Steering - Lambo Lounge

When I first met my wife she had a T-shirt that said "Marry me, fly free" , on the surface this might seem like kind of a joke, but in the long run the ability to jump around the United States without thinking about how much it will cost has been invaluable. I've made several trips to the Allentown, Pennsylvania to see Rick and his productions, and several trips to New Iberia, Louisiana to see Robert and his toys. I can't imagine the amount of time or more importantly the amount of wasted time I've saved by watching what others have done before me. One important lesson came in one of my trips to see Robert when out of coincidence he asked me if I wanted to back out one of the project cars he was working on. Of course I did, but it took me less then 10 ft. of maneuvering to realize that when you go from a 165 mm tire for a Fiero to a 235 mm tire width, and from a 13 in. to an 18 in. rim, that you are putting a hell a lot more tire on the ground and, at a dead standstill, that I don't have the arm strength to turn the wheel. This means that parallel parking or any other form of stand still maneuvering will be very difficult at best. I've always said I built this car for my wife to drive and this certainly is a problem. The answer is simple, got to have power. From several other web sites and posts on Lambo lounge, I got bits and pieces but decided to chronicle my conversion for anyone who comes to the same realization I did. This first picture illustrates the Fiero rack mounted on the axle without the inner control arms.(You might be asking yourself, look at beautifully polished rack , and how come your axle is all powder coated) because I like to waste money and time, it probably took me five or six hours to polish that rack and pinion. Obviously the truth is because I thought I was done with those pieces so I had the axel coated, and, when the parts arrived from Lee at Held motorsports, I realized I had to modify the front axle ,and now have to modify the front axle again. If anyone knows of anyone looking for a polished 1984 Fiero rack and pinion please let me know. Note the arrows which indicate the ends of the rack where the pivit point of the inner tie rod ends would be and where the lower control arms would be. If I had taken a moment to center they would have been exactly equal.

Here is the front axel with the two "mounts" for the rack removed. I ground down the two top welds and used a sawzall through the front lip to cut off the two front welds and free up each mount. In retrospect I think the sawzall on all four welds would've been appropriate. Because of the damage done while grinding I went back with the MIG welder And filled in all grinding deficet areas. Don't want to weaken the structural intrgrity of the front axel. This was taken before the mounts were removed and shows that the left mounting bracket from the fiero and for the new rack are the same. This picture was to illustrate that the right ( passanger side) mount on the 84 was a different size. ( Robert informed me that the right side mount on an 88 is correct and doesn't need adjustment.) If I seem a bit elusive here I'm using an 85 chevette rack. But more about that later So I mounted the rack onto the mounts and piddled, you know played around for quite awhile until I had the 85 chevette rack, centered, and even, top to bottom, and front to back. On the left mount one part of the rack is directly in the way of the mount so a portion of the mount has to be sacrificed. and because the axel has a curve further out and the chevette rack is shorter the mounts have to be moved in, therefore the curve is different and therfore you have to pitz. Measure, remeasure and than leave it alone for a day or two before you weld. same picture second time also look to make sure that you have clearence to get the lines into the back of the rack as the inlet, and outlet, point right at the axel. Ok so now the rack is securely welded on the axel. Time for a little theory. I chose the 85 Chevette rack because it is exactly 4" shorter than the Fiero. I'm unwilling to get into the debate that had been going on but here is MY REASONING for my choice. This is a picture of the Pontiac Fiero Rack mounted on the axel and at dead center. Notice how the pivit point of the inner tie rod is exactly where the pivit point of the lower control arm is.

This shows the shortage of the Chevette rack Here the arrow indicates one of the 2" extensions from Lee at Held Motor Sport with a small portion of thread cut off. The threads on his extension are identical for both the rack, and the inner tie rods, this "extends" the rack and makes it the exact same length as the stock Fiero and with the stock inner tie rod ends and the 2" extensions before the outer tie rod ends ( assuming of course you're using extended upper and lower control arms) the geometry comes out right. This puts the pivit point of the inner tie rod end = to the pivit point of the lower control arm again, there are those who contend it makes no difference where the pivit point is and those who contend that it can make a difference in the control of the the front end. I figure if I make it the same as GM did I can't go wrong. I have a series on the remote resevoir pump and the plumbing, in the near future.