Billet Steering Rack Bushings?

[Dan Cragin]

One Performance upgrade that many of you might consider is changing your steering rack bushings. The bushings that mount the steering rack to the frame of the car are made of rubber. The idea is to remove any vibration or harshness from the steering wheel, but this really is not the case with the Viper. These bushings move causing the rack to move around and soften the steering feel. We noticed that the Competition Coupes had them and tried them on the production cars. The result was improved steering response and better road feel without any vibration or harshness.

Since then we have replaced 100's of these with good feedback.

We machine CNC machine them from 6061 Billet aluminum, at $79 a set they are an affordable upgrade.

 

[MTGTS]

How hard is the install?

 

[Dan Cragin]

It is a fairly simple process that takes about an hour and half. You need to remove ther airbox to access the steering rack bolts, once removed you need to raise the rack up and replace the bushings. Be sure to mark the shims that are installed on the right and left side under the rack. These shims determine the "bump steer" so they need to go back in the same place.

 

[ViperTony]

Dan, is this recommend for only GenIII or do you have bushings available for GenII's as well? Thanks - Tony

 

[Chuck 98 RT/10]

Glad you posted this. I remember reading about them some time ago and was considering getting them for my tracker.

 

[Dan Cragin]

The bushings will fit all Viper Models 1992-2010.

Thanks!

 

[latamud]

I just installed these today and wanted to share my feedback. I have a Paxton supercharger taking up space so I approached from under the car. It took about an hour and a half using a lift and having to remove the splitter. 15/16 wrench with some leverage to break the bolts loose. A ratcheting wrench would have been nice. The bolts lifted out easily. The passenger side has a loose nut-block. The top bushings slip out easy, the shims will fall out when you lift up on the rack to remove the lower bushings. The driver side lower bushing was difficult to get enough clearnace to remove. Some of the rubber bushings had o-rings, I didn't reuse. The aluminum bushings are slightly shorter so less fighting to gain clearance. The bushings didn't slip into the rack all the way so I decided to draw them in using the bolt. When I was removing the bolt I thought it would have been nice if there was an Allen hole on the threaded side to speed up the process. When I was reinstalling, I cut a slit on the tip of the bolt and used a flat tip screwdriver to draw the bolt into the nuts. Reinstalled the shims to proper sides and tightened the bolts down.
After driving it, steering felt tighter, less vibration through the steering wheel and the car feels like it tracks straighter.