GTX steering quickener

I measured the diameter of the steering shaft and it's 5/8.
At this point I'm too lazy to count the splines laying on my back with the rocker panel wearing a groove in my side. But...

Corvair had a 5/8" x 36 spline count and they make universals because of this.

Most 2:1 steering quickeners use GM's 3/4" x 36 spline count.

So in order to run one of these in a GTX you'll need one non-flex steel coupler: 5/8 x ?? spline count X 3/4 x36 spline count to attach the steering shaft to the quickener.

And one steering U joint to go from 3/4 x 36 spline back down to 5/8 x ?? spline to attach the quickener to the rack and pinion.

As the length of the steering quickener is already 7.25" - 8" plus these couplers, it's going to push the steering wheel back about 9-10". That's 3-4" too much IMO.

Am I thinking about this wrong? Should I be thinking of turning the steering shaft down and welding a new end on it? And not running adapters?

Anyone else on our collective knowledge on the interwebnet ever installed one in a GTX? Anyone else working on one at present? Tim Taylor perhaps?

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Michael LeCompte

The GTX was rallied fairly extensively, there might be a "real" quick rack availabe, check out Quaife, Rally Design and the rest of the usual suspects before you start cutting

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Pure mathematics is the enemy of every truly creative man -- Sir Alec

Ted Andkilde Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The GTX was rallied fairly extensively, there
> might be a "real" quick rack availabe, check out
> Quaife, Rally Design and the rest of the usual
> suspects before you start cutting
>

Ted by any normal standards the 323 was an extremely rare car in the extreme.

It had very limited success an d really only could be compettive in events with the extremely modest output of the motor---being onlt a puny 1600cc in a 2000cc world---would not be a massive detriment---thus it did good on snow.

Or it did good in lower level series like USA and Canada
That was helped by Rod Millen making good results with his ever better specced car.

It was over here deffo a case of "In the land of blind men, a one eyed man is king"

Elsewhere they were bought in tiny numbers, rallied in just handfulls and all parts for them were always scarce.
Don't dream there's any off the shelf anything.
> Pure mathematics is the enemy of every truly
> creative man -- Sir Alec

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

We cut our steering column shorter in a couple of places added some of the weld in spuds (column is hollow) and some weld on couplers and a knuckle joint. Ours is still 2-3 inches out further than stock but it puts the steering wheel closer which is nice.

2-3" sounds good, even 5-6" would be ok for me.

Did you change how the steering column mounts to the lower dash accordingly to how much you lengthened it?

No chance you have any photos is there?

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Michael LeCompte

We actually went with the stock configuration on the lower dash mount, actually we welded a couple of brackets to the stock one, redrilled the holes a couple of inches out and remounted it. The quickener is mounted near to the firewall. If I had to do it all over again, I would buy a linear bearing/mount set up from Howe Performance Power steering with the colapsable steering column and the rest of the hardware and mount the quickener the way Tom Burress did in this thread:

http://www.rallyanarchy.com/phorum/read.php?5,16993,17105#msg-17105

Columns and mount
http://www.howeperformance.com/accessories-new.htm

weld couplers:
http://www.howeperformance.com/accessories-ujoints.htm

Something like what Bill did on his truck. Scroll down:
http://www.specialstage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32415&page=5

I see what you mean here...

So thats something you'd do at the same time as putting the cage in the car.

ditching most of the factory steering column seems almost easier than trying to work around it.

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Michael LeCompte

Yep. I was on a very tight budget so went with the stock stuff modified but for another few hundred bucks I would have replaced everything with aftermarket. We had to replace our rack with another stock rack but wanted to increase the steering ratio and speed. We went with a howe power steering pump and had our rack internals machined to increase the speed of the rack itself and connections replaced with AN fittings. When adding a quickener you can have pressure lag at your rack and pump and an increase in PS fluid temps, so we also added an inline cooler. Of course after all of this and prepping our car for Gorman, we broke a CV in the first stage and weren't able to continue

Pressure lag because the stock powersteering pump can't flow the proper volume of fluid through the rack fast enough?

So you machine out the inlet and outlet to a larger size and tap them for AN fittings...Interesting.

Whew this is going to be a big job. But once done... Does it make the car a completely different animal? What are your impressions.

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Michael LeCompte

If it's anything like my RX-7 shit then the splines are 16mm by 36 spline.

I don't know if Corvair is close enough to work. "Close enough" worries me when it comes to a splined Jesus Shaft. (Kinda like a Jesus Bolt)

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

Yes, when you speed up the action of the rack it will create a pressure lag and increase heat from everything trying to work harder. The AN fittings on the rack itself went to a AN6 Hi pressure metal braided line for the inlet to the rack from the pump up to an AN8 low pressure line leaving the rack, speeding the fluid flow from the rack. We also added a larger resevoir which in total holds about 3.5 times the amount of PS fluid. From the resevoir to the pump is an AN10 with low pressure hose and the inline cooler in between the rack and the resevoir. With the 1.5:1 quickener it is about 1.8 turns lock to lock and very quick response. The ps pump sounds like a small turbo under the hood when driving.

Yeah 5/8" or .625" is 15.88mm 16mm is .629" Looks close enough to me.

So it would prolly work.

The Jesus Shaft is called that cos when it falls off and you can't steer the car you holler JESUS! right about the time your asshole puckers up.

Reminds me of the Jesus clips that hold window winder handles on. They fly across the shop and you yell Jesus cos you have no clue where it'll end up.

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Michael LeCompte

That sounds soo cool... I want a PS pump that sounds like a turbo!
How come there's no video footage of it on youtube?

I wanna see this baby in action.

So you went with a 1.5:1 not a 2:1... Curious if you've tried both and picked the 1.5 over the 2.0.....

Thanks for sharing the details of the setup...

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Michael LeCompte

Here's the setup that I am using on my impreza. it's a Coleman 2:1. basically chopped the column and welded the spline adapters to each side of the column and spliced in the quickener. uses the stock mounts. no stage use but 2 years on rallyx and some use up at team'o. will probably add a cooler at some point, it might still collapse.

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-KTurner
Stomp down on the exhilarator and hold on to the wheel.

Right on. That looks good.

About how long did it take to get it installed if you did it yourself?
If you didn't how much coin did the job cost?

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Michael LeCompte