duke wrote:After much deliberation and planning, I have finally decided to dive down the rabbit hole of installing rack and pinion steering on my car. Like many 510's out there, my steering box was badly worn, and definitely one of the main weak points of the chassis. I have seen many different iterations of rack and pinion installations in 510's, some better than others, and in this research I set a few ground rules for what I wanted.
1. Keep the rear steer setup-I didn't want to have to make new steering arms, a new front sway bar, etc.
2. Keep the oil pan rear sump- With how low my car is, I really like the security of having the crossmember there to guard the oil pan.
3. Use a new rack and pinion- As awesome as the MR-2 rack setups that I have seen are, I don't like the idea of using something that is 30+ years old and can be difficult to find. Also, I didn't like how slow the ratio's are for most stock steering racks.
4. Make it bolt in- I want to use the stock steering mounts on the frame rails to mount the rack, essentially making it a bolt-in affair.
I'm about to dive into R&P conversion myself. Hoping to put a more serious Solo2 package together for next year and the steering is definitely my car's weakest link right now.
Since you & I have similar setups (carbed, rear-sump KA), I'm hoping to do something similar to you. I plan to run an MK1 MR2 rack with Cressida inners, and 2 x '72 outer tie rods. I also plan to run a Quaife 2.5 quick-steer conversion to basically have the rack as-new.
Not sure how the rack will span the underside of the block/pan, seems awfully tight in there... How much room did you allow for engine movement?
Also, I noticed your mounting bracket seems to do without bushings on the rack?