PS! Power steering! And not just power steering, Rack and pinion! So this is the 5th steering system I have tried in the car! First off, I autocross the Maverick, so steering is critical and takes a lot of loads!!! The first system, stock manual steering. WAY TOO SLOW!!! Second, replace manual ratio box with factory power ratio box, still manual steering. WAY SLOW! Third, DIY caviler rack and pinion conversion. Lasted 2 laps before it pulled the bolts out of the tie rack holes. It was good, not great till it failed. Fourth, Bogenson power steering box. Ok, now were getting some where. Its slow but at leas power steering. It also is a variable ratio. It would move slowly for the first half of a wheel turn then rapidly increase. Weird to race with. I proceeded to modify with the borgenson. I changed my spindles to Hegihts pro g spindles for gm afx cars. It has a bolt on steering arm. I took A body steering arms and shortened them 1.5". This shorted the amount of steering angle used on the steering box to where it stayed out of the rapid increase zone. Still was a good amount of turns or a slow ratio. Next I added a Howe 1.5 steering quickener to the steering column. This was pretty good. It was fast enough. I raced with this for 6 months then pop. I had 1/4 turn of slop in the wheel before the car would react!!! Turns out the mounting flange on the borgenson steering box is welled to the the sector shaft housing. the flange broke where the welding had heat hardened the plate! Sooooooo..... The fifth and current system I just finished today. I took a right hand drive front steer rack and pinion from a company that was not helpfull so I wont say their name, and mounted behind the front axle center. This had it travel the correct direction. I made a center link that bolted to the ends of the rack and allowed me to attach the tie rods inside of the racks length to prevent excessive bump steer. I had to get a double u joint on the rack and was able to connect it with a double d shaft supported by a heim joint to another u joint at the base of the steering column. I kept the howe steering quickener on it as the rack was not that fast of a ratio. Its very tight between the lower control arms, tie rods, center link, rack and pinion, mounting crossmember, and headers. Getting the steering u joint angles working smoothly was a long process of small adjustments. Im going to drive it this week and race next weekend. I dont have any pics of this hosted anywhere yet. Ill get some up and post them in the replies.
Thanks for posting that Bryant. You try lots of "outside the box" stuff, and I find it interesting. I hope it does what you want! It seems to me that improving these cars is a delicate process requiring lots of work and patience.
Here are some you tube videos of the rack and pinion conversion on the car. I drove it to and from the Hot Wheels Legends car show this weekend. 50 mile trip each way for me. It was great! The best steering in the car yet. Im going to put it back up in the air this week and check everything over. I'm going to add some metal to the center link to put the tie rod bolts into double sheer. I am racing the car next Sunday, so that will be the real test of the system.