Look no steering rack!The new quick steering rack arrived in the post during the week and I decided to fit it ready for the track day on Monday and trip to Northampton Motorsports booked for the beginning of Oct. The first job was to remove the old rack, straight forward enough, once up on axle stands, just crack off the track rod ends from the steering arms and the unbolt the mounts. The rack was then just fed out through the o/s lower wishbone.
Having confirmed that the new rack was a direct replacement and measured the length track rod to rack rod James cut off 10mm from the ends of the new rack and removed (one needed WD40, heat and clamping the whole arm in a vice plus a mallet and verbal assistance to shift it) the extensions from the old rack and fitted them to the new setting the overall length to that measure earlier. Then rack was fitted and torqued up.
The track day at Keevil started well with over a third of the cars on the day being 7s. The atmosphere was excellent all day with lots of sharing of tools, banter, cars and ideas.After a wet drive to Keevil, the skies cleared and the morning sessions were dry. Over lunch wind followed by a big black cloud brought rain then hale, luckily I'd managed to get the rain cover on the car in advance of it arriving. On the plus side the queue for the burger van rapidly disappeared.
The first session on the track in the afternoon was very entertaining but the track quickly dried out before another shower came through and the sessions stopped and restarted and cars spun or had to be recovered.
The changes to the car were all a success, no problems with the front brakes and the stopping power was good all day with plenty of feel. Quick rack gave a much sharper feel to the steering although I need to re-centre it by about a spline and the front ARB (not forgetting the whiskers) seemed to give a better feel to the front of the car without introducing any under steer.
