MERCGUY

In my search to speed up the steering in my C43 I stumbled upon a way some nissan guys take car of a slooow steering box.

It seems you can swap the pit arm (arm from the steering box) for a shorter arm (non power steering boxes have shorter arms). This seems to increas the ration 8-10%.

Does anyone know if this might be possible on our cars? Did they ever produce the W202 without power steering?? If they did it might be possible that this mod could be done without any major downsides.
The only one I can think of it left toright turning might be increased and might require the adjustment of the stop bolts...


Any ideas on this?? I'd like to autox this car but after driving it a few weeks it seems like the steering is toooo slooowwwwww...

rotorgasm

autocross guys used to do this back when i was into mazda rotaries, but they did it to deactivate the power steering, not just to minimize the turn ratio. they would swap out the steering rack with the manual varient from the older second generation rx7's, since manual steering wasnt an option in the third gens ('93+). it worked great for the guys who wanted manual steering with a tighter steering ratio, but after months of wear from daily driving i believe some of them started to experience problems when the power steering pump pulleys and gearing would seize up from excessive wear. although the power steering wasnt in use, the conversion caused more problems in the long run than it helped relieve. i wouldnt recommend it, especially since the steering response really isnt that slow for a car as heavy as ours.

good luck with whichever configuration you decide to go with.