For good feel, steering should be pretty dead in the middle, so that you do not have to contsantly correct course to stay in a striaght line. Ideally the speed of turn should get greater towards the locks. This setup provides a rock steady drive on the freeway and the ability to take the twists with minimal wheel twirling. its a varibale rate rack and pinion set up that provides this, and we don't have easy access to that technology without a new front end set up.
This doesn't really happen with a steady rate steering box.
you have the dead point in the middle. and its deadness is assisted by the idler bush in none twisted state, and the fact that the steering gear is naturally stiff in the middle poistion. (we have no steering damper on a mopar)
there is some tiny variation in rate of turn of road wheel as the pitman arm turns, because the cross link is being driven by a stud in the end of the pitman arm that scribes an arc, but it doesn't help in this situation, its kinda the reverse of what you need.
standard pitman arm length was a compromise.
if you extend the pitman arm you push the situation further from ideal because the same degrees of steering wheel turning, produces a bigger ark at the end of the arm. the wheels turn further for the same action.
This makes the dead spot in the middle, smaller by the same ratio that you extended the pitman arm. i.e you have your faster ratio but its biased to the just off the straight section of the steering where you don't want it, if you drive on the street/freeway/drag strip.
It is therefore harder to go dead striaght, its easier to via widely off course at speed BUT it is a little easier to pick your line as you go round corners
long pitman arms were for circle track/ bowl racing... what is good in that situation is not necessarily good on the road
for the race application, the steering is in the straight ahead position for very little of the time, becasue the track is made up of 50% banked corner and on the straights you are driving on a massive camber.
if you have 24:1 manual the best and actually quite simple upgrade is to pull that box apart freshen the bearings and seals and put in a 20:1 or 16:1
20:1 on heavy car with fat front tyres and or odd offset
16:1 on lighter car with thinner fronts. i. run 205 70 r14 and have no problem with 16:1
the amount of turn at the steering wheel is reduced but you have not messed with the length of the pitman arm so you still get the same amount of dead in the middle in respect to the distance the end of the pitamn arm moves before you are obviously In a turn.
hence freeway drving will be more relaxed, you won't need to correct your trajectory as much and it will be easier to manage any tram lining if the road is ridged.
You are not, for want of a better example, balancing a plate on the end of a stick, you are sitting it on the salt seller... its still a blancing act but its much easier.
and you are talking 3.5 turns lock to lock rather than 4 or 5 which is really quite nice
nothing wrong with steering box, jeep BMW and a few others persisted with them into this centuary.
Dave
