TA22 + rack and pinion

[Sam_Q]

I guess nows a good time to announce it; me and Shelldrake here have been working on his car doing this conversion. I believe I just need to mod the engine mounts, a little more bracing and we are done. It looks like I am going to offer a complete drop in conversion (bar the tailshaft) for people if they are interested.

I am also a bit coy about the details but it's a drop in crossmember and I had to adapt two steering columns in one. If anyone wants to do this on their own it can be done but it's a fairly serious job and I had the luxury or using two jigs I made for alignment.

I guess we will post pics once it's going. I know I won't have to worry about geometry as I know for sure there will be no bump steer or any other issues.

[TA22 GT]

Keen to see how you did it. From memory the unit I saw maintained the use of the stock TA22 crossmember with brackets welded on.

Sounds liek you guys have used a different x member? Anyway, I sure we all would like to see pics and details....

Cheers,
Simon

[Sam_Q]

yeah I think the standard crossmember is a total no go because unless you make your own rack and pinion all your geometry is going to be messed up, there is just no way around it and I don't see the point of such an involved conversion for such a large compromise.

Same goes for the guy who posted on here who shortened a ke70 crossmember, good fabrication but no good. When you shorten it you get bump steer because the lower control arm length becomes longer that the steering arms.

So with what we are doing the lower control arm pivots will be further out which will mean negative camber with stock arms or the arms can be shortened. There are no geometry issues with that though.

[TA22 GT]

Well I'm keen to hear how your conversion goes. Sounds like you have it worked out.

I recall the guy who did it in his TA22 ages ago saying it made a huge difference to the steering and he would never go back to the stock set up. I actually saw it first hand but didn't take enough notice at the time on exactly how he made it work....

Cheers,
Simon

[Sam_Q]

yeah we have it under control, the crossmember was bolted in place first go and same goes for the steering column, uni joint shaft needs to be fitted still.

With the engine mount thing it is in regard to fitting the engine in the right spot, in this case a 20V. If all goes well I will make additions to my jig to let it suit T series engine mounts and so on. I have heard that the standard steering is quite shocking.

Anyway I thought about it and I figure you guys are going to figure it out as soon as you see it anyway so I will let it be known I have adapted an ae71 crossmember. The lower control arm mounting points will be further out but exactly in-line still in the foward/back direct along the length of the car. I have modified the mounts in such a way that I think any engineer should be happy. I also made it suit the standard M10 bolts unlike the ae71/ke70 M12's. I am going to start on my second crossmember conversion shortly.

[Major Clod]

Keep at it guys. I put KE70 R&P in my RA23 and its completely changed the feel of the steering. MUCH more solid!

[Sam_Q]

solid as in good right? did you shorten the crossmember?

I have thought about offering the same conversion for ra23 to 28. Think anyone would be interested?

[Major Clod]

Yeah solid as in good, i.e no play, good road feel through the wheel.

I didnt shorten the crossmember in the middle, the 23 is wider up the front end compared to the 22. I'm using the exact KE70 geometry which pushes my LCA's out 15-20mm either side roughly. As a result this gives me a touch of negative camber which is a bonus. The wider track will also match my MX13 Diff in the rear which is about 20mm extra either side too.

All I did was slice the outside edges off the crossmember slightly so it didn't hang out past the chassis rails. It was reinforced and new holes drilled. Check out my members rides thread for pics. Joel (TurboRA28) and Bigworm also took this approach. Engineer doesn't have a problem with it.

I can probably say I've lost a little bit of steering lock but it's not often I'm doing too many carpark manouvres anyway.

That is because the RA23 knuckles are slightly longer than the KE70 ones. Unfortunately they're different bolt patterns on the strut otherwise I would have used them too. AE86 Power Steering arms would probably be the way to get some of this back.

[Sam_Q]

sounds good and I will check out your thread. Another option for you a bolt on lock spacer, cheap and easy.

[Radar]

So basically
The AE71 cross members bolts up without modification & then your shifting out the lower control arm mounting points?
Can the T series engine mounts be fitted up easy enough I'm keen to give this a go if I can..

[af300e]

So basically
The AE71 cross members bolts up without modification & then your shifting out the lower control arm mounting points?
Can the T series engine mounts be fitted up easy enough I'm keen to give this a go if I can..

Actually, from what I understand it's basically the opposite. I won't sat too much for Sam's sake (he can choose how much he divulges) but the basic gist is that;
The rack/LCA mounts remain standard to retain factory geometry and,
Engine mounts will need to be modified.

Naturally there is more to it than just those two points.

I had a quick peek at the setup last night and the setup looks carefully planned and simple. Great job.

[Sam_Q]

thanks, yes modded mounts standard lower control arm position except a bit further out. For now I will just do A-series engine mounts for both 16 and 20v and then later if all works out I will go towards T series and things like that.

So you saw our handy work? keep in mind I have not finished with the modification of the new mounting position on the crossmember, I did just enough to be able to test it. The final product will be much more neat and strong. We tried to use as much stock parts as possible here and I have to admit Eddie is the brains of this operation in terms of research. I just worked out how to do it from a alignment/fabrication point of view, I must say the steering column took some creative thinking.

[pryorshazam]

this is how i looked at it when i did the conversion
why cant you just refabricate the lca mounts on the ta22 crossmember with the bolt holes able to be positioned further out? probably less work then chopping other models cross members in half aswell as not having chassis bolts line up

[Grega]

that looks like a commodore rack pryorshazam.
are you suggesting to weld up the original hole, and, drill a new one?

what tie rod did you use to make the above work?
i recently did something similar on a VL using VR/S uprights and the corresponding tie rods but the track width increased that much that getting rid of all the negative camber (would make a great fulleee hectic and sik dorifto car) was almost impossible without changing the position of the strut towers...

[pryorshazam]

that would be a commonwhore rack
you cant just drill a new hole. I had to refabricated the mounts extending them while trying to making it look original, then drilled the hole inline with the pivot point on the tie rod.
the tie rods are commodore ones that i had the celicas smaller dia thread machined into.

probably wouldnt recomend a commondore rack but this could be done to suit the ke70 rack