I think you are confusing the front suspension compressing with the entire car compressing... put 400 pounds in each of the front seats and that comes close to an extra G of compression that the car would see in an aggressive posture in the bottom of a hill at speed with two adult in the car...
So, you are saying that when the front suspension compresses hard the load is sent into the fire wall via the rear apron?
I am not saying they dont function, but I am saying that if you were at a road course with a hard gravity cavity, or on a country road with a serious elevation change that...
The original car sent the load from the top of the tower and aprons into the cowl, then into the roof/unibody structure.
If you were to actually make an export brace, what would you mount it to? The aprons are thin sheet metal that will not support anything on there own.
If you think the...
The loads the suspension sees in a serious depression in the road, like at the bottom of a hill that starts going back up again, would be immense and these modified cars often have zero structure to transfer the loads properly, I cant imagine how much stress is sent to the frame at the tow board...
I put a Z spec T5 in my 65, I will never regret that! But, in your last post you mention a new 408 with a T5? I dont know if the T5 likes much more than 350HP with an aggressive driver with sticky tires, but then again, a AOD may not like it either.
The unit I have uses the new "Center takeoff design" that connects the tie rods to the center of the rack.
Here is a pic I found on line that looks like my 65 rack.
Note where the splined input shaft is located on both, this was the issue with the steering shaft and headers on the original...
Going from memory here, I think the newer version uses a totally different rack and bracket and it eliminates the issues they had with headers. I have the manual "New version" on my 65 and I like it. I wish it had one less turn lock-to-lock, but in a parking lot my wife can drive it (And shes...
Dennis, the easy way to do that is to knock the mounting bolts out of the shaft and rotate it a few turns in the direction you want to go. Just dont twist the studs/bolts to get them out because they have splines to prevent rotation when you tighten the nuts down during installation.