NSX Steering Rack

[Rob_Fenn]

Hi,

A long shot but i don't suppose there are any Canadians living in Belgium who is a member on here? I was at Quaife today and they have a guy with those credentials who wants to develop a better steering rack, and supposedly he is coming over from Belgium.

If you are around mate it would be great to talk about it, and our NSX is a stone's throw from Quaife so we could take up the development if you like?

Otherwise, don't suppose there is a Belgium NSX owners club? :)

-Rob

[ctrlaltdelboy]

yeah, that's Peter - he has several detailed and quite technical posts on here under the username 710.

I met Peter and his other half at Nurburgring earlier this year, nice couple.

[Rob_Fenn]

Does he come on here much Darren? Or on Prime maybe?

Cheers,

-Rob

[ctrlaltdelboy]

55 posts here since joining in December 04

details here (http://nsxcb.co.uk/forum2/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=138)

Peter also posts on Prime with the same handle, with 46 posts since joining there also in Dec 04

details here (http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/member.php?u=11590)

[Rob_Fenn]

Cheers!

[markc]

I met up with Peter at Spa a couple of weeks ago. He comes over to the UK fairly regularly on business and suggested a meet if he knew he'd have any non-work time in his schedule.

Peter's been after a RHD NSX steering rack for a while but hasn't had any luck tracking one down. He's looking to re-work the rack/pinion components to effect "quicker" steering which is one of the few critisms levelled at he NSX.
If you know of a rack Peter can buy or borrow let him know by PM or reply to one of his previous posts here.

Cheers

Mark

[Rob_Fenn]

Thanks Mark, Peter has PM'd me. May as well just offer our current rack as the NSX isn't a daily driver.

-Rob

[710]

Hi everybody, it was nice to see a few of you at Spa.
I just saw this thread. Thanks for passing the info on to the others. So here is the latest on the NSX manual quick steering racks:

The racks will be ready in a couple of months. But they are left hand drive racks because I have been unable to find a RHD rack to inspect and measure yet. If you know of a RHD rack, either broken or bent or good, please let me know, because there are several UK and Oz NSXers that want a quicker rack. I (or Quaife) only need it for a few days (or maybe a few hours).

My racks will also have adjustable end stops, which will increase the travel by zero to 7mm each way or decrease the travel for people with wider front tyres by zero to 20mm each side. By the way, I have designed the rack to still accept the stock end stops. So if you want to go back to the stock end stops, you easily can.

The rack will also be quicker. It will bring the standard lock to lock to about 2.6 turns (instead of the 3.25 turns stock). The reason I am doing this is because when I have my car in a drift (in the dry), the “snap back” is sometimes too fast for me to catch because of the slow NSX steering. Having a quicker rack could save me thousands of pounds in body damage one day.

And there is the advantage of a nicer steering feel; it transforms the car when you are driving sportily. It is by far the easiest modification that gives the most increase in performance and driving pleasure. I’m a little surprised someone hasn’t done this before. But, having said that, there are some characteristics and limitations about the original rack that did give us some difficulties at first. Maybe that’s why no one has been able to do it previously.

And parking will be easier too, because even though there is a little more effort (almost not noticeable) needed to turn the steering wheel, the wheels turn much faster so it’s easier to zip into a parallel parking spot without arms waving about all over the place. Hey, cool parking is important too! :D

The aluminium part of the rack housing will be highly polished, I don’t know about the paint on the steel part yet.
The pinion is a helix gear instead of a normal spur gear, so it will be very smooth. The rack will be nicely tapered so weight is kept to a minimum. I think the rack will be 45kg lighter. No, sorry, 3 grams lighter. Anyway, lighter. So your car will go lots faster.
And as Oddball said in Kelly’s Heroes, “we like to think we can get out of trouble faster than we get into it”. So when that moron on the road suddenly decides to put his car into the space your car is occupying, you can turn out of the way and avoid him much better and with more “precision” instead of with just a panic move.

Also, to put someone’s other doubt at rest, high speed driving is not affected because your brain automatically adjusts, in fact it gives you a more confident feel. Racing car drivers drive much faster that we do and they all have to use quick racks. There’s no way you can safely drive at high speed with slow steering. Ever seen a steam roller going fast? No. That’s because they have a worm gear to steer, can’t keep it under control with their slow steering, so they only go slow. :wink:

The NSX was given a slower steering than Mr. Senna wanted because it was primarily made for the American market where sporty-ness takes second place to comfort. Well I’m glad they made the rest of the car well. My next project is interior space, i.e. BIG door pockets covered in, maybe, black or tan Alcantara? What do you think? And a carbon/titanium/aluminium fold up-able knee support/cup holder. For the door side knee, have you ever noticed how far your knee is from the door? Cornering hard during a week in the French mountains gives me a bruise!

Anyway, I feel really bad that I have not been about to find a RHD rack for you UK/Oz/Japanese guys. I am still trying to find one and when I do, Quaife will be able to make them in a shorter time because they are probably just a mirror of the LHD racks.
But I have to be sure with the measurements because it’s a very large investment in money and time. We designed everything in 3D CAD and even did an FEA test before making the technical drawings.

So, if someone can get a RHD rack (complete) to Quaife, they can take it apart and inspect it. Then they can put it back together and return it to you again, if anybody is willing to do that. Only for a few days. Maybe the same day. They won’t touch the tie rod ends so you can put it right back into you car without realignment. And I’ll give you a discount on your quick rack.

The plan is that I rebuild the racks with new bushes and the new rack and pinion etc for customers because most people don’t know where to send the rack for a rebuild anyway (in some regions, there just isn’t anybody at all…). And the end stops are different anyway, so it’s better that I install then.

I have a shipping point in California and of course one here in Belgium and probably one near Dover.

I will ship a completely reconditioned rack, ready to install in your car, with the new quick rack built in directly to you from one of these depots if you pay me the core deposit, then when I receive your old rack, I’ll refund you the core deposit.

I’ll offer a one month free return so if you don’t like the new rack, I will give your money back and send your old rack back. These racks are easy enough to remove and install so your car’s “down time” should be only a couple of hours.

The total length of the new rack is identical to the old rack, so if you mark your tie rod ends (or send the whole thing to me, I won’t touch the tie rods so they remain in exactly the same place), you can drive it without having to get the alignment done again. But I would get it at least checked again, personally.

The guarantee on the rack will be quite long because Quaife makes good stuff, and if you need a new end stop or whatever, it will be no problem for me to give you one free.

The rebuilt racks won’t be cheap though (looks like around US$1900 each at the moment). But it’s still about the cheapest-for-major-improvement modification you can do on the car. And it’s still cheaper than an exhaust.

If you have any ideas or comments please let me know because I am formulating the plan at the moment. I also need advice about PayPal or other payments systems, if any of you have ideas about that.
Thanks,
Peter

[ctrlaltdelboy]

nice work peter http://darrenferneyhough.com/images/smilies/thumbs.gif

[710]

Hey, where did you get that purple guy?

[ctrlaltdelboy]

http://darrenferneyhough.com/images/smilies/lol.gif same place I got this little guy http://darrenferneyhough.com/images/smilies/dance2.gif and his mate http://darrenferneyhough.com/images/smilies/drivingskid.gif

I keep a little collection handy in case I want to emote something beyond the options available on any given forum

so anyway, http://darrenferneyhough.com/images/smilies/respect.gif to Peter for doing the steering rack!

[710]

:- ) is the limit of my emotions icons thingy skill

[markc]

Hi Peter,

Does it matter if the RHD rack is from a car with EPS or not?

The answer to the above question will probably answer my next question, will your modified racks work with EPS?

Cheers

Mark

[ctrlaltdelboy]

it matters - the racks are vastly different between manual and eps

[710]

There is a simple answer for this. That’s why this post is going to be very short . Like my other posts.
I can imagine taking the EPS rack out of the car and putting a manual one in. That’s what Honda did with the Zanardi version. While the racks are very different, I believe the mounting points are the same. You may get an error light on the dashboard, though.
It seems the traction control sensor is separate, and so would not be affected. In any case, with the quick rack, the traction control would still work on our cars. It just would be a small percent less effective when the steering wheel is turned a lot. So I guess there also would also not be a problem on a car with EPS.

I also notice that Quaife only makes racks for manual steered cars. Never one with power steering. I don’t know why. Maybe the rack is too complicated when it’s power steering. Otherwise I don’t know why, I’ll ask them.

It seems to me we could make a new rack for the EPS unit too. Rebuilding the rack would be more difficult too. May be the position sensors on the EPS rack are just to much trouble. But I would probably only sell a few.

For our racks (manual), I looked at a separate EPS unit from some of the OEM suppliers, there are a lot now. They have three types:
-electric motor mounted around the rack (like later NSXes). Difficult.
-electric motor mounted on the pinion, actually between the pinion and the steering column. No room.
-electric motor mounted next to the rack. Possibly.

Adding an EPS unit seems attractive to me because it can be programmed. So at slow parking speeds it would work, and at higher (say around 30 mph) it would fade out. That way the steering feel would be natural while driving sportily, but it would be an aid while parking.

Can anybody tell me how the EPS car feels with its power steering compared to the manual rack when driving sportily? Is it as bad as I hear or is it just a little less sharp? I can’t believe it’s that bad actually.

Anyway, most of the NSXes ever sold were early ones. Most NSXes are manual, not because the manual is better, just because that’s all there was.

For you Mark, I suggest putting one of my racks in and trying it (if I actually get a RHD rack to measure), I believe most of the fitting is the same, we just need to look at it again to be sure, especially at the point the column fastens to the pinion shaft. If you then don’t like it, I’ll give you your money back. You certainly will notice the difference though because the NSX requires a lot of effort to turn the wheel. We with manual steering won’t notice the difference because we are used to it. But you will.

The NSX has a lot of castor. So every time you turn the steering wheels, you are in effect, lifting the nose of the car. Did Honda run into trouble when designing the suspension? Suspension design, especially at the front, is always a question of compromises. Change one thing to improve something (like understeer or turn in or bite) and you pay somewhere else. I guess Honda settled on a compromise and there we have it. Honda obviously compromised and made a slow steering rack to compensate for their large castor.
But the heavy-ish steering is still acceptable for the Americans so I guess it’s not a big problem.
I am sure, though, that Mr. Senna would have complained that the steering requires one of those knobs you see on tractors! I saw a video of him testing the car. He is sitting close-ish to the wheel like we do (not with arms-stretched-out-straight as in a classic, but unrealistic, Formula One position), and doesn’t seem to have to steer as much as we do, notably when the car’s tail goes out a little. Did Honda have a good rack in their test cars? I would like to know this, if anybody knows any of the developers, please ask!

Hope this short, incomplete post helps. :- )

Peter

[markc]

The main reason for the question was that as I don't anticipate using my car much over the winter, I was going to put in a new clutch over the next few weeks/months (at my leisure), and as my car will be laid up in my garage it may as well have no steering rack as well as no clutch/gearbox. :)

Peter, If I do take out the rack I'll let you know and we'll get it over to Quaife for measuring.

Mark

[710]

Wow, Rob, great! I didn’t read NSXCB very much lately due to over work, sorry I didn’t respond earlier. I only just noticed your post a minute ago.
That would be great if you could give Quaife your rack for a few days. I’ll let you try a quick rack in your car for free, if you don’t like it you can put the old one back in, if you like it, I’ll give you a huge discount!
I have no other options, you’re going to have the appreciation of all the UK, Japanese, and Aussie NSX owners. Thanks mate.
Peter