Off centre steering rack an issue?

hey team, I’m building a L98 powered s15 and I recently come into a problem with the starter hitting the steering unijoint, so I Moved the rack over by about 5mm, I assume if I wind one tie rod out 5mm and the other in 5mm this will counteract the offset steering rack? Or will I run into other issues in regards to steering geometry. Cheers

Why don't you leave the tie-rods the same length, and reposition the steering wheel on a different spline so that it still points straight ahead. That way your geometry won't be affected (tie rods are the same length), just the rack will run in a different position when going straight. An alignment can adjust the tie rods any slight amount if you are between splines.

Check bump steer, that will have been impacted.

Will also have impact ackermann geometry, but that's all a bit hit and miss anyway.

As Denis mentions, bump steer will suffer if the rack is offset, or more correctly the bump steer will be different on the left and right side of the car due to the differing locations of the inner ball joints on the rack ends. Ackerman however is related to the angle of the steering arms on the hub relative to the lower ball joint axis so i can't see this being affected.

Hi- ive seen kits for LS engines that swap starter location from one side to the other . Dont know if it would help you but thought id mention it . :)

Didn't read the original post properly!

"so I Moved the rack over by about 5mm, I assume if I wind one tie rod out 5mm and the other in 5mm this will counteract the offset steering rack?!

As you have moved the rack CASING then NO you shouldn't need to adjust the tie rods as the "rack" part will still be in the same place. In theory this also means bump steer wouldn't be affected, but would check it anyway (always a good idea, seems some horrific deviations on some cars).

Ackermann geometry also won't be affected. If you had changed the tie rod lengths it would have been impacted because arc radius and starting angle of each tie rod would now be different meaning that the wheels would toe in/out at slightly different rates than previously. Most ackermann articles completely ignore the fact that you have a rack and two two rods and just depict a single rod connecting the two steering arms in order to simplify things, have different length and starting angles on the tie rods can effectively cause the length of the "single rod" to change length as the steering turns hence adding/subtracting to the ackermann effect. If you ever get bored and fancy a good demonstration, deliberately mis-center your rack on the tie rods by an inch whilst keeping the same toe in and try and drive the car...on most cars it will at best feel weird and fail to hold a straight line when you let go of the steering wheel.