I recently had the pleasure of installing new parts on my s14. The old stuff was worn, so why not turn a repair into an upgrade? Sounds about right! From left to right, here’s what we’re working with: Tein Tie Rods with the Spacers, Energy  Steering Rack Bushings, new tie rod boots, and Tein Tie Rod Ends. Definitely some good stuff here, especially if you’ve got a high-mileage S14 like I do (314,000 miles right now).

My old steering rack bushings were literally clumbling apart, and I knew my rack was shifting side-to-side in hard turns. After a hard right turn, centering the car meant having the steering wheel turned to the right slightly. After a hard left turn, the centering of the wheel was a bit left.

Mmm look at the high quality OEM stuff. Actually, they did hold up for quite a while. S14 tie rods are supposedly stronger than S13 ones, and after all these miles on my car, I never had problems with them — this after doing drift events and grip events — no problems. But it was time for an upgrade, so eh.

I’ll say that after installing these parts, you can definitely feel more feedback in the steering wheel. Thanks to my super backyard front toe alignment, I think I’ve got a fair amount of toe-out, but anyways, feels good man.

Before that, I had to install a new starter. My old one was wearing out — you could hear the engine cranking slower and slower before leaving the house each morning. According to the interweb forums, you could swap parts from a single cam KA starter to the SR20DET starter. Well, pretty much worked out perfectly for me.

What I did was swap over the new starter motor onto the old starter’s mounting piece with the old solenoid. Very easy swap, and it works great now! Winnnnnn!

Ooh, and here’s Haru, my friends’ Shiba Inu puppy.