F355 Steering Rack removal and replacement...

I'll keep it short and sweet...has anyone here removed and re-installed their F355 steering rack?

Looks like an absolute bear of a job.

 

Had mine done last year when I changed to a challege rack. The mechanic is still swearing about that job.

 

A few quick questions:

1) Advantages to the Challenge Rack? (Is it higher effort? That's my biggest complaint with my 355...)
2) Are challenge racks readily available?
3) Can you indicate the hours required by the mechanic for the work?

Thanks!

 

1) shorter steering ratios
2) no
3) 2 days

 

Challenge rack is quicker but still has somewhat vague feel. Lock to lock with the stock rack is @3.25 turns and Challenge is @2.75 lock to lock 15-20% quicker. I think you can find them but I don't know how readily available. Don't know how long it took, but it's a tight fit, many things have to be moved out of the way. He only works on Ferrari, Lambo etc and he said it was a major pain. Have not had it on a track since I installed it last summer so can't give a good evaluation of the upgrade. Notice some difference in street driving but not as much as you might have in a track situation. I wanted to add a adjustable valve to vary the line pressure so steering has a better feel, but after installing rack, mechanic didn't want to deal with it at that time since all new lines had to be made and valve would have to be installed in front trunk etc.

 

If I ever change the rack I am going to go to the manual rack.

Ricambi has the part number, look in the 2.7 section. No idea if you can get them but the rest of the suspension is the same, different alignment specs (less caster I think).

 

Has anyone done that conversion?

 

Funny you should mention. I surprised no one I know has done this. Back in the day the first complaint about the 355 was the power steering. I see no reason it won't fit or can't be made to fit. I have fixed racks in all kinds of cars including 308's, mondial's and 550's. They were simple to me. My 348 had a perfect rack and I never had to fix it.

 

The 94 F355 were available in europe with a manual rack (optional). I suspect that rack was a carry over from the 348.

In order to do this properly; you need to drop the engine and remove the power steering stuff, opend the central channel and remove the power steering tubes, switch the rack, and then subtract 2 degrees of caster to the front end (and corner weighting the car afterwards.)

 

Can confirm that as well. Mine kept having problems and had to come out twice. After hearing about what a PITA it was, I legitimately felt bad about bringing it back in a second time.

 

The 355 power steering is great. Not many I know that dont like it.

 

I have just removed the rack from a challenge 355 I am dismantling.

Horrible job. All the PAS hoses are in the way, A/C hoses, anti roll bar had to come out.

Basically the rack sits in a very narrow tunnel in the chassis and everything around it needs to be removed first, the rack then slid sideways so that one end can then be pulled down under the tunnel it sits in and the whole unit then slid off.

I also noticed that the bushes for the rack are different on a challenge, they were a white hard type plastic rather than rubber on the other normal rack I have.

I didnt realise the car I had was a challenge until I started to pull it apart as most of the obvious things had already been taken off by the previous owner so having a rack from one is a bonus for my project car now.

 

Guys...thanks so much for the inputs.

This confirms my suspicion that this is NOT a job for me to try at home!

I frankly could do without the power steering, and I'm going to investigate the 348 rack swap and power components removal.

Thanks again!!

 

If your handy with the spanners then it can be done by a home mechanic, its not a specialist job, just fiddly and time consuming.

I would always be wary of going non PAS, I have had a few wide tyred cars without PAS and its not nice around town, parking etc.

If the cars for a track and high speed runs now and again then its not so much of an issue.

 

You also need to fit the Challenge power steering pump to use the speed of the higher ratio rack. At least thats what the manual for both the 99 Challenge and workshop manuals say.

 

Thats handy info thanks.

My 355 based project will probably end up with a bigger engine from another ferrari so I will have to make sure it has a suitable pump.

 

Hi Has anyone removed/replaced or adjusted the 355 power steering pump? Do they have a history of failing hoses?

 

As I have my hands on a spare stock steering rack I am playing with the idea of having it modified to an even shorter ratio than the Challenge. say 2.5.
On my race Alfa Romeo without powersteering I have 2.1 lock to lock wich is not ideal on road car, but extremely confidence building as any slide is very easy to correct. Gokart control.
I would strongly suggest not to convert to stock manual rack on the 355 fofr those who have the powersteering.
It means even more turns lock to lock which is not ideal for such a powerful car without traction control. It will need ekstremely quick hands to confidently push the car on power,m in the wet is can be quite dangerous... An many slides/crashes would have been avoided if the rack was quicker from factory.

I added an extra degree of caster on mine which helped quite a bit with self correcting acting more strongly.
A quicker powersteering is though a very sweet upgrade.
2.75 is very good but 2.5 is better and way safer.

What was the explanation that you could not use the same powersteering pumpt on a quicker rack? If you want to maintain the same light steering feel I understand you need a different pump setup.
However a little heavier steering feel would pose no problem for most people.

Any tried using a custom built ratio?

Mats

 

Has anyone had any success swapping to the 348 rack or adjusting the ratio?


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