,
The major difference between OEM and SHG is that the OEM part is minimalistic and skeletonized with only 4 pads of plastic guiding the rack and keeping it from twisting. The SHG part engages the housing along its entire length and wraps around the rack itself, increasing the bearing area hundreds of times over.
The SHG slider absolutely keeps the rack from twisting and eliminates the play that causes wandering, squeaking and rattling that plagues the EP3, EM2 and DC5 chassis family of cars.
These cars also have issues with the rack sticking and being sticky in operation in general and a lot of this can be caused by old oxidized grease. SHG recommends that the rack be cleaned out and the grease replaced with Ford silicone brake caliper grease to help with this issue.
You can easily tell how much more bearing area the SHG part has. The stock part has about 1/16″ wear on each pad which was allowing the rack to rotate several degrees. There is a company in the UK that makes a brass copy of the stock part, but we feel that the brass will dig into the soft aluminum housing and start to wear that out instead.
We feel that Delrin is a superior material to wear against aluminum in this regard. Also, recently a company in the UK has ripped off the design and is making copies. Buy the original!
9 comments
Hi Team,
This is Kushal from Mauritius and i need your help guys.
Great explanation, i will be doing it on my Honda soon but something is really bothering me.
I have already removed the steering unit from the car and it was removed while the steering was in center position.
My query is that how will i be able to move the slider to the end side to get it out so as i can grab it?
Thanks in advance for your reply.
Regards,
Kushal.
If you already have the unit out of the car all you would have to do is move the dust boot. Take off the band clamp then move the boot enough to go past the slider to do this install.
Hi KorXJ,
Thank you very much for the reply. Will do it soon.
Would it help to install the SHG MotorWorks part before doing the other “bump steer” modifications.
Jeff
Yes, it’s needed even on a totally stock car.
Good morning Mike. This series is so helpful thank you. What’s your opinion on the steering rack raiser kits that raise the tie rods? They are supposed to raise the angle of the tie rods for lowered cars.
I think the rack height adjuster is probably a better solution but it was not available when I did this many years ago. You do have to be careful of tie rod clearance to the body though and the best solution is probably an adjustable riser with the tie rods.
I recently did this work on my 02 EP3 along with tie rods and other work. I had to take the steering column off from the steering rack to take it out the car. The car now unfortunately has an effortless turn to the left but a stiffer turn to the right. The steering also does not center itself when turning left but it will when turning right. Any help or insight as to what could have gone wrong would be a great help.
Update on the EP3, it turns out it was my torque sensor. It’s the little black box around that pinion gear. I took my Rack out through the drivers side wheel well and took that torque sensor off thinking it would help me remove it. BIG MISTAKE as removing it requires the torque sensor to be recalibrated. Honda DOES NOT SERVICE RACKS so asking them to do it would lead you nowhere….Although I’m sure it’s possible if you have a scan tool to read the torque values. So I ended up grabbing a used rack locally and installed the SHG slider with the ford grease and properly removed the old rack and installed the new rack through the top of the engine. It’s tough but it can wiggle out.