E36 steering rack

[daboy3000]

Will an E36 steering rack be a straight swap for my E30 318i cab?

If not do I need a lot of bits, is it not worth it?

I did spend some time searching but couldn't find anything.

TIA

[scottybeemer]

no its not, look in the e30 wiki ^^^^^^^^

[jmc330i]

Not a straight swap as you will need a hybrid steering linkage and custom PAS pipes, and there might be issues with the steering linkage passing the M40s downpipe. And although the E36 rack is an improvement over the E30 rack, the 'purple tag' E46 rack is a much better rack to swap in - fitting the E46 rack is the same as the E36 rack.

There must be hundreds of threads on here about rack swaps (plus info in the wiki), so try a search for E46 steering rack.

[scottybeemer]

i believe the z3 rack is the more superior and easiest to fit

[jmc330i]

i believe the z3 rack is the more superior and easiest to fit

Z3 is very 'quick', 3 turns L-L, most find it not really suited for road use.

E46 purple tag rack is 3 turns lock to lock, the Z3 rack is 2.7 turns.

Whilst the Z3 rack is ok (possibly too quick for a road car as willnz said) and it is easier to fit as you don't need a custom steering linkage, you could buy 2 or 3 E46 racks for the price of one Z3 rack And that's if you can find a decent Z3 rack, considering how old they are now.

[scottybeemer]

but beware some z3 racks are 3.2 turns,dont realy understand a 2.7 being no good for a road car as the z3 they come off is a road car and they are fine on them

[jslot]

E46 purple tag rack approx. £70

DanThe pipes, spacers and crush washers approx £150

'Corsa C' steering linkage approx. £15 ( or if you want to do it proper, DanThe steering linkage)

Result...priceless.

If you can fit it yourself, a day of your time...

[jslot]

http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/inde ... onversions

[daboy3000]

Cheers guys, will read up on it. I have an e46 so anything closer to that would be great, every time i change cars i can't go round corners properly for the first few minutes.