Guide Me Through Manual Steering

72DMag said
Just responding in regards to weakening the k member. In regards to that I chatted with the individual on here that did the dakota rack and pinion swap. and it mounts very similar to how this duster is setup. I don't see how that weakens it?? Again this is a 95% of the time drag car and I am aware of the ackerman angle and bump steer.

I understand that this is far from stock but lets face it drag racers have done this for years with these cars. Not saying they are the exact setup as this duster but they are very similar.

The stock K is just stamped metal. If you remove a significant portion of the lower stamped piece so a rack fits through, you've weakened it. The structure needs that bottom panel for structural integrity. The K is just like the unibody design of the rest of the car. You wouldn't cut out the floor panel and wonder if you've weakened the car. If you post a picture of the bottom side of that K frame then we might have a better idea of how bad it is. Maybe it's not that bad, hard to say without seeing it.

If you're aware of the Ackerman and bump steer issues, and you still want to run it on the street 5% of the time, shame on you. A car with Ackerman issues like that one has shouldn't be on a public road. The fact that it's been done before isn't an excuse.

A lot of drag racers have done a lot of really dumb things and gotten away with it. Some of them for a very long time even, but the fact that all of them didn't die isn't proof something is a good idea. If you always drive in a straight line, the Ackerman issue isn't so terrible. If you never hit any pot holes and only drive the car a 50 miles a year in 1/4 mile stretches and an occasional trip to Dairy Queen you might not flex your K until it cracks for quite awhile. Start using it on the street with regularity and stuff will start breaking. Just because something works on a drag only car doesn't mean it will work on a street car, and it certainly doesn't mean it will be SAFE on a street car.