Steering ratio doubler advice.
So you’re talking about making the 24:1 manual steering box a 12:1 with a quickener? I run a 16:1 manual box on my duster with 275/35/18’s up front and I think that with a manual box the 16:1 ratio is about as much as you’re going to want. A 12:1 will require a ton of steering effort at low speeds, in an AutoX setting it would likely slow down your steering response in slow corners because of your ability to come around on the wheel fast enough.
Now, if you’re going to an EPAS it would work. I’m actually considering doing exactly that on my Duster, EPAS and a 1.5:1 quickener for a 12:1 ratio. You have to adapt the column anyway to add the EPAS so adding the quickener as part of that process would make sense.
The T/A and AAR E-bodies ran 12:1 steering ratio’s, they used the 16:1 power steering box and an extended pitman arm to get the ratio. So running a 12:1 ratio is not unheard of at all, but with power assist.
The Hotchkis Challenger used a 1.5:1 steering quickener set up instead of the longer pitman arm on a standard 16:1 power steering box. It's a Coleman unit that's mounted under the dash. It's a little hard to see it, but these are the only pictures I've found of it. There's a thread over at moparts on it where @autoxcuda talks about it, maybe he'll chime in here. They're his pictures
Hotchkis Challenger
So you’re talking about making the 24:1 manual steering box a 12:1 with a quickener? I run a 16:1 manual box on my duster with 275/35/18’s up front and I think that with a manual box the 16:1 ratio is about as much as you’re going to want. A 12:1 will require a ton of steering effort at low speeds, in an AutoX setting it would likely slow down your steering response in slow corners because of your ability to come around on the wheel fast enough.
Now, if you’re going to an EPAS it would work. I’m actually considering doing exactly that on my Duster, EPAS and a 1.5:1 quickener for a 12:1 ratio. You have to adapt the column anyway to add the EPAS so adding the quickener as part of that process would make sense.
The T/A and AAR E-bodies ran 12:1 steering ratio’s, they used the 16:1 power steering box and an extended pitman arm to get the ratio. So running a 12:1 ratio is not unheard of at all, but with power assist.
The Hotchkis Challenger used a 1.5:1 steering quickener set up instead of the longer pitman arm on a standard 16:1 power steering box. It's a Coleman unit that's mounted under the dash. It's a little hard to see it, but these are the only pictures I've found of it. There's a thread over at moparts on it where @autoxcuda talks about it, maybe he'll chime in here. They're his pictures
Hotchkis Challenger
