Steering opinions

**doghows** · October 10th, 2011, 11:39 AM

I am deciding on rack and pinion steering, or stick with the stock stuff for now?? If I skip the steering now I can buy a lot more stuff to get her back on the road. OR buy the steering and hope I have enough funds to finish?
My main concern is to do the Heidst system or just a rack?? Heidts needs to be weld in and should be done before the paint. So I need to make up my mind soon. Any comments or suggestions on been there done that would be great.. Thanks Guys...

**BillP 98201** · October 11th, 2011, 07:01 AM

Arent there some bolt ons you can do later?

**doghows** · October 11th, 2011, 08:59 AM

I think so for the steering, but for the suspension I think they all have some welding to do??
I think Patrick has the RRS rack on his with stock suspension. Larry I think has the Heidts kit on his. Hopefully they will chime in for me.

**BadBird** · October 11th, 2011, 05:05 PM

Yep, I did go with the Heidts, I love the difference it made, I love the looks. There is quite a bit of cutting involved with the shock towers, but even that was a plus for me since I wanted to get rid of that interference in the engine bay and clean it up for looks, plus add long tube headers. It wasn't that difficult to weld in the system and I am an extreme novice.

The cost for the Heidts system that I got was around $2000 on ebay with free shipping, but there are other issues that coincide with getting the Heidts that I ran into. One, I have a 302/347. You must install a rear sump oil pan (with any V-8) to fit, and to do that created some interference with the firewall. Some of that interference was created by moving the engine rearward to clear at the oil pan/power steering rack and also when I put a newer C4 transmission in the car. Not sure if the interference would have been there if I used the older, stock C4, but that tranny wouldn't support the horsepower that I wanted.

Badbird AKA Larry

Not trying to talk you out of the Heidts, just want to give you the pro's and cons.

**doghows** · October 12th, 2011, 07:54 AM

That is what I am looking for. If I go that way I need to do it now. I don't want to get it after the paint work is done.
Thanks for the info. Steve

**pbrown** · October 13th, 2011, 09:31 PM

Steve,

I did the RRS system on mine. It's an easy bolt on kit that is reversible if I wanted to go back to stock. It is based on a common mid-90s GM center take-off rack so parts can be found locally. It was a bit pricy and I suspect that the price will be higher with the current AUS-US exchange rate.

I wasn't completely happy with the way they engineered the column conversion. They provide parts to modify the Ford column so you can use the original steering wheel.

Jay Baker also has the RRS kit on his Falcon.

Another option I considered was the TCP rack kit. It's close in price but needs to have the drivers side frame rail notched to clear.