<VV> Re: Quick Steering Boxes - Long but important

Sethracer@aol.com Sethracer@aol.com
Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:51:28 EST


Seth Speaks - (Reference earlier notes below)
 
There may be some mis-understanding here. Flaming River designed the box to  
be a functional equal to the optional QUICK GM box. The original quick box has 
 an input to output ratio of 16 to 1, the slow box was 20 to 1. That means if 
you  could turn the quick box input (steering wheel shaft) sixteen times, the 
 output shaft (connected to the pitman arm) would make one revolution. Of 
course  the pitman arm reaches stops at either end. Without being connected to 
any  linkage, the stock pitman arm shaft actually rotates a little less than 90  
degrees. To cause this, the input shaft turns about 3.7 degrees, a little 
more  than 3 and a half. I just (Saturday Morning) verified this on my 1966 quick 
 box. I then applied the same test to the Flaming River box.  As  advertised, 
the box turned almost exactly 4 turns lock to lock - and the output  a little 
more than 90 degrees. The slight difference is not surprising,  since the 
Flaming river box uses no GM parts, and is not a duplicate of the GM  box. It is 
designed to mount in place of the GM box and be the functional  equal. It uses 
much stronger internals and newer designed bearings and  seals, as well as a 
heavier casting for the housing. But the mounting points,  the shaft splines 
and locations, both in and out are the same as the GM, so it  can be installed 
in place of the GM box. By itself - I.E. just swapping the  box into a 
standard slow steering equipped Corvair - you will not get a  duplicate of the 
factory quick steering assembly. You would need to add the  factory quick arms to 
get exactly the same effect. You will get a faster  steering set-up, somewhere 
in between the stock slow and the fast. 
 
Depending on the desired effect, you could pair the box with  aftermarket 
arms for very quick steering, factory fast arms for factory-like  quick steering, 
factory regular arms for somewhat faster steering, or  custom cut and welded 
arms (as shown in "How to Keep Your Corvair Alive) for  whatever you want. If 
your car is primarily street driven, and you have mounted  stickier and/or 
bigger/wider tires, the box alone may give you the  desired effect. Remember the 
original quick steering option was  offered with narrow OEM tires, not the 
stickiest tires ever! If  another person will also be driving the car, perhaps 
someone smaller (or less  muscled), the box alone might be perfect. The other 
benefit of original steering  arms is a good turning circle. The aftermarket 
shorter arms do not  allow the wheels to rotate as far, so you will be backing up 
a lot to make  U-turns.
PS - If you are testing a box out of the car, the stock slow boxes are  more 
than 5 turns to go lock-to-lock. Those are a  20 to 1 ratio.
 
I'd be happy to answer any questions - Seth Emerson
 
Earlier notes:
Rick wrote:
When Corvair Motorsports and Seth Emerson started  distributing the boxes
I compared the new quick box with a stock (Non-quick)  box with quick
arms. The turns are the same. The advantage to the new box is  parts are
easy to come by and it doesn't change the steering  geometry. 


Rich wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, from what I  understand the Flaming River box is
meant to be used with the stock arms, and  will produce a final ratio
that is similar to the factory quick box with  correct factory quick arms.

Frank wrote:
I talked to Seth the other  day about this and the ratio of the Flaming River
box IS different from the stock box. The Flaming River box is 16/1 and  the
stock non quick box is 20/1.
Did not ask the question of wheter the  overall ratio with FR box and
stockarms was same as factory quick  setup.