Unisteer Performance Parts
 Unisteer Performance Products is a manufacturer of specialty steering systems and steering components for street rods, classic cars & muscle cars as well a large variety of custom vehicles. Unisteer Performance is a division of Maval Mfg, and is supported Maval’s stellar manufacturing, engineering, and R&D capabilities.
In 1987, four corporate refugees started a new business devoted to remanufacturing rack and pinions, power steering pumps and steering boxes. They soon found that not only could they remanufacture these products on their own, but do it without the corporate red tape. Once the foursome set up a new state of the art remanufacturing facility, which easily rivaled their former employer’s, the customers started rolling in. Today, Maval and its Unisteer division sell more than 50,000 remanufactured rack and pinion units annually. Maval Mfg. is the exclusive supplier to Toyota and Lexus, as well as some major auto parts chains throughout the country. Once the remanufactured division was well established, the group at Maval ventured into new markets.
Companies such as John Deere, Polaris, and MTD were in the midst of designing off road utility vehicles and were in need of someone to engineer and manufacturer their steering systems. Maval was up to the task and we now produce over 120,000 units per year to dozens of specialty vehicle manufacturers. Our staff of more than 140 workers accomplishes all this within our newly expanded 100,000 square foot facility.
Who is Unisteer Performance Products?
Being hot rod enthusiasts themselves, the Maval group had always had an intense interest & passion for performance cars and their aftermarket potential. For many years we supplied front-end manufacturers, and chassis builders with custom rack and pinions. Seeing this opportunity, Maval brought in a well-known hot rod executive in to launch a new division known as Unisteer Performance Products. The plan was to design new and different products, instead of simply copying what others were doing. We couldn’t ignore the negative feedback that the builders were giving us concerning the commonly used “Vega” steering box. Many people were asking for an improved box, but instead we had a more radical idea. We put together a modern rack and pinion kit that could be fitted to a solid axle front end. The new Cross Steer™ system was created and the new design was well received. The Cross Steer won best new product of the year awards, and more importantly high praise from the car owners who bought & installed them.
The guys at Unisteer soon realized that there was a demand for more kits like the Cross Steer™, and turned their focus to classic & muscle cars. The cars of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s have a real need for steering upgrades. The challenge was and continues to be to engineer systems that match the factory suspension geometry, using modern day steering gears. Most of these cars use very long control arms, which narrows the suspensions pivot points and requires a very narrowed rack and pinion. Some people think that it is as easy as taking an “off-the-shelf” parts store rack and pinion and fabricate a bracket to mount it to their vehicle. It’s NOT that easy, if the rack and pinion unit used does not match the suspension exactly, you will experience “bump-steer”. The dreaded Bump-Steer is the condition that occurs when your wheels have a tow change when they leave the pavement (such as hitting a bump). This tends to make your car want to pull to one side whenever it hits a bump or dip in the road. To date, we have designed and offer kits for 1955-57 Chevy Cars, 1967-68 Camaro/1968-1974 Nova, 1962-67 Chevy II/Nova, 1965-70 Mustang, Mopar B/E bodies, 1960-65 Falcon/Comet 1982-04 S-10/GMC Sonoma, and 1964-72 Chevelles.
Our kits are all simple bolt-on units and significantly upgrade the vehicles handling. Most of the kits are available in either power or manual steering and can be ordered with all the needed components for installation. We also offer a complete line of steering related products, such as power steering pumps, pulleys, brackets, hose kits, steering boxes and steering columns, as well as their new polished stainless steel u-joints and shaft kits.
We continue to research, develop and add new kits to our expanding product line and we welcome any and all product requests.
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