1993: The beginning of my enduring love/hate relationship with Mazda. I had the 1985 flagship Mazda- the RX7 GSL-SE. Light weight rear wheel drive fuel injected 1300 cc engine, but with with the same steering device you might find on a pickup truck. This car would almost change lanes by itself on the well worn roads in Massachusetts.

Solution: Get rid of the pittman-arm steering.

Approach: Install rack and pinion steering from a Honda CRX. This was tricky because the steering link had to get around the left side of the engine but that offset would shift the inner tie rod ends into a severe bump steer situation. The blue weldment in the pictures is an adapter that allows the Honda rack to sit 3 inches off center while the tie rod ends are right where Mazda designed them to be.

Result: Increased steering response, and a decreased tendency to follow the contours of the road surface.

Now I drive the ubiquitous 87 Turbo II with an 89 engine   91 300ZX Twin Turbo with 5 speed conversion   91 Integra   GH1 Mazda 6   89 EX 500   84 RZ 350   89 FZR 600   87 Hurricane 600   E90 335i with JB4, E46 330i (Family guy now).