steering article in hot rod magazine this month

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moparmat2000

moparmat2000

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Anybody read the steering article in hot rod this month with the lime green valiant? They used a borgeson u joint, a modified faster ratio foreign car power steering box that fits the stock k frame and uses a mopar pitman spline to attach the stock.pitman arm ,a late model GM pump,.ididit column, and some other parts. This was freakin pricey.!!!

My plan was to use the stock 74 but rebuilt ps box, a set of pst fast ratio pitman and idler arms, and lower my power steering pump pressure on the saginaw.ham can pump to about 850 psi to firm up the feel. And keep the stock rebuilt.column.

Doing it my way will save a ton of cash better spent elsewhere, but the question i am asking is the hot rod magazine setup better? About the same as what i am going to do? Sure costs more, but that dont make it better.

Thoughts on this one.
Matt
 
If you have headers make sure the fast ratio pitman and idler arms work with them. Was gonna get a set til they said wouldnt work with TTI's
 
74DartSwinger360 said:
If you have headers make sure the fast ratio pitman and idler arms work with them. Was gonna get a set til they said wouldnt work with TTI's
Click to expand...

Nope got a set of 1970 340 hi po manifolds.the question was about the amount of cost in the hot rod article, almost $700 just for the steering box, compared to my low buck way of doing it. Is the way in the hot rod article really any better than how i want to do this, or are the results about the same, and they just spent lots o cash on this.
 
All it takes is cash, and more cash, and more cash. And if it breaks down on you somewhere, you gotta remember where and from what each part came from. Just Like putting a GM crate motor with a Mazda transmission and a Ford 9" rearend in a Mopar.
 
Remember one thing about these "fast ratio" pitmans.

Do they change the idler arm to match? I don't believe so, but maybe they do.

In some cases this causes header/ exhaust interferance, and definatly changes steering geometry. Think about this. The longer arm changes the physical position front/ rear of the center link, and without changing the idler, this will skew the thing, and it changes the front/ rear angle of the center link to the tie rods

Don't forget a smaller steering wheel will speed things up some
 
70aarcuda said:
I believe the article is in Car Craft...
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The article is in Car Craft and yes, it is very pricey. I was interested in what they did until I reviewed the cost. Now going to stick with what came with my '69 Dart when I bought it and just lower the pressure for a better steering feel.
One of the other benefits they were talking about in the article was about more room, assuming for headers, because of the smaller steering box. But then the car owner changed from headers back to iron manifolds so they never showed pics of the smaller steering box with headers.
 
67Dart273 said:
Remember one thing about these "fast ratio" pitmans.

Do they change the idler arm to match? I don't believe so, but maybe they do.

In some cases this causes header/ exhaust interferance, and definatly changes steering geometry. Think about this. The longer arm changes the physical position front/ rear of the center link, and without changing the idler, this will skew the thing, and it changes the front/ rear angle of the center link to the tie rods

Don't forget a smaller steering wheel will speed things up some
Click to expand...

The fast ratio pitman arm kit from pst includes both the pitman arm and the idler arm. Another way to do this is to use a C body pitman and idler arm. Essentially the same thing, just cant find em anymore.

Some headers will fit with the center link moved back about 1.5" some wont. I am going with 340 manifolds so it doesnt matter to me.

My question is still am i going to get similar performance to the magazine setup doing it my lower buck way compared to their high buck way?
 
ocdart said:
The article is in Car Craft and yes, it is very pricey. I was interested in what they did until I reviewed the cost. Now going to stick with what came with my '69 Dart when I bought it and just lower the pressure for a better steering feel.
One of the other benefits they were talking about in the article was about more room, assuming for headers, because of the smaller steering box. But then the car owner changed from headers back to iron manifolds so they never showed pics of the smaller steering box with headers.
Click to expand...

I get both magazines, wrote this at work, couldent remember which one it was in.
 
moparmat2000 said:
Anybody read the steering article in hot rod this month with the lime green valiant? They used a borgeson u joint, a modified faster ratio foreign car power steering box that fits the stock k frame and uses a mopar pitman spline to attach the stock.pitman arm ,a late model GM pump,.ididit column, and some other parts. This was freakin pricey.!!!

My plan was to use the stock 74 but rebuilt ps box, a set of pst fast ratio pitman and idler arms, and lower my power steering pump pressure on the saginaw.ham can pump to about 850 psi to firm up the feel. And keep the stock rebuilt.column.

Doing it my way will save a ton of cash better spent elsewhere, but the question i am asking is the hot rod magazine setup better? About the same as what i am going to do? Sure costs more, but that dont make it better.

Thoughts on this one.
Matt
Click to expand...

Interesting that just yesterday I got my "Mopar Action" issue and R.E. did an parallel article on this subject. I didn't read it - just skimmed it, but from what I got out of that skim, it sounded better and cheaper than what you describe. CC and HR used to be just Chevy steak with ford salt and Mopar pepper sprinkled on top ... and occasionally a little Pontiac garlic. Has it changed much in the last two decades? ... which is about the last time I actually read through one of those magazines.
 
moparmat2000 said:
Nope got a set of 1970 340 hi po manifolds.the question was about the amount of cost in the hot rod article, almost $700 just for the steering box, compared to my low buck way of doing it. Is the way in the hot rod article really any better than how i want to do this, or are the results about the same, and they just spent lots o cash on this.
Click to expand...

But you will still need to get a rebuilt steering box ~$360 at Firm Feel plus shipping your up to them and $195 fast ratio steering arms. Add all that cost up.

And even with HiPo exhaust manifolds you will have to have a good exhaust shop make the head pipes. They will have to shoot toward the back of the car immediately. Sort of restrictive and very tight and tricky.

The reports on the Borgensen steering I've heard online and from people I've talked to in persons think it is a great improvement. Very tight, responsive, like a rack.

It's not a foreign car steering box. It's a modified Delphi 600 box used on new Jeeps and other cars.
 
Don't forget a smaller steering wheel will speed things up some[/QUOTE

This is true, but you will have less leverage. You may need to eat your Wheaties, you might notice a little more effort required in slow turns and the parking lot.
 
clifftt said:
Don't forget a smaller steering wheel will speed things up some[/QUOTE

This is true, but you will have less leverage. You may need to eat your Wheaties, you might notice a little more effort required in slow turns and the parking lot.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter how you speed things up, if you use longer pitman, fast ratio box, or smaller wheel. Leverage is leverage.
 
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