Aftermarket steering rack?

[digger]

what is the difference between purple tag and yellow tag?

[STAATS]

I read your post and sent them a message. Since august 2020 the price of this rack has increased $250. I’m not saying their racks are no good, but why such a high price increase. I would stay clear as these guys are trying to pull the “covid card” to justify a price increase. Almost $900 USD shipped for a rebuilt rack is absurd.

Knowing Lukasz and having kinda peripherally followed him for the past few years (as Perth is a small place). Any price increase from that guy will not be gouging... not saying it doesn't make the price for you US guys absurd but it won't be a price gouging exercise by him, there will 100% be a legitimate driver for it... I haven't seen or spoken to him in a while but he was operating out of a small corner of a workshop that he was renting when he upgraded from his garage... If he has finally upgraded to a stand alone workshop his overheads would have increased but it is something he would have had to do eventually based on his business growth... also there is not a pool of local racks for him to rebuild... especially not LHD given we are in a RHD market so he has to buy internationally and ship in all his core racks to then rebuild and send them back out (so his base cost for cores will already be much higher than places running out of areas that have a pool of local cores to work from), if the people he is buying the cores from have started giving him the "COVID tax" then obviously he will be stuck having to pass that on to still make the same buck he was before.

To give you some background on how legit this guy is - I hit him up to help me with my Volke PS shims when I had accidentally damaged the piston on my pump on my first attempt... so I had to get another one and didn't want to stuff it up... He had no real idea what I was trying to do but has more than enough Hydraulic system experience so asked me to come to his shop and he would have a look. As soon as I talked him through what I was doing with the pump in hand he straight away got it and happily helped me through the process with all his tools. He then took me around his shop (which was in the corner of another shop much like CMP's setup at the moment), showed me the replacement steering shaft he had developed which eliminates the rag joint (so its just a UJ each end) for RHD cars, and some other cool stuff he had going on... took up about 1.5hrs of his time... dude refused to take any money from me, I tried to sneakily leave a $50(AUD) on his bench as I left as I like to reward legit people like that, he chased me out to my car and gave it back, Dude it legit, any cost increases will have a justifiable reason, I can almost guarantee it having met him.

[S14]

what is the difference between purple tag and yellow tag?

purple tag is the quick ratio rack for RHD cars. yellow tag is the quick ratio rack for LHD cars

[old///MFanatic]

purple tag is the quick ratio rack for RHD cars. yellow tag is the quick ratio rack for LHD cars

There are USA E46s with a "purple tag" .678 ZF rack that is LHD too. These are also 13.7:1 ratio racks but are not as "tight" as the "yellow tag" .712 ZFs. They we're installed mostly on the 325s.

[digger]

seems to be a bit of a writeup here

https://www.steeringlpsr.com/bmw-e46

doesn't answer the question per se but i gather it is more to do with some additional resistance with the yellow

[DropTopKingM3]

Anywhere else I could buy a used or refurbished rack from a reputable seller other than Rack Doctor ? Im skeptical of the ebay racks as they dont post any information about them such as mileage or vins of the cars they came off of. I checked lkq parts but none of their 3 series has the 712 rack.

[S14]

There are USA E46s with a "purple tag" .678 ZF rack that is LHD too. These are also 13.7:1 ratio racks but are not as "tight" as the "yellow tag" .712 ZFs. They we're installed mostly on the 325s.

Good to know! I have a purple tag rack from England sitting in my basement for an E28 rack and pinion swap project that never got started.