So after yet another steering rack failure, the car has been pulled off the road, again.
The rack is well and truly shot, and I'm not entirely sure why at this point.
The P/S pump wasn't receiving power for the last few months, so I've been running around with manual steering with no real issues as of yet. But 2 weeks ago, on my way home, I noticed a massive wobble driving at 110k's.
Took it to work the next day and lo and behold, the rack itself had a good 7-10mm movement up and down. Something let go pretty bad in there.
So I drove it home and disconnected the battery, and it's sat there for the last 2 weeks.
I've decided to pull it off the road for the next 6-9 months and work on it as a side project for now, rather than have it as my daily driver and keep pouring every cent I earn into it because otherwise I'll never get anything else done.
I've been planning on getting some extensive work done to it anyway, and having it off of the road will certainly help me do it.
First thing to do is remove the power steering rack, column, pump, ECU, etc, and replace it with a manual rack from an N/A. I've heard from different sources that this is both an easy job that requires nothing more than the replacement parts, and that the mounts are totally different and will require chassis modification to make the manual rack fit. If it does require mods to the rack mounts, I'll be going to a fabricator I know well, and we'll look into making a bolt-on bracket to be able to just bolt it in rather than cut-and-shut.
Either way, going an manual rack is preferred as there's less to break, and a significant reduction in weight.
And, to be honest, I've felt a bit weird since I bought the car, since I was so used to the manual steering in my old N/A, and much prefer the feel of it.
Next will be supporting mods to keep the car nigh unkillable.
These will include:
-Mishimoto radiator
-W2A intercooler (Was considering the ST205 GT4 one, but they're a bit chunky for my liking)
-Forward-facing plenum out of a Caldina
-Oil cooler with thermostat and filter relocation because Gen 2's suck
-Berk dump pipe (which I just bought this week) so my downpipe doesn't keep cracking like the current one I have does.
-Figuring out where the tiny oil leak I've got coming from the turbo is actually coming from (fingers crossed it's just the gasket again and not the turbo itself)
-Removing the drivers side axle and slipping an o-ring over it to stop the tiny gearbox oil leak it has because of the aftermarket dif.
I'm well aware that these mods will set the car up to handle a considerable amount more power with relative ease, but I'm not that keen on huge power just yet.
When the time comes, though I'll be getting a few new things, such as
-Kelford 276/270, 9.9mm/9.6mm lift Cams and cam gears
-fuel pump and injectors
-Standalone ECU (still weighing up each ECU choice at this point, definitely open to people opinions on the Haltech's, Megasquirt, Atom, PFC, whatever), and a good safe tune. I want this to run pretty much forever.
-potentially bigger turbo (I don't really want to run too much boost and sacrifice the response the CT20B already has)
-possibly swapping the E153 for a 3S-GE Camry E56. There's a considerable weight difference between the two boxes, and the ratios in the 56 are shorter, which suit my driving nicely. I won't be putting out the sort of insane power that would require an E153's strength. The issue here is that the E56 won't take the Quaife center I currently have, and I certainly don't like the sound of going from an LSD to an open-wheeler in a car putting out 200+rwKw. Again, still debating that at this point.
Weight reduction is a bit important here as, and I'm sure you all know, the turbo SW's are fat ****s who could use a bit of a diet.
Again, it's down to how viable the options presented are. Other than swapping gearboxes, most other items on the list are pretty much no brainers. Except for the Cams, they would remove the driveability on the street pretty quickly.
Open to opinions guys, let me know what you think!