Today, I spent the morning and early afternoon getting the power steering configured on the 2002 Saturn project. We went with an electric MR-2 steering pump and added a mount for it as we were building the "cross-engine bay" support. It has been sitting there patiently waiting for our attention for a while. So, now, it is just a matter of getting the hoses installed at this point. I still need to go get a length of 3/4 tubing to finish it up, but it is pretty much all installed now. The hard part is done anyway. I look forward to the Mazda 3... It already has electric power steering. [grin]

We have been working around the fact that we left the AC system charged for pretty much the entire build. We thought we were going to reuse the original components until recently so we thought it would be easier just to keep it installed as it was. However, now that we have decided to go for the electric motor driven compressor, Chris arranged for a guy to come out last night and have the AC system drained. That was a lot easier than I had expected. It takes a surprisingly small piece of hardware to pull the gas out of the system so that it can be taken apart. Which is what I did this morning as well. The AC evaporator and hoses are finally out of the way.

Anyway, we got word that the unit is ready to ship from the factory so we should have it soon. Pretty exciting.