KE20 Rack and Pinion steering... Any experience?

[MR04AG]

Anybody on here had a go at putting rack and pinion in there ke20? It's getting hard to get steering parts for the old girls and they bend so easy, if it's not too difficult i reckon it'd be a worthwhile upgrade...

I have an AE71 front end here, could it be as easy as bolting in the control arms and making up brackets for the rack and getting a column to rack adapter and suitable rack ends? then i can bang ae86 coil overs in her too...

There may be some MASSIVE oversight i'm having here, that's why i thought i'd ask the question... then i don't get 9 tenths of the way through to job and step back, squint, and start yelling and breaking things

[WDE_BDY]

Too wide, would need to shorten the rack as the KE20 is narrower between the lower control arm mounts. Has been done but quite a bit of work in it. Have a read through some of the early Celica rack conversions on here for an idea of some of the dificulties.

Callum

[MRMOPARMAN]

ive got a ke70 one in my ke25, and im considering going back to the original steering and starting from scratch. it was a prfessional install, but the rack wasnt midified (just the tierods shortened) and has massive geometry and bump steer issues.

[MR04AG]

Thanks for the input guys...
The team at Toyota no doubt spent a lot of hours getting the geometry and what not right originally... I couldn't be bothered, haha.

[Shifty]

Hey mate

OKE020 on performanceforums.com has rack & peanut in his ke20 and I believe he did it himself. I think he is on here as well but not a regular poster so you can probably contact him on there instead.

All that said though, the cost/expense/difficulty means it's often better to source parts for your steering box.

[Bananaman]

He used ke70 as well, at least in the 1UZ one

I measured the distance between the pivot points out of interest the other day (which is the key factor here, right?) very roughly, and it was 405mm. What is ke70?

[Bananaman]

ive got a ke70 one in my ke25, and im considering going back to the original steering and starting from scratch. it was a prfessional install, but the rack wasnt midified (just the tierods shortened) and has massive geometry and bump steer issues.

Got any pics out of interest?

[MRMOPARMAN]

yup, in this thread..

http://www.rollaclub.com/board/?showtopic=18001

[MWP]

From memory the AW11 rack is the shortest in any Toyota.
If you need shorter than that, youll need to look at other manufacturers or a custom jobbie.

[Rob KE25]

Yeah, I've done it in my KE 25.
Used KE70 rack, custom mounts (split lock collars- 1 1/4 inch I think).

Did 2 attempts. first one I shortened the rack, and not that good- bump steer.
Second attempt worked brilliant. No bumpsteer at all incompression and the first 25mm of droop then slight toe out with more droop. (this is with 40mm RCA's).


I mounted my rack and LCA inner pivot points rather low (because of the tall 3sge motor) and used AE86 LCA.
I did write the measurements of how much higher the rack was from the LCA inner pivot points, as well as the distance beween the LCA inner pivot points. It's in the forum KE decicated thread, page 585...I think.

NOTE: MUST USE KE20/25 STEERING KNUCKLES!!
I've tried it with corona ones, AE86 (both p/s and non p/s) and it will cause toe in on bump.
I've had the standard KE25 knuckles modified to fit the wider bolt spacing of the xt 130 struts I'm using, and the taper for ball joint too. Get an expert to do this.. smile.

I use the corona strut pugeot disk and hilux 4pot caliper set up, with 14x6 12positive offset superlites and 185/60 tires (adrenalin). With the meassurements in the thread, It all JUST fits. 195/60 tires might scrape the TE27 flares. I use Notec ajustable strut tops (beware, 2 different spacing choices here) and have them set for maximum camber, which is between 1.9 and 2.1 degrees negative. Even without the adjustable strut tops, things would scrape. maximum castor I can use is 4.5 degrees before the tire hits the front of the wheel arch with lots of wheel lock.

As I'm off work (busted my knee- got hit by a van at 80kph while jogging across a road), I'll check this forum if other people have questions in the next week or so.

Hope this helps.

Rob J. (aka Rob KE25)

[Rob KE25]

Just found the measurements I posted in 2008. They are post number 279 from the TA22 Rack and pinion thread. Thanks also to MRMOPARMAN for his pics to me when I first thought about the r and p idea.

LCA inner pivot points are about 6mm BELOW the end of the rack ends, and 287ish mm from the centre line. That is what worked for my KE25.

Catchya, Rob KE25

Oh, on my wheel alignment, I drive with slight toe out, not toe in. with toe in, with my setup, it's too darty. Doesn't make sense ... but this drives much more confidently this way and was good on the track this way too. Don't know why, just how it works. Tire wear is excellent. is wearing out slightly more on the outside of the tires due to some ripper roads on my way to work, including a 270 degree on/off ramp that can be taken 0ver 80km/h. Fun!

[oldcorollas]

yup, it can be done but it is not as hard as people think.. well it is and it isn't...

the relative positions of the rack and the cross-members LCA pivots, are directly related to the relative positions of the balljount and steering arm.
if you maintain that relationship between systems, (you can easily account for small differences in geometry of the BJ/steering arm), then you don't get bump steer. and get good ackermann.


edit, of course as Rob shows, you can change the relative positions and still come up with something good