Nice. Looks very svelte for a US car, hence my asking. I used to have a couple of Caterhams over here as toys, so do understand the unsprung weight comment, just not as crucial on the lardy things like F100s, IMHO of course!

 

The Kappa platform cars was made here by GM and was quite advanced with full independent suspension meant to compete with the Miata and the Honda S2000. It was sold here under the Pontiac (the high performance/competition version) Solstice name, and as the Saturn (the luxury version) Sky. The base model in both lines used the 2.6L NA engine, the high performance models used the direct EFI turbocharged 2.0L engine.
It was also sold in Europe as the Opel GT. It was an incredible car, but died after only 3 years when the government took over GM under the bailout and eliminated both Pontiac and Saturn and closed the dedicated assembly plant. (I can give you even more information about the versions that were on the drawing board if you are interested. We were sponsored by Rick Hendrick and had the GM platform engineers on speed dial. PM me if interested.)

 

Ya from what I have seen it looks so much easier to just go with the Toyota conversion for the steering than to go with the Rack & Pinion set up. It is less money and a lot less stress putting it in. Unless you know what you are doing or have a shop do it for you It never quite comes out the way you would hope it would. That and the Toyota parts can be easy to find to and for good prices if you know where to look, just get hooked up on a 4x4 forum and you can find them just make sure to the '79-'84 4x4 steering box.

 

Thor,
you'll find the Toy box works like it was made that way from the factory. took me a weekend to put mine in, including removing the ram assist system and fighting with getting the pitman arm off the Toy box. Hint: you'll never get the nut to unscrew, cut it and the pitman arm as deep as you can without damaging the output shaft threads with a 3" thin cutoff wheel on an angle grinder or air cutoff tool, then split them both with a cold chisel. If you don't get the return hose fitting with the box, note that it is a non standard 17mm (the pressure fitting is standard 16mm) don't mix them. The Mid Fifty hose set comes with an adapter fitting, or the stainless braid hose set from Gotta Show comes with their own stainless low profile banjo fittings if you have header clearance issues.

 

Just some more food for the fodder on the rack and pinion. If you can find a cross steer power steering unit you might be OK, the standard Mustang II would provide you with terrible geometry resulting in bump steer. With the cross steer unit you are only pushing one side with the other trailing from the passenger side being pushed by the cross steer unit. The result of this would be better geometry, keeping the tie rod ends paralel to the ground helping prevent bump steer. With the Mustang II the tie rod ends meet the spindles at an angle hence the bump steer. The other issue is the telescoping "drive" for steering. Apparently they have come up with a telescoping "drive" but do you really want to go there? The Toytoa is more cost effective and no bump steer. Mustang II terrific if you have a cross member and no straight axel, but that's another application.
-Doug

 

Thanks for the hint on that AX it will be a while until I do mine but that is very helpful.

 

Here's one for someone looking to do this. Very easy conversion!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/53-54-55-56-Ford-F-100-Pickup-Power-Steering-Conversion-Parts-/251275692592?pt=Vintage_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3a8132ca30&vxp=mtr

 

Not a bad deal on that ebay auction, depending on how high it goes worth about 200.00 as is. Would still need conversion pitman arm, nut and U joint.