I had the CR steering rack stiffeners put into my 03's steering rack. Ever since, steering effort went up. Is this normal? Has anyone with an AP1 upgrade their car with these CR pieces and experience the same thing?

I liked the effortless tossability of my stock 03 and it seems like I can't modulate my steering as precisely as before. Feels more numb in a way.

What were these stiffeners designed to do, exactly? Do they actually make the car handle better, or is it just for increase in steering effort/feedback? Thanks.

 

My understanding is that they're designed to eliminate any possible flex in the rack during hard cornering where the rack is under stress.

I installed them on my 03 and my roommate's 03 and neither one of us noticed any difference in steering effort.


... to be honest, neither one of us noticed any difference, period.

 

CR has a different steering gear altogether with a performance ratio. merely adding stiffeners will not yield an improvement. Again the CR is a balanced machine tuned by Honda. Its hard to beat.

 

Darn... then why did my steering effort increase noticeably? You think there's an issue with my EPS system and that it may have been coincident timing?

I doubt upgrading to the CR coilovers and the sway bars would have done anything for the steering effort, which is why I thought the stiffeners were the culprit.

 

I thought the CR shared the same rack as the AP1. They have the same ratio don't they?

 

CR is 13.8 : 1
down from 14.9 :1 of the AP2 S2000.

I am not familiar with AP1

 

AP1's steering rack has the same ratio as the CR model. Hence the reason I had it installed on mine.

 

The rest of the suspension and chassis interplays with the steering feel. This may be a reason why you have not noticed a difference.

 

Did the shop align the car? If so they increased caster which is most likely what you're feeling. The steering stiffeners only increase the effective stiffness of the mounting bolts that mount the rack to the sub-frame. There are really only two bolts that hold the rack from moving side to side which are on the drivers side. The other two just position it but don't prevent it from moving side to side. In theory the only thing you might get from this is feel.

I changed mine and noticed nothing. You'll feel more of a difference with the cr swaybar (depending on year of course)

 

It's the same steering ratio but not the same steering rack.
Besides the addition of the stiffeners parts other changes have been made.
The actual rack(steering gear box) itself is slightly different, the torque sensor assembly had been changed(AP1.AP2 base & CR all different), steering rack guide has been changed, and even the EPS units are all different from AP1,AP2 base and AP2 CR.