Theoretical dream mod.

[Juice]

All right you gear heads, fill me in. How hard would it be to develop and CNC machine a new gear ratio that would change the lock-to-lock on a steering wheel. My 91 has always been a pain to turn at slow speeds and I have always wanted the special edition S2000's variable steering wheel ratio. Does anyone follow me?

 

[Briank]

Does the S2000 really have a variable ratio or just variable assist?

Do you want to have less turns lock to lock or more turns? Either way you will be giving up something. Less turns it will be harder to turn and slow speed and twitchy at high speed. More turns it will be easier at slow speed but too slow for tight maneuvers at medium speed.

 

[Juice]

Less turns. Of course my 91 is already a pain at a stand still. I'm not sure how much harder it could become.

 

[Briank]

Less turns would be good for auto X but I would be afraid to run over 100 mph. Just a sneeze and you would be in the next lane or in the ditch.

IMCA cars that run on short dirt tracks use steering multipliers, an inline gear box that takes one turn in and gives 2 turns out. Talk about fast steering.

FYI:

http://store.summitracing.com/defau...rchtype=both&part=steering+quickener&x=15&y=6

 

[JoeSchmoe]

I talked to a 962 replica builder a long time ago about his steering setup and I was told that he can order custom racks of any ratio and dimension for ~$700. So if you sent your existing rack in as a sample, the steering rack place would be able to fab you up a bolt in replacement with the ratio of your choosing. This was about 4 years ago though, so I dont know if they are still around or what the costs are. If you want, I can try digging through my old backups to find the name.

As BrianK points out, there are many tradeoffs. A faster rack will mean more steering effort.

 

[ChopsJazz]

IMO you may want to be careful when deciding to change the steering ratio. Yes, it has its limitations at slow speeds, but this car is designed to be driven at very high sustained speeds. Next time you're doing in excess of 130 mph (which I'm sure is not very often, and certainly on a closed track ) take notice of how easy it is to steer the car with nominal input. If you were to shorten the ratio from lock to lock you would make the car very darty as you make minute steering corrections at high speeds!