We begin with V8R’s power steering kit. Included are fittings/lines to replace the hard lines that run along the rack itself with steel braided lines as well as fittings and a high pressure braided line for pump to rack. The kit leaves it to the user to sort out the low pressures lines (usually rubber) and reservoir (I’ve heard the factory Miata unit can be used), so that blue 180° hose barb fitting is supplied for the exit from the rack.
I used everything above except the hose barb fitting because this car will use braided lines throughout.
Removed the old lines from the rack and spent a good deal of time cleaning the rack up. The power rack I got from a donor car seemed to have been competing for the coveted title of thickest layer of grime, but it’s shiny now.
Here’s the rack with the V8R lines added. Also pictured is the early version of the rack to cooler line I made which I later added the in-line dry break to:
Closeup shot. This bunch sit close to the pan once installed so best to leave them loose and adjust the angles once both the engine and rack are in place:
Pic of the power steering pump. The black threaded outlet goes to the rack which V8R supplies a fitting for (that’s what I’m holding in the photo). The port above that is the inlet from the reservoir. That port has a barbed end for a rubber hose in the stock GM form, but as seen in this pic I removed that and drilled/tapped the hole to adapt it to an AN fitting:
A note on the power steering pump pulley –
To remove the pump from the engine you must remove the pulley from the pump first. This took us a combination of parts from a rather comprehensive pulley puller kit, something most home garages may not be equipped with. Reinstallation of the pulley is equally difficult. I’d recommend leaving the pump on the engine unless you absolutely have to remove it. However, there is a complication if you’re going to add an engine oil cooler; to remove the factory oil filter housing you have to remove the steering pump first because the filter housing’s bolts are too long and can’t be backed all the way out with the pump in place. For shame, GM! Later, when I installed the Keisler oil reroute plate in place of the stock filter housing I swapped two of the factory bolts out for shorter ones and now the plate can be installed/removed with the steering pump in place. At any rate, if you need to remove the filter housing you’ll have to take the pump off at least once.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…
The next piece to the puzzle was the steering fluid reservoir. The reservoir needs to sit higher than the pump as it is a gravity feed. The pump’s position on the motor is high enough that there was a good bit of head scratching and lots of looking around at various reservoir options/shapes/etc. to figure out what to do. The solution I came up with uses a Moroso reservoir mounted directly to the top of the pump NASCAR style. This eliminated the need for a hose and guarantees good flow from the reservoir to pump. This reservoir is actually intended for power steering so it has the appropriate internal baffles.
I don’t have a pic of the reservoir by itself but you’ll see it in following pics. The reservoir had an AN bung in the bottom for the drain so with a couple fittings the pump was set up for the direct-mount:
To hold the reservoir in place requires a bracket. Always up for challenging myself, I decided to make it from aluminum. Here is an in-progress pic about 80% of the way done, just before tack welding the two halves I made together:
It turned out to be a funky looking little thing but it’s nice and light, piggy backs on existing factory bolts, and does just what’s needed:
Here it’s mounted up with the reservoir. Note the factory oil filter housing is still in place behind there, but that is removed later for the oil cooler:
The final piece in the power steering system is the cooler. Most cars doing any sort of performance driving will need one, you don’t want this system overheating and spraying flammable fluid around the engine bay. If you’re doing a more standard street setup with rubber lines there are lots of affordable cooler options with barbed ends built in. For this car I chose Earl’s 40700 cooler, which is a 13”x2”x2” unit, with -6AN ends. I erred on the small side to keep weight down but Earl’s stuff has efficient cores so I think it will do the trick. I’ll be monitoring fluid temp so I’ll know if it is sized well or needs to be upgraded:
Back when I was making the removable nose I made the brackets to hold the cooler in place. With the cooler, pump and reservoir all settled in all that’s left is to connect the dots with the lines. Embracing the idea of having the whole front nose section quickly removable, I picked up a pair of Radium -6AN dry break fittings for the power steering lines:
Long line below is cooler to reservoir, with the dry break junction fixed to the reservoir side. The short one is half of the rack to cooler line:
Here’s the other half of that lower line, I had already fixed it to the rack and didn’t want to remove it for the last pic. This section has a fire sleeve since it’s in the vicinity of the exhaust:
Final setup installed:
That concludes the power steering setup. Tomorrow I’ll write up the oil cooler system.