Steering, Suspension, & Brakes

Quote:

I do have a sensor (magnets attached to the driveshaft) that I installed long ago with the cruise control.

That is what caught my eye in the EPS for MGA article. Mine only uses a single magnet, though.

The link for a hall effect sensor in the article shows a four magnet driveshaft collar.

[www.motorsportsinnovations.com]

The magnetic kit I have is similar to this:
[www.thecruisecontrolstore.com]

So, you run 4 magnets, Dan?

At the Townsend meet this year, Dan B brought his EPS unit along with a TR6 column which we sat down at the dining room table and discussed. Scott and I did comparison drives of each other's cars, both of which are CB. Mine has a smaller steering wheel and the wheels are probably offset a little more to the outside, and also has 6.9 degrees of caster. Scott's is mostly stock I believe. He has the Yaris EPS and I have the larger Prius one. I do not know how Scott handled the lower connection and the firewall. It's pretty common to affix a solid shaft to the output spline and use the stock column below that. In my case I used a modified Prius double u-jointed drive shaft and a custom made bulkhead stub shaft mounted on timken type bearings IIRC. Bear in mind that this comparison by nature was to some extent subjective.

Both cars exhibited some return-to-center (RTC) but it tended to peter out about 3 inches on the steering wheel rim away from straight ahead. In both cases this effect was not strong enough to follow rapid steering changes but would begin to bring the wheel back to center in a noticeable way, for instance when making a slow 90 degree turn. Scott felt his was slightly stronger, I thought they were about the same or possibly opposite. I felt my steering had a little less friction, though I didn't mention it at the time and don't know that Scott would agree.

So where does this leave us? I think it is fairly clear that if Scott had the higher caster angle or if my car had the smaller EPS unit we would see more RTC. I also think that use of the MGOC roller thrust bearings under the kingpin trunions would increase this effect.

[mgb.tips]

I haven't given up on the kingpin timken retrofit. Other irons in the fire and all that though. I was thinking my bushings might be in need of replacement very soon but it seems that isn't especially urgent. What I need is to find a savvy bearing vendor who knows about these TSL series bearings.

Jim