As technology marches on, many new cars are going to Electronic Power Steering. The company I Did It will make custom sized racks and although I have done NO info gathering yet, it seems as though an electronic pinto rack, the kind that's used on power K member R&P conversions, should be able to yield a good working system. As a side effect, it will get rid of the PS pump too! Has anyone tried this yet? Given enough time, I think I'm going to give it a go. I have an insanely long time from planning a mod to the actual implementation of it so if you are waiting to see me do it, it will be quite some time. AKA--Don't hold your breath!

 

For the life of me, I don't understand why everyone wants to do an R&P swap in these cars... the steering gear is more durable and gives you better road feel, and because of packaging (this chassis was never designed for a R&P), even though the only reason they got popular in less critical applications (they started in smaller cars but steering boxes are still used in trucks, the corvette had a steering box long after a lot of cars went to R&P...) is that if you redesign the engine bay/suspension you could save some packaging space, it wasn't better, it was just cheaper, smaller and allowed for lower hood lines.

Without changing the geometry between the suspension, steering, and the engine AND a different spindle design putting a R&P in these cars will always be a compromise- you end up losing turning radius, packaging sucks, durability isn't as good, you need to figure out multiple joints in your steering shaft...

Now replacing the PS pump with an electric pump could be a useful swap depending on what else you have going on. In my case, I did a type II pump swap 5 or more years ago because I was having both packaging issues and having problems finding a stock style pump that worked (I got a number of rebuilds in a row that didn't), and if I was doing it now I'd likely seriously consider a Volvo or similar electric power steering pump.

OTOH, the full electric rack assemblies... well I don't trust them. I have one in my Taurus SHO, and they are failure-prone (there have been multiple recalls for them on Ecoboost cars). When mine failed it first did so intermittently and losing electric power steering is not like losing old school PS- I've lost power steering on my TA repeatedly when I was having pump problems. It gets difficult to steer at low speeds, but once you get going it's fine. The first time I lost steering on my SHO it was turning into a parking lot and suddenly I couldn't turn and smacked into a curb. When I took it to the dealer I "muscled" it there and left it in the service lane (I'm a 6'4" 280# powerlifter). It sat for 2 days in the service lane till they got a tow truck to move it from the service lane to the service bay. Secondly, in that case the problem is being caused by a bad sensor, but it's a $3000-4000 repair if you can't get it fixed under the warranty or service bulletin.

For that kind of money you can completely replace your whole suspension with new parts and do some engine buildup on your 3rd gen.

 

You make many points I hadn't considered, I'm kind of talked out of it and I'll try to get more info on all this before I proceed.