I hear everybody talking about a manual rack and pinion setup. But why wouldn't you be able to use a power rack setup out of a 4th gen? I want to use a tubular k member and a power rack setup, would like one out of the 4th gen. Thanks.

 

Most of the tubular k members for our cars are only optioned for the pinto manual rack. But you can adapt a power rack. I just made some brackets to bolt a power mustang rack to where the pinto rack is supposed to go.

 

A 4th gen rack is not very easy to use. - The mustang II/early-mid 80's t-bird power rack is a more "user friendly" power rack.

That said, unless you modify your spindles(very good welding required) or use the racecraft r&p oriented spindles you will severly decrease your turning radius.

 

well what would a pinto rack feel like? They are manual right? Would you delete the steering box? I'm a little confused on what a "manual" rack is

 

a manual rack is a non assisted rack. When swapping to R&P of course you remove the steering box. Apart from front or rear steer, there are 2 other main criteria to R&P systems. Center or end take off. With a center take off rack the tie rods mount to a bracket and the whole center of the rack slides left and right. An end take off rack has a fixed pivot to pivot width and the tie rods mount to the rack shaft directly. The pivot to pivot length determines what front suspension geometry you can use the rack width. Get it wrong and you have some nasty bump steer. With a center take off you can modify the center mounting bracket easily to suit your geometry.