering travel had increased & with running 60's up front the tires wanted to rub. I just got back from driving & what a huge improvement. It's like driving a new car. This was the last thing needed after replacing all of the suspension front & rear along with all new poly bushings. I wanted to say thanks to all of you who have posted feedback as even though I have not been active in the threads I have been reading everything that has been written. Also I forgot to say thanks for the GP from Steeroids :hurray:

Jay M

I spent a long time on that low pressure hose as well... eventually I gave up and thought that there may be a problem ie- wrong size hose. Well a friend of mine, a seminary student- not a machanic, gave me some golden advice. He suggested screwing a big fat bolt into the hose to stretch it out a bit. It worked like a charm :)

~Jay