Mmh, I guess the saga continues. too bad.

I am just waiting for some Hella 90mm high beams, I've got the low beams already. Then we should have our kit down here with Calmar fiberglass.

 

Well in the past I have tried to defend CP but with Max7's last ordeal I can simply can't anymore. I like my rack but for autocross use is sucks. You simply can't turn the wheel fast enough. On the road course it works well, daily driving is borderline. But I like the strut tower brace, It's close to the brake master cylinder reservoir but I can still can get the lid off. I did relocate the VIN plate because of the firewall support position.

 

I tried to defend CP also since they were still willing to make parts for our cars, but it is never good to be lied to.

It might be better off buying a new steering assembly from the dealer.

 

It would appear a few things need to be cleared up. Max, you have an updated version of the original kit, if you measure your inner tie rods you will find them to be a different length than the ones in Paul's car, this eliminates the need for more steering to get through corners and returns the lock to lock to same as factory. Any one with an original kit can have their inners updated at NO COST to remedy the issue. We do have a completely new kit coming to market this month using a different rack and subframe entirely. Will install in a full 1/3 faster, be lighter and less expensive, but most importantly there will be no delays as the new racks are readily available. Day after purchase shipping. This eliminates the delays we encountered purchasing the older vw racks that were quickly becoming scarce with aftermarket suppliers. Regarding the lights, our price from our supplier is not the same as what is available in the US, after our last conversation I mentioned we will be changing light suppliers for more than just the cost factor and we are currently in the process of doing so. Any savings we realized by us will be passed along.

On the shipping front, a large portion of businesses in the area were experiencing a higher rate of damaged and lost shipments with UPS as were we. We have since swithced to another carrier and have had no problems. I apologize if the experience has left a bad taste in your mouth. If you have any further questions or concerns please email, info@cpracing.ca Best regards all,

CP

 

A totally new rp kit eh? You gonna tell us what rack it will be using or you gonna leave us hanging?

 

Normally quick rack stuff goes for several hundred bucks, almost a thousand.

Too bad the "kit" doesn't use an A2 rack. You can get the "quick rack" setup at a junkyard - the Quaife quick rack is the same ratio as the factory power steering rack, it's just in a manual case.

Bouis if you want to **** yourself go to quaifeusa.com and price out some gearkits.

 

Ok, I'm confused. If the original kit has 5.25" of travel from lock to lock, and the "updated" one has 5.25" of travel lock to lock and its still 3.6 turns L2L
how does this result in better? Maybe Peejay can chime in on this.

And this new kit is cheaper and better and can be had in days. so we get stuck with old ones, that take 4 months to get?
And then expect people to buy these new kits on your word they will get them soon?

And as for the lights, your supplier charges 3 times what you should pay?
If its "true" then would it not be a good thing to do to tell your customers

"Hey we get raped, buy them yourselfs and save $160"
I told you about the cost of the lights over a month ago and still no change in price. Do you like overcharging people? makes for happy customers

I don't think this is the way to run a company, you seem like great guys from when I met yah, I just don't see how you can sleep at night keeping us in the dark......

 

The kit is a waste of time, IMHO. There are plenty of other things I could do with that $650 US that would make a far larger impact on handling.

That's even assuming that the kit is better than the stock box. So far the feedback hasn't been great.

 

I'm no engineer by any means, but it seems that in the end, tie rod length won't affect the turning radius or speed. After all, that's the point of an alignment... To vary the length of a tie rod to change the angle of the tire relative to the rack... In the end, the steering assembly (Be it R&P or the linkage in a recirculating ball setup.) from tie rod to tie rod must be a fixed length in order to keep the wheels aligned.

The only POSSIBLE ways I can concieve to regain the turning radius are to:

A.) Add more gear teeth to the rack on both ends. No easy task as far as I'm concerned. I dunno how long the rack is, but the machining involved would require much precision. This also does not address the steering speed issue.

and/or

B.) Effectively move the rack forward in the car. (Relative to the wheels.) Redrill the knuckles to locate the point where they connect to the tie rods. Complicates the rack install, weakens the knuckle, opens more up to installer error... It also makes steering effort increase because you lose the leverage afforded by the length of the steering knuckles. Doesn't seem wise.

The setup (in theory, I have yet to install mine) looks nice, but the only [ideal] way to solve the two main problems reported with the kit (Steering speed and loss of turning radius) is to source a new rack.

 

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!


Mark you shouldn't have whipped out that tape measure and actually compared with actual measurements. Now you know for a fact that this "new" kit is exactly the same as the old one, other than the crucial difference of an updated sticker.

And now I know that the CP setup provides 1.45833... or in a nutshell between 1 7/16" and 1.5" of travel per turn of the steering wheel. This is information that I have been wanting for quite some time now. Tomorrow at work I am going to throw my car up on the lift and measure the distance that the center link moves, both total, and per revolution.

As an added bonus, I noted while pushing a late 80's Cavalier Z24 into the shop while closing (mice made a nest under the intake plenum and found the fuel injector harness to be appetizing) that there's an awful lot of steering motion per turn of the wheel. Also, the lever arm that the outer tie rod attaches to is much longer than what RX-7s have. This might be a "2 turns lock to lock" rack like I want. I'm going to see if I can take measurements off of it as well. Only problems are that this rack is center take off, and because of the necessarily offset mounting of the inner tie rods this design dictates, the racks tend to be sloppy from the torsional loadings imposed by the steering. About as "bad" as a medium-quality RX-7 box. (They also have rubber bushings for inners, and big floppy bushings mounting the rack to the body, but these things can be *rectified*)

 

The loss of turning radius isnt that bad,at least not on my car.I can still turn around 180* in my street,which is your average residential,tract home street.And I set both my steering bumpstop bolts to hit just before the rack bottoms out,so the rack wouldnt be ALL the way hard over, internally.

Ive been running my R/P for a year now,I got one of the first units.Its really not that bad,but opinions vary the most I think,based on how bad your stock box was before the swap.Mine was shot,200K old, no fluid for who knows how long before I owned the car,ect,ect.The R/P is tight,precise and the car doesnt wander anymore.Yes,it is slow in the center,its kinda annoying but not enough for me to want to go back to "wandersteering" of the stock setup.The Ujoint binding has gone away completely now that Ive got some miles on the rack.It was a little "lumpy" at first,when you cranked the wheel around with the Ujoints having to correct so much angle.

 

.

 

Why not just swap in the 2nd gen front subframe? Abeomid has done it and I'm going to be doing it. Only requires drilling 2 holes, making one weld and a very little bit of grinding. Plus if you get a TII front-end you've also got their "big brake" kit as well. All these peices should be able to be grabbed locally for under half of what CP racing wants for the same (well actually worse) set-up. That and if you get the power steering rack your turns from lock-to-lock are probably going to be under 3. Oh and appearently the entire front subframe assembly might be 20 Lbs. lighter too.
Keep in mind I haven't actually done this, but a member has and it's rather simple really.
Grant

 

^ sounds like it would work. Anyone know of any reason it wouldn't?? Im dumb

 

I think that using an FC subframe would be a neat idea in principle, but there's a number of issues with fitment, plus you'll need to fabrciate a steering shaft to match it.

 

yea, plus keep in mind tht abeomid's car doesn't have a motor and has yet to be driven with that setup yet (please correct me if I'm wrong) so how feasable the swap actually is has yet to be seen. Assuming that it does work out then it's on my to do list as well, cause that takes care of several problems at once. Has he done the writeup about the steering shaft fabrication yet? I'd like to see that....

 

The steering shaft shouldn't be hard, if they are the same diameter just use a piece of piping as a connector and weld away. Last time I contacted Abeomid a few days ago he said he was going to be updating the tutorial shortly so we should know how he did it, also I believe he has the engine mounted now. Also keep in mind he did the conversion with the help of the guys at Staffs Automotive in Vancouver, arguably one of the more knowledgable performance shops I've been to as far as chassis are concerned. They have done some very neat stuff, like a 12AT in a Lotus I believe. The other thing to consider is that the FC subframe and front end is much more like one solid piece than ours is, the control arms mount only to the subframe and not the frame itself; this makes keeping the alignment correct much easier. That and Abeomid said you can use the front two holes in the frame from the stock subframe to mount this one so it should be pretty hard to have it come out crooked. Didn't Mazda use an FB as the test mule for the FC suspension anyway?
Cheers,
Grant

 

from what I've read yes, mazda used FB shell's to test FC suspension components pre production. I agree, the steering shaft shouldn't prove to much of an issue. However I do seem to recall someone saying that the installation of a FC subframe puts the struts at an odd angle because its mounted farther forward than the FB x-member. Not sure how much of an issue this would be, but something to consider nonetheless...

 

The FC front should be fine, A guy local has done it but he put in a chevy engine, I could ask him to chime in with what he thought of the stearing.

 

Well Abeomid said that the center of the wheel was about the same with the FC subframe as it was with the FB one when he used the forward mounting hole and drilled a new rear one like in his write-up. So in theory at least the caster should be the same if the wheel doesn't change position front to rear since the top location doesn't change. Now camber is a different matter, but that can be fixed with camber plates. That and looking at the car with wheels mounted before he changed to coil-overs and camber plates it looked pretty close to stock with the stock strut-tops and springs, which is a shitty way to judge camber but at least we know it was in the ball park. After that Toe shouldn't be any problem at all. I'm gonna have to just see when I do the swap.
Grant

 

Sounds like it could work out nicely. One thing I just thought of, can't remember if its in his writeup, but do you use the FB tension rods/brackets and sway bar?

 

I had to contact Abeomid on this myself. The swaybar is still up in the air but I'll have both available and he seems to think that the FC unit will be the best. As for the front torsion bars that is the really good part. We get to totally remove them along with the mounts, which is good in three ways, one we get to remove all that weight from infront of the axle, two we get a better suspension set-up that doesn't bind like a torsion bar set-up and three it'll be much easier to fit larger swaybars on the front.
Grant

 

Well, I went to pull my car in after work (30 minutes before Closing Time) to measure how much travel per revolution a Stock Power Steering Box moves the center link.

Tony's guiding me onto the drive-on rack since one hoist is holding up a '36 Ford V-8 as we slowly fabricate what is necessary to complete it, and wait for a super duper new radiator that can cool off a Weiand supercharged Bellybutton Motor, and still fit in the narrow confines of the nose. (It had previously been using a STOCK '36 V-8 radiator, modified for single water outlets (the Flathead Ford had two water pumps), and there was just barely enough room in the front for twin 10" fans and almost enough room in back to stick a finger between the blower pulley and the radiator!) The other hoist was holding up a '81 Buick Regal that was recieving a new rear main seal (the old one was so badly disintegrated about 90% of it was MISSING! Just a 1/2" long piece of hardened rope was left - yes Buick used rope rear mains, up until the end of the RWD "3.8"!) That left the crappy lift, which my car does not clear, and in any event the Cavalier was parked there, and the drive-on, which was empty.

So my co-worker guides me up onto the drive-on. Front tires up. Trying to give it as little gas as possible, to keep the noise down. Rear tires coming up closer to the ramps. Exhaust is just a puckitapuckpupuktyita idling there at 1200 with the choke off (misfires a bit at idle running locked 30/22 timing ) and then I feel a "clonk" then the exhaust becomes deafening, and I realize that once again I knocked the exhaust apart driving it up onto the drive-on.

Last two times this happened, the rack caught on one of the exhaust clamps and pulled apart a clamped connection in the mid-pipe. However the last time it happened I put a couple tack welds on the pipes with my favorite tool, the MIG welder (stick metal together with lightning!). So that didn't come apart.

No, what happened, was the rack caught on one of the exhaust clamps, and PULLED THE PIPE THROUGH THE FLANGE AT THE HEADER.

Oh $hit! It's 5:20 and I ain't going to get a flanged connection in any kind of timely manner. And driving with an open header is just NOT an option.

Spent ten minutes assessing the situation (freaking out). Then my co-worker offers that we should just cut off the header flange and adapt the two pieces together. Well the header is something like 2.350" OD and the pipe is something like 1.950 OD, Not gonna happen.

But what if?

What if we took some 2" pipe, used our HYDRAULIC (ahem) pipe stretcher to stretch it out to 2.230" OD to match the 2.230 ID of the header's collector, then stretched the mid pipe to slide over that?

Sure!

I got to work removing a section of the midpipe, he got to work stretching the living crap out of a section of 2" pipe. We're in business! 5 solid minutes with the MIG the pipe was welded (VERY solidly) into the INSIDE of the collector, Cut off the excess, expand the mid pipe, force it back into place, line up the exhaust to eliminate future clearance problems, and Done!

And it's now 10 after Closing! And we have to put all the equipment away, AND pull two cars in. (Well, one gets pulled in and one gets pushed - that snazzy little BMW has a bit of a carb problem and it is causing all sorts of hell with the engine)

So in a nutshell, I didn't have time after work to check out the specifications on a STOCK steering system!

But now my header to pipe connection is leak free, no more burning gaskets out, since there AREN'T any!

 

Gotta love unexpected fun like that

 

Don't worry, I'll get the info.

Preferably with a FLOOR JACK.