Shock Therapy Polaris General/Ranger Race Rack And Pinion

1. 7075 Aluminum construction: This high grade of aluminum is almost as strong as carbon steel and costs 3 times as much as the more common 6000 series aluminum.

2. Hard anodized plating: This hardened surface not only prevents wear in the harshest of environments but it also extends the life of the rack internally.

3. Dispersed grease passage lubrication: Our SINGLE grease fitting feeds 6 different spots in the rack through a network of internal passages. Proper lubrication is key to Rack life. Some of the spots the internal passages feed are the pinion gear, rack gear on all four sides and the vertical stress load spots where the rack gear sees the most potential wear.

4. Huge 1″x 1″ square rack gear: This massive gear is twice as thick as the stock round gear at it’s weak point in the tooth base. The size of this gear prevents bending and breakage but the material used is also 125% stronger than the stock material. Another important thing about a square rack gear is that it prevents twist. The stock, round gear tends to twist in the rack body as the tie rods force it up and down. This twist wedges the rack gear into the pinion tooth. This acts like a log splitter when it forces the sharp pinion tooth into the base of the rack gear tooth and creates the “snapped” rack gear problems the stock racks are known for. With our square rack gear there is no twisting force to worry about and thus removing all pinion gear forces from the rack gear.

5. Pre heat treated rack gear: Most racks use a soft material for the rack gear so they can machine the teeth into it easily. After the machine process the gear gets heat treated to increase it’s strength. Heat treating warps the gear as much as 20 thousandths of and inch. In machine tolerance terms this is a massive amount so they try to bend it back or straighten it again but you can only straighten it so much and often there are waves in the gear from end to end. This means you have to increase the clearances in the body to allow the gear to move inside the rack. We didn’t like this at all so we went a different route. We started with pre-hardened material that was perfectly straight and cut our gear teeth into that.

6. Patent Pending Gear Tooth Design: In choosing a tooth design we went with the industry standard that was readily available at first. Though exhaustive testing and purposely using weaker materials to find failure points, we found that the base of the standard tooth design was the weakest point and prone to breakage. We searched for another tooth design that was stronger but found nothing so we decided to make our own!

7. Heat Treated Pinion Gear: Our pinion gear starts out as a solid chunk of 4140 Chromoly material. After machining our custom tooth pattern we have the pinion heat treated to a 60 Rockwell. This is actually harder than a carbon steel drill bit for superior strength and longevity!

8. Pinion Bearings: We designed a new system where we do not press the pinion bearing into the rack housing. Instead, we allow it to slide into the rack body with just 1 thousandth of an inch of clearance, thereby eliminating the inward pressure on the bearing and preventing any potential tightening of the pinion and rack slide. This approach prioritizes the pinion bearing and ensures that it is not ignored like it often is in traditional systems.

9. Faster Steering Ratio: The factory rack has a two turn, lock to lock system. One full turn back to straight and centered and one full turn to the right. This is two full turns from lock to lock. Our Race rack is a quicker system. It rotates the wheel just past 3/4 of a turn from center. This means that our rack has just over a 1.5 turn system.

10. High Quality Rod Ends: Our Race rack uses huge 5/8 rod ends for the tie rod pivots on the ends of the rack gear. We would never run the lower quality injected rod ends. We only run the highest quality, Teflon lined, FK JMX10-T rod ends. You will be able to run a full Best in the Desert season on these rod ends with out having to replace them.

11. “Taper Lock” Jam Nuts: Our Patent Pending rod end jam nuts, called “Taper Lock” are an industry first. If you have done any racing with rod ends and jam nuts on your radius rods or tie rods or control arms you know that the jam nuts always loosen up. Most teams tack weld them in place to prevent this. We developed the “Taper Lock” system to avoid welding on our rack gear, which uses a machinist tool taper to secure the jam nut and rod end without any hassle. These jam nuts double up as the steering stops for the rack travel as well.  Positive lock and no loosening up are the only way to finish races!

12. 4130 Chromoly Clevises: Our tie rod clevises, which enable you to connect your tie rods to our rack, are massive. The clevis tubing diameters are 1″ .120 wall tubing and 1 1/4 .095 wall tubing. In addition, we provide a 5/8 threaded clevis that is specifically designed to thread into aftermarket tie rods or long travel kits like Assault, Cognito, Long Travel Industries, and any other tie rod that utilizes a 5/8 rod end. Lastly, we also offer a longer clevis for Lone Star tie rods.  Be sure to choose your clevis carefully so you get exactly what fits your tie rod system the best.