Technical Rack used on stock front

I seen a picture here of a rebuilt front end like on my 49 fleetline car and a rack and pinion mounted behind a cross bar that was added. There was no motor in the car when pic was taken. I want to know can I rebuild my stock front end and add a rack with a 350 in same? If so what rack is needed and does anyone have pics.

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Adding R&P steering can be a real challenge. Placement is critical and the rack has to align with the steering arms correctly so there is no bump steer and the turning radius can come up very long. Most of the conversions done were using chevy Cavalier racks. GOOGLE it and see what shows up.

 

One of my customers put a rack on a 50 Ford coupe with stock suspension, he is real happy with it. Not trad though.

 

If you get the rack alignment correct, moving the steering arms in the right plane, you still need to be concerned about "throw", or how much the rack moves back and forth. Using stock steering arms, often it's not enough to give full lock-to-lock steering, meaning the turning radius increases, unless you modify the steering arms to be shorter.

 

I still like the unisteer setup for '50s cars, it is dead on one side and is really easy to set up.





I can say this a friend paid someone to setup a rack and pinion on his Studebaker, a car that I helped build and that he put probably 100K plus on. It was specially designed for the car all the way to the A arms spindles and brakes. He hated it after and ended up selling it.

 

I just started a thread about this not too long ago but I can't find it on my iPad. Good pics of the set up. There is a good set of prints for the brackets out there in the innernets. Butch' rod shop used to have the kit. Google it for more. #1 complaint is turning radius.