I had a small 330mm steering wheel for a while, but I ended up switching back to a larger steering wheel. The wheel blocked a lot of my view of the gauge cluster, and the larger wheel just feels like it gives me a better driving position.

I've seen some welded knuckles being sold in Japan. It also seems that it is fairly common in the drifting world. This leads me to believe that welded knuckles are at least somewhat safe and strong enough to hold up to some abuse. I'm not an expert in metallurgy, so I'll ask a fabricator on their thoughts of the strength of a cast part vs. a cut and welded part.

Attached are some screenshots of one sold on yahoo auctions. This one is for roll center correction, but I think I've seen them with shortened steering arms as well.

Bumping up this super old thread.

That Quaife rack and pinion discussed earlier never got developed. Grannas makes a manual rack, but they are no longer making the faster ratio version. Seems like there aren't really any options out there for faster steering ratios.

I'm using an OEM rack that was converted to manual and with an epowersteering setup. I have a bit of toe-in in the front and using 255/40/17 tires, so I guess my turn-in and slip angles from the alignment and taller tires aren't the best for turn-in.

I see that Quaife makes a little steering quickener box that can be installed along the steering shaft. Would require some custom mounting and custom shafts.

I've seen that drifters often use aftermarket knuckles such as wisefab or parts shop max that have much shorter arms where the tie rod ends hook up to, giving them a faster rack and more angle. I've talked to parts shop max, and they don't recommend their products for grip/road race applications because of all of the drifting specific geometry and because grip cars see higher lateral loads that their parts are not designed for. TCP magic has made drift knuckles that look like OEM cast parts, but have the shorter steering arms. I haven't gotten any response from them what else is changed on those knuckles vs. OEM though, such as ackerman angle, upper and lower ball joint locations, etc. Lastly I've seen drifters using OEM knuckles, but cut and welded to relocate attachment points.

Let's say I were to have a professional fabricator shorten the steering arms on the knuckles. If we were to keep the attachment point on the same angle (angle between lower ball joint and the steering arm center), but shorter, could I maintain the same ackermann angle as stock, but have a faster steering ratio? Would a cut and welded attachment point be as strong as an OEM casting? I don't really care for the increased angle at lock, but I don't think I would ever turn the wheel that much so it really wouldn't make any difference to me.  Are there any other considerations that I might be missing with this route?

I like the idea of LFX swaps. I’d love to DD an LFX swapped RX8. I am interested in seeing it done in an RX7.

On track at the ridge

Did you test to see if there is a parasitic draw? It's fairly quick and easy to do with a multimeter. I have had multiple parasitic draws in my FD that I had to repair. Your static voltage with the car off isn't super strong, so you could definitely have sulfated the battery with a draw.

Is your wiring from battery to alternator/starter and grounding wiring all solid? I have encountered bad terminals that caused voltage drops that were worse with hot starts.

I took the car for a one day high performance driving course at Proformance in Kent WA at Pacific Raceways. The morning consisted of a little bit of classroom talk with Don Kitch. The Art of driving in the rain was a book and a movie about him. Then we took the cars out for some drills in the morning, followed by course familiarization laps with instructors, and finally several sessions of track lapping with instructors. It was a great time and it felt amazing to really push the car in a controlled environment. That was the most fun I've had with the car over the 15 years that I've owned it and it kind of reinvigorated my love of the FD. I also learned a lot about what the car can do.The instructors and other drivers were all pretty happy to see an FD on track, and they were also pretty impressed with the swap. Some notes from the track sessions.

Engine: I had more than enough power all through the entire rev range. The car is very fast, and the mid-range torque coupled with the lightweight car made it effortless to get the car moving fast. I was shifting at 5k for most of the track, and I never felt the need to wind it up higher. Except for the long straight where I was redlining 4th gear. The EWP setup did fine and my coolant temps were controlled all day long. The oil was getting hot, and I was seeing 260+ throughout the sessions. I ordered another of the same oil cooler to add to the passenger side, and I'll do the ducting the same way. I had a lot of oil consumption throughout the day. My catch can caught several ounces, and I was down about a quart of oil by the time I got home. One of the track workers mentioned he was seeing a small puff of smoke when I was decelerating from the long straight going into the first sweeping corner. I'm wondering if I am burning oil because of PCV despite having a catch can, or if it is something else? 

Suspension: I had the coilovers set pretty soft to start, but later stiffened them up a good amount to get more response and to control body roll. I have 8/6kg springs front and rear, and they seemed to work okay, but may be on the soft side for track usage. They are nice and comfortable on the street though. The car handled great with stiffer shocks settings, but I may have set them a little too stiff because I think I lost some compliance on some bumpy sections. Maybe in the future I'll look into stiffer sway bars to allow more response and less body roll so I can set the shocks a little softer. With the amount of torque that I have, I could definitely feel the weight transfer to the rear under acceleration and the rear squat under power. Would 10/8kg springs help to reduce the squat?

Tires/brakes: The Continental ECS 02 felt good on track for being a tire that is a compromise between street, track performance, and wet performance. They had lots of grip and I could feel the feedback through them when I was pushing them hard. I run a square 255/40/17 all around at the moment. I never felt any hint of understeer; I think I would like to run a wider tire in the rear on my next set to go faster. The RZ brakes that I have all around performed great. I repeatedly and consistently slowed the car adequately throughout the sessions without any degradation in braking performance. I am running stock Mazda pads, and I actually didn't have any brake fade. I thought I might need some more aggressive pads for track days, but I was surprised that the stock pads survived all of the abuse and maintained bite all day. Perhaps as I get to be a faster driver and my car gets more dialed in, I'll need better pads. Since my ABS is deleted, I now have an adjustable prop valve for the rear brakes. I have it set in the middle of it's range right now, so I guess that means 50% flow, and I'm not really sure if I need any adjustment. Part of the drills in the morning was ABS engagement, or in my case locked up the brakes, then recovering from it. The car seemed to do fine, so I guess I'll just leave it?

Interior: My 330mm Sparco steering wheel covers up my gauges pretty bad. On the street, it's not a huge deal as I can just move my head to see them, but at the track with all of my attention focused on driving, the steering wheel is really masking the tach and speedo. My shift light on my speedhut tach is still visible so that is nice and I didn't see a real need to look at my speedo, but it would still be nice to be able to see them if I wanted to. I ordered a Personal Grinta that is 350mm, so hopefully that allows me to see them. My metering hood is carbon fiber wrapped, but it causes some glare. I want to repair or replace the metering hood to stop it from rocking back and forth (broken tabs), and maybe do some flocking on it. The stock seats seemed to work okay, but I think a bucket seat would work even better. There was one corner in particular with elevation change that I was putting effort into staying planted in my seat. I think a bucket seat would give me a more planted seating position, hopefully lower in the car, and maybe provide more feedback from the car. My oil temp gauge currently maxes out at 260. Not that I want to go above that, but when I reached 260 during lapping, I was blind to what my actual temps were. I may upgrade to a 300 degree gauge at some point, but hopefully my additional oil cooler keeps me under 260. The Lizardskin coating that I did in the trans tunnel has been working great. It doesn't seem like much if any heat gets transmitted into the cabin. Before that, it used to feel like I was getting baked.

I have 2 more track days lined up this month at the Ridge in Shelton, WA which I am looking forward to. The car is going into storage after that for a few years while I live overseas again, but I'm glad I'm getting to enjoy the track days now while I can.

My engine bay was looking pretty rough so I did some work on cleaning up the engine bay. I’ve gone to a few local car meets, and naturally everyone always wants to look under the hood. Welded up some holes, body filler, paint, re-ran some some wiring for cleaner routing, and got some carbon fiber fender hole covers. Also switched to a different ABS delete kit from full detail automotive. Their kit uses some soft lines, but it gives the cleanest look in the engine bay.

Got some new Continental extreme contact sport 02s. Put the car on scales to corner balance, but surprisingly the car was pretty dialed in to start, so just did an alignment.

Re-did a bunch of wiring in the interior. Changed audio setup, different battery, and everything gets covered up nicely.

My stock FD oil cooler has been leaking despite several attempts to fix the leak. I changed it out for a Mocal unit with Banzai racing brackets. The brackets are very sturdy and makes for a very clean install. Made some ducting out of plastic sheet, and also made some for the radiator while I was in there.

I have some track days coming up that I am signed up for. Should be good times.

Rewiring the pump like that takes care of the wiring, but in that video he is still using the factory bulkhead connector. That connector is a huge problem; check out this thread for more details and solutions to it.

https://www.norotors.com/index.php?topic=6346.new#new