71 Duster 360 turbo build

[turbovan]

Well the Duster has been mostly sitting while I took care of other priorities, and hid from the heat. My truck was on the third transmission rebuild in less than 20k miles. ‘96 12v. Rebuilds by “the best manual transmission shop in AZ.” 5th gear in the NV4500 started getting noisy a year ago so I gave up on it and bought a g56. The swap was fairly straight forward with some minor fabrication. Best modification I’ve ever made to this truck. No more falling out of boost while towing hills, and shift quality is 10x better. After that it was time to bring my old ‘71 duster back down to the valley. My son will be 16 in a year so he’s going to get it back on the road.

 

[turbovan]

Got to work on the power steering. It was a little intimidating to look at, but once I started cutting everything seemed to make more sense. I wanted the motor hidden as much as possible so it’s rotated a bit different than other installs I’ve seen. I still have some final bracing to fab up, but it’s coming together.

 

[subcom]

This is the EPAS power steering? I’ve considered doing this also. Eager to see how it works out for you.

 

[TT5.9mag]

What electric power steering unit is that?

 

[turbovan]

Yes, Toyota EPAS from a 2009 Prius. Although other members have stated that they like the feel of 16:1 manual steering with 275 tires up front…I do not.
Return to center is my main concern which will hopefully be a non issue. I’ll eventually be using an Arduino between the EPAS ecu and the megasquirt for CAN communication of speed and rpm.