mine wasnt rubbing there. only the thin fins were hitting the primary

 

Update,
I emailed the guys at Pacesetter and they told me to bring the u-joint away from the firewall a little. So loosen up the bolt on the shaft comming out of the firewall, and slide it out. NO HELP. I ended up pulling the whole shaft out and even breaking the seal to get it so I could slide the shaft out some more and that only gave me 3/16 of an inch of clearance. WITH GRINDING a little off where it was rubbing. If your not grasping what Im saying, The steering shaft is now a telescoping steering shaft to allow me to adjust everything VERY easily. But still, its very close.

They also said I could adjust the motor mounts to rock the engine away from the shaft. WTF??? Theres only so much I can do here.

So How many votes do I have for replacing the whole steering setup with an LS1 package? I have the original LT1 in there by the way. If I do that it better work.

 

So you get to gain room with the ls1 steering rack setup? Save any weight? Whats the general cost to acquire the parts needed? Oh yeah I'm curious now.

 

You will save room..that is a definate. You will save a little weight, considering the Shaft is Aluminum, not Steel. I paid $80 for all of my stuff necessary to go over to it.

 

Hey Merv,
I bought an LS1 rack off of Ebay for a hundred dollars. Its off of an Fbody with 19000 miles. 1999 Bird I think. Anyhow, You have any tips or tricks to do the swap? Can I use the old steering shaft? Im going to tackle this this weekend no matter what so any help from anyone would help here.

I cant believe the headder swap is comming to this.

 

Just un-bolt and swap out. I don't have any info on the Lines, hopefully the Fittings are the same.
You need the LS1 Steering Shaft to get the full effect..the LT1 one will work, but the LS1 will be better..

 

I have mids and had clearence problems. I just took a hammer with a round end and tapped in the pipe and it worked fine, but they aren't coated.

 

UPDATE!!! I just installed the 99 rack I bought off of Ebay. Went pretty good. Theres about AN INCH between the steering shaft and header. NICE. My next step is to figure out how to make one of the lines a little longer. No big deal though. Alot better than beating the crap out of my brand new header.

Thanks for the help guys. Once again LS1 Tech comes to the rescue.