Steering rack preferences

[bmwman91]

Z3 1.9 here, 2.7 turns L2L. I love it.

I did have to Dremel the firewall a little, stack some washers above the rack in the subframe and bend the hard portions of the PS lines a little. No biggie. Worth it to get rid of the POS stock E30 rack.

[pantelones]

No problem man, there is a lot of confusion on this topic. I am not sure they are 100% correct. They did seem to know a lot about it though.

How does a progressive rack work? The teeth on the round gear and the long gear would have to be the same spacing throughout the range of travel....no? Having trouble picturing it otherwise.

Not really any confusion... Those guys are right! haha The comment about the z3 1.9L rack is interesting though; someone measure the center to max lock* with their z3 rack, and I'll measure my standard 3.2 rack...

Oh, and a progressive rack just is due to the way the teeth are cut.

http://www.pss-steering.com/en/prog_rack_steering.html

[brads2002]

Interesting, thanks for posting the link.

[deutschman]

I have the z3 1.9 rack with out power steering and I love it.