not a dumb Q at all BBV. Its a LOT more involved making a steering rack than just machining a different ratio and retro fit into the existing rack. If you are really interested, please visit all the posts and attachments so you can be more informed.
You can certainly choose to do that but that is blacksmith not engineering. Besides, which vendor would bother to take on this small project? Woodward? Quaife?
This is NOT an area you want to make short cut or to make it "more affordable" and we choose to go with the best, not saying Woodward or Quaife product don't work.
We prefer doing things right the 1st time because its cheaper in the long run or don't do it at all.
In our opinion, @ $5000 USD from design to prototype a specialized product such as this, its very reasonable especially from a world class vendor that makes racks exclusively for high end racing series. This is our path of choice for the solution of a better rack and its not the only one. The innovate circle has completed and race proven, the replicate circles will be assessed by MVO so becomes a direct bolt-on w/ alignment needed afterward. Its not something another vendor can easily copy of the Bishop VR technology. There are reasons why they won the award back in '08.
A new EPS is not on the bucket list as our cars don't produce enough downforce at speed to warrant an EPS and the cost to develop that would be astronomical.
This new rack is
not for folks who don't want to loose EPS but we know the manual rack feels/works fine in 91-94 cars so if folks with 95-05 cars want to have better road feel like the 91-94 manual rack, this is one option.
What we posted in thread
#1 as far as the cost, is for the
internal VR mechanism that IS retrofit-able to the existing oem housing. Which would be cheaper than a new complete rack from MVO because a new housing would be needed. But the logistic of shipping your old rack to us and we remove the old parts and replace the new VR components and ship it back to you would be a nightmare cuz too many variables involved. So we'll wait and see if a completely new rack that is affordable and at what qty of people we need to have is possible.
Another POV is the manual rack is discontinued and its safe to say the EPS is not far behind. You can certainly have your EPS rebuild by Matt if needed but its back to the oem specs. We suspect this new rack is not just a little better but a lot better for a more connected driving experience(our preference). Otherwise, there is no reason to go with the better technology as this upgrade makes zero HP gain.
This is one of those things that "you see it then you believe it" not "I believe it when I see it". So far there are almost 50 early adopters/risk takers see it and the later adopters will pay a higher price...thats all. Its not a big risk so its not a big deal to wait.
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You have to consider that the NSX has a lot of caster. Don't know about the 4C. Lot of caster means the stearing loads up quite a bit when cornering. Too short ratio will make the steering really heavy.
Bernhard
the 4C folks have steering geometry, instability problems but the solution has been taken care of using custom made blocks for the frt and rear and a new alignment settings. Its not the same as us. Spot on, Short ratio will make the car hard to turn especially during parking. We want to avoid that as much as possible.