Well, I have decided to undertake the rack and pinion swap.  I am using a power rack from a 96-99 Ford Taurus.  The only reason I am using this rack rather than a late 80's rack is because this one was practically given to me and it is brand spankin new.  That is my only reason for using this rack, otherwise I would have purchased a used older rack for more money.

    What I have to do for this swap (that I know of so far) is to make a new lower crossmember, make or have made a new pressure line for the power steering, find a u-joint coupler setup to attach to the steering shaft, find inner and outer tie rod ends that will work, and make it all fit together.  The hardest part is making all of this junk fit together.  It sounds fairly simple but there are bumps along the way that can really throw you for a loop some times.
 
 
 

This is what the rack looks like.  Nothing really special here, just a Taurus rack and pinion.  You can find them at any local junkyard if you want a used one, they cost about $30 to $40 used.  Choose wisely.	Here is the crossmember that I made for attaching the rack to the car.  I used the old one to figure out how long it had to be from mounting hole to mounting hole.  It's made out of 1.5 inch square tubing, .125 inch thick (1/8) and the end mounting tabs are 1.5 inch wide by .25 inch thick (1/4).  It is damn sturdy, a lot stronger than the one on the car now so it should hold up just fine.

Here are the measurements that I used to make my crossmember.  The crossmember won't fit in the car with the existing stock steering because it comes really close to one of the zerk (?) fittings and it could shear it off.  This crossmember is wider where it angles upward to bolt to the frame than the original crossmember causing the interference with the stock steering setup.  No interference will be present with the rack installed.  All these measurements are in inches and are not necessarily exact, they can differ for each application, so take that into consideration.  To attach the rack to the crossmember will require having pieces of .125 inch thick by 2 inches wide and ? length coming off the lower flat part of the crossmember.  There will be holes in these mounting tabs for the big bolts to go through that mount the rack to the car, as seen in the picture of the rack.

This is the outer tie rod end I had to use.  It is from a Fiero, 1987 I believe.  The tie rod end situation got a bit tricky.  The inner tie rods are from a Granada.  The Taurus inner tie rods wouldn't work because they were way too long, I even had to shorten the Granada ends by 1 inch on either side for the proper length.  The outer tie rods have the correct taper for a stock V8 spindle, yes, I still have four wheel drums.  I did have to rethread the outer tie rod ends to fit onto the Granada inners, 9/16's by 18 thread count.

    Well I finished the swap.  Overall, it works but it has its drawbacks.  First off the amount of steering travel that is no longer there is a lot more than I thought.  The stock steering setup has a total movement of about 7.6 inches, the rack only has a smidgen over 5 inches.  That is about 1/3 less movement than the original setup, not too good.  I might be able to compensate a little bit for the loss by moving the point at which the tie rod attaches to the spindle closer to its center, but I don't think I could move it far enough to really make up for the loss.  The biggest problem is when I am in tight parking situations, that is when the lack of turning radius is noticable.  But in all other driving situations, it is a pleasure to drive!

    I fixed the binding problem every 180 degrees.  Turned out that I needed the slip shaft for the coupling between the rack and steering column.  I used the taurus linkage, but modified a bit to bolt it to the column.  Pretty straight forward and simple.  I will post pictures after I take them.

    But, some good notes about the swap.  It tracks VERY straight, hold the wheel still and the car goes straight and doesn't wander one bit.  It feels great on the freeway, very stable and it no longer requires steering back and forth to stay in a straight line.  Cornering is great, plain and simple!  It feels like the stock steering, ratio wise, but it lacks one wheel revolution which takes away from the total wheel angle change, but has good feel in all situations, kind of like a new car.

    I have been looking for that perfect rack and have yet to find it.  It seems like if I want it to turn harder (more deflection at the wheels) I will need to relocate the point at which the tie rod attaches to the spindle closer to the pivot point on the spindle.  So I might construct a hunk of aluminum for this purpose, or just leave it the way it is, depending on how lazy I am feeling.