Steering rack

[Q4-Dave]

I am wondering about improving the steering in some way, has anyone done this?

what is the difference in turns of the steeringwheel for the narrow vs widebodied 155s?

Are there any difference between the Q4, V6 or the other engines, or are the only thing that differs narrow or widebody?

would the "evolution quick-rack" from walkers-garage (the top item on this page: http://www.walkers-garage.co.uk/shop/contents/en-uk/d25.html) fit the Q4?

What do you think about this, is it farfetch´d and a pointless mod or will it be rewarding in "drive-feeling"?

[wrinx]

I've had both quickrack and normal rack 155s and prefer the normal rack, the quick rack seems to lose some feel in my opinion.

wrinx

[Steve Webb]

The quick rack is supposed to be 2.2 turns lock to lock, and the normal rack is more like 3.2 isn't it?

But I seem to remember years ago when Taz was looking for his Q4 he wanted to drive one and check out the steering. Turning the wheel from lock to lock was a little under 3 turns so somewhere in-between the quick and normal rack.
Not exactly a scientific test but the result was a little surprising.

And as for that walkers rack, I doubt it would be a bolt in solution. I would have thought a remanufactured rack from a late lhd 155 would have been a better bet.

[colibry]

The steeringrack from 145 2.0 QV is 2.2 and it can be placed on Q4 with 1 mod.. u need to weld "ear" bracket on it and thats all..

[Alfa Patch]

I have had quick rack and 'slow' rack RHD drive cars and have to say i prefer the quick racks. I think it would much improve the feeling of driving a Q4 through slower corners. It should limit the feel of understeer as your steering imputs are smaller and therefore you arent having to cross arms to get through roundabouts quickly. Of course the way a car drives is very much a personal opinion but i like it as direct as possible, makes catching slides way easier and once you have the mass of a Q4 yawing around i'd certainly want the speed of the quick rack.

I was thinking about this recently, are later WB Q4's not quick rack? If not i can't really see why the rack would be any different to a 'quick' LHD rack. Maybe you need to change the track rod ends but i would have thought the rack fits to the subframe in the same way as the other cars. The guys on the alfa 155 forum will almost certainly know, if the engine needs to come out of my car at any point I will be seriously considering swapping the rack.

[Steve Webb]

if the engine needs to come out of my car at any point I will be seriously considering swapping the rack.

You only need to drop the front subframe to get access to the rack to change it.

Still a pig of a job, but not quite as involved as dropping the engine.

[hf hpe]

the wide body 2.0 16V TS are with 2.1 rack
don't know about Q4

the old models Q4 and V6 are with 2.7 lock to lock rack
other models use 3 turns lock to lock rack

[the wombat]

The quick rack and the 'slower' racks are interchangeable. same mounting points, power steering take offs etc. I was going to swap the V6 rack with a widey 2.0 16v TS one.

One thing to look out for is that the 2.0 quick rack has a mounting point cast on it for the rod gearshift pivot. It should fit OK, but the option of grinding it off is there.

Another thing to look out for is that although all the widey 2.0 16vs were meant to have the 2.1 rack, some did not. It seems that with early ones it was a bit of a parts bin lottery. Others might have had a rack change in their life and a 2.7 or 3 turn rack fitted through ignorance.

My widey spares car had a 3 turn rack fitted for some reason.

[wrinx]

I thought the TREs differed between models?

wrinx

[Steve Webb]

Some are 12mm thread some 14mm IIRC

[Alfa Patch]

You only need to drop the front subframe to get access to the rack to change it.

Still a pig of a job, but not quite as involved as dropping the engine.

Im sure it is. I wouldn't go to all that effort just to do the rack but if the engine had to come out for some reason I think it's something I'd take the opportunity of doing.