Light weight steering box???

Is there a bolt in light weight steering box for C2 or C3 with manual steering? I don't want to put a rack and pinion in. Thanks.

Not that I know of.....fairly sure I would have read about one, long as I been hanging on the .net in vette groups.....

maybe someone else knows more, so hang on.....

for manual steering, I suspect the rack weighs as much, and BTW, nice car, seen the pix on the intro.....

Like MY car, nothing stock from wheels to roof, not nuttin'....:devil::crutches:

it's on my sites below......

mrvette said:

Not that I know of.....fairly sure I would have read about one, long as I been hanging on the .net in vette groups.....

maybe someone else knows more, so hang on.....

for manual steering, I suspect the rack weighs as much, and BTW, nice car, seen the pix on the intro.....

Like MY car, nothing stock from wheels to roof, not nuttin'....:devil::crutches:

it's on my sites below......

Click to expand...

I've got my car down to 2860lbs with me in it race ready. Still looking for more little stuff to get lighter. I have searched for a lighter steering box for awhile now and no luck.

Just thinking... Could you modify a "Steering Quickner" to do the job?
They're usually Aluminum. Typically used in conjunction with a R&P though. That's more weight again.

Cheers - Jim

I havent heard of one... The newer boxes certainly dont seem to be getting any lighter. I have a new delphi-style integral power box here for a customers car (CPP 500 box) and its heavy as hell.

Have you looked at the weight loss thread? There is a ton (no pun intended) of good weight loss info there.

vette427sbc said:

Have you looked at the weight loss thread? There is a ton (no pun intended) of good weight loss info there.

Click to expand...

Mike, 69427 gets much lighter, he going to need lead to hold it down.....:1st:

but really, it's been a all out WAR on weight......:clap:

Motivational said:

Is there a bolt in light weight steering box for C2 or C3 with manual steering? I don't want to put a rack and pinion in. Thanks.

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There's smaller (and I assume lighter) boxes that are used in street rods. Most of the ones I'm familiar with are from smaller 60's and 70's GM cars. Don't know the weights, or how much fabrication/adaptation might be necessary to make it work in a Corvette.

A stock box is about 20 lbs. I haven't seen one of the aftermarket boxes but suspect it would be more.

I went so far as designing a billet aluminum housing for a Delphi 600 box but never took it any further.

Kid Vette said:

I went so far as designing a billet aluminum housing for a Delphi 600 box but never took it any further.

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:clap:

Any structural analysis? Ive wondered why none of the OEMs make alu steering boxes (that Ive seen). I would assume that the integral PS boxes would need to be way stronger than our current ram assisted PS systems but I dont see why it couldnt be done with some proper engineering.

Anybody have FEA software? I'd be glad to share the file with someone who could do an analysis on it. I designed it with slightly thicker walls and reinforced webbing for strength.

I was planning to use T6 7075 Aluminum, hard anodized with teflon coating.

Weighs 5#, but over $800!
https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=3091

As long as you are using for drag racing- I bet it would be sufficient for straight line action.
ANOTHER from Speedway at less than $300 AND 2.5#!
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Small-Rack-and-Pinion-Fast-Ratio-Steering-Box,3692.html



Or
Cheers - Jim

I might be interested in working with you on this. We met when I came by your house to see your install on the Dana rear-end about a year ago.

A base FEA is bit hard to do unless you know the loads to crank into the model. Another way to look at it is to reverse engineer the part based on the assumption that the original part is stressed to the limit. This will give you a bit conservative result since casting thickness may be governing. When you do his you get about 1/3 thicker to account for stiffness and fatigue. A third way to look at it is to measure a similar box that was cast in Alu. I believe both Ford and Chrysler used the same internals in an Alu. case. And a fourth way, get the design drawings for the Grand Sport steering box.

Why are your machining it as opposed to casting it?

George

Corvettes White said:

I might be interested in working with you on this. We met when I came by your house to see your install on the Dana rear-end about a year ago.

A base FEA is bit hard to do unless you know the loads to crank into the model. Another way to look at it is to reverse engineer the part based on the assumption that the original part is stressed to the limit. This will give you a bit conservative result since casting thickness may be governing. When you do his you get about 1/3 thicker to account for stiffness and fatigue. A third way to look at it is to measure a similar box that was cast in Alu. I believe both Ford and Chrysler used the same internals in an Alu. case. And a fourth way, get the design drawings for the Grand Sport steering box.

Why are your machining it as opposed to casting it?

George

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Just asking out of curiosity (it's not applicable to my car as I'm running a C4 rack and suspension) so I could mention this to other weight-loss enthusiasts. Do you know offhand which vehicles might be running an aluminum box?

I looked at it so far as to understand that a lot of US manufactures in the 60's and 70's used the same box in a number of different cars. And that (I am almost certain as one could be who is not in that industry) Saginaw box internals were shared with Ford and or Chrysler. When I looked at photos of various boxes, other than the mounting tab locations, the parts looked the same. And these cars used aluminum for the castings. The box in the photo was a Chrysler product. I would stab a guess at most any of their full cars. The stresses on a steering box in a Plymouth Fury, Chrysler Imperial weighing 4000 or 5000 pounds cannot be any less that on a Corvette driving less than 150 MPH. And at 150 you are not doing much turning anyway. So just to measure the wall thicknesses on one of these boxes would give you a good place to start.
Keep in mind that the manufacturers would thin things out because they were making literally 10's of millions of the same case. 1 pound of aluminum would make a difference in costs over the course of a 10 year product run. Or even if you made a single one just a bit thicker and with a premium grade of material, odds of overstressing the part are not there if it is thought through.

Corvettes White said:

I might be interested in working with you on this. We met when I came by your house to see your install on the Dana rear-end about a year ago.

A base FEA is bit hard to do unless you know the loads to crank into the model. Another way to look at it is to reverse engineer the part based on the assumption that the original part is stressed to the limit. This will give you a bit conservative result since casting thickness may be governing. When you do his you get about 1/3 thicker to account for stiffness and fatigue. A third way to look at it is to measure a similar box that was cast in Alu. I believe both Ford and Chrysler used the same internals in an Alu. case. And a fourth way, get the design drawings for the Grand Sport steering box.

Why are your machining it as opposed to casting it?

George

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I was planning to machine rather than cast because I was planning to do just 1 or 2 and I figured it would be cheaper than casting for that quantity and also I wouldn't have worry about casting irregularities.

Here is what I designed:

Casting





Billet





I designed it with the steering and sector shaft on the same axis as stock. This necessitates modifying the frame and shortening the sector shaft. Now I'm thinking it might be OK to fudge things a bit like Borgeson does and move the box up off the frame so no modification would be necessary. Everybody seems to think it works out OK.

On the cast version I just copied the dimensions on the jeep box so it might be a little weak if cast in aluminum. The billet version is beefier just because it would be easier to machine without all the detail.

In the aerospace industry, I've seen some complicated looking large aluminum parts that started out life as a block of billet aluminum. This includes aluminum parts that were apparently submerged in a dielectric fluid and then machined with an electric discharge arc for highly accurate sharp internal cavity walls with 90 degrees between walls and floor.

I'd guess this can be done with titanium, although titanium is much "harder" to work with. Commercial stuff always lags the military. Look at the WWII Mustang with it's all aluminum overhead cam supercharged V12 engine. This was 1941 to 1945. Look at the cars of the late 1940's...cast iron low technology slugs. It wasn't until the early 2000's that you started seeing relatively mass produced all aluminum V8 engines in cars!!