<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.