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[2woody]

not sure why yesterday's thread got locked, but I'm sure it won't be because of steering racks...

A steering rack has the key advantage over a steering box in that it gives far superior steering feel. This is due to the innards being based on gears rather than recirculating balls and sliding elements. You can instantly tell if a car has a rack or box from the dead feeel about straight-ahead.

A steering system, either rack or box will give much better handling if mounted in front of the axle line than behind it. This is almost entirely due to the arrangement giving an inherent toe-in to the outside wheel in turns, thus giving the driver slightly more turn than he's desired or better handling to put another name on it.

Adding a rack to an Omega B is what I'd call a serious modification, my feeling is that you might as well fit a front-mounted rack to get the best of both worlds.

Actually, getting the geometry right is not too difficult - just make sure that there is NO bump-steer. Ideally, the rack position should be correct to the nearest half millemetre. The wishbone pivot lines are not parallel, so the rack can be mounted fore or aft a fair bit.

I would say rack vs box is a no-brainer, whereas front-or-behind the front axle depends more on what design your sump is.

[05omegav6]

With that in mind, would it be better to adapt the existing components, or remove the whole lot and fit a complete self contained set up

[Nick W]

I'd be in the bin it and start again camp.
Suspension and steering have so many interrelated components which cannot just be moved to somewhere more convenient, that starting from scratch is going to be easier.
For example, you couldn't use the existing Omega uprights/hub carriers/whatever your pet name is with a front mounted rack even if you swapped them side to side, as the steering arms will be too short, still in the wrong place and will give an 'anti-ackerman' effect.
And that's not counting other parts that get in the way of such components. Little things like engines.

Lets not forget that once you cut the monocoque(and that includes the chassis rails), your car instantly requires a BIVA test, with all that entails.

The Omega steering box isn't bad enough to make considering a rack conversion worthwhile. The only reason for it is if it gets in the way of some other modification such as engine swaps. And there are enough issues with such jobs in modern cars with sophisticated/complex electrical/electronic systems that it's probably not viable to do them. It's not like heaving a small-block v8 into a mk2 Granada over the weekend and driving it to work on Monday

[05omegav6]

Funny you should mention the V8 Granada

Am waiting on some measurements (thanks Andy B), and am interested to hear what 2woody says on the subject

[symes]

rack verus steering box=total rubbish
rack has 2 joints to wheels
box-4 joints and idler arm too
all those links need setting correctly
rack is easier to fit on production line - time=money more cars per hour
it is as simple as that

[Nick W]

rack verus steering box=total rubbish
rack has 2 joints to wheels
box-4 joints and idler arm too
all those links need setting correctly

All the racks I've had anything to with have 5joints between the steering wheel and the road wheels.
I'll wait whilst you go and count them again!

[symes]

links between wheels-did i mention steering wheel-er no