S14 Steering Suggestion with HICAS

[dongoesby]

While planning to remove the engine for a swap soon, I'm thinking to work on the steering system. I have been driving my S14 with SPL inner (z33 & spacer) + outer tie rods, SPL Tension Rods and Nismo steering rack bushings (also purchased from SPL). The steering feeling were improved noticebly; however, the nismo bushings are actually taking away the responsibe feeling from the car. Like most S14 owners who installed the nismo steering shaft bushings, I have a tiny gap which assumed to be an inpropoer installation. (There is no solution yet)

Nonetheless, I'm planning on improve the steering feeling further by changing the steering rack to HICAS that came only in JDM. With researches, I was not able to gather enough workable info. I know the different ratio between the two are:

s13/s14-HICAS: 14.9:1 lock to lock: 2.6
non-HICAS: 17.1 lock to lock: 3.1
z32-HCAS: 14.8:1 lock to lock: 2.4

There are many opinions on quicker steering feel verses decreasing turning radius. This means you can have quicker steering feel but you won't be able to turn as wide as before, like the z32, which it has less stroke travel and that is why the Z32 has a smaller number of turns to lock.

My question is does S13/S14 HICAS racks decrease turning radius also? If to swap the rack, do I have to change the steering columns too?

I understand S13 rack/columns are different than S14 rack/columns. (I could be wrong.) The s13 and s14 racks are not interchangable due to different size in diameter. The s13 column has a circular bushing that stays in between 4 bolts, and s14 has no bushings at all, which it is just a knuckle joint, solid steering shaft and no 4 bolts. Some say the s14 columns were made for crash safety. But to experts in here, does s14 columns got any advantage over s13? There are aluminum bushings for s13, which it is quite neat.