Gallery: CVF Power Steering Pump Adapter to a Flaming River Hi-Rev Pump


Last year we installed CVF’s all inclusive Wraptor serpentine setup on Orange Crush. This was one of the best upgrades we have done on the car as it replaced all of our accessories with better components and we no longer have belt slippage issues while racing. During the installation we had to remove our Flaming River Hi-Rev power steering pump due to a difference in the mounting holes. When we called CVF about the issue they were already working on a solution and now we have the new adapter for our Flaming River pump.

To most people a power steering pump is a power steering pump. It helps assist the steering and that’s that. Well, when you dive into autocross and road course racing, you find out they are not all the same. Most power steering pumps are designed for everyday use around town, not for sustained higher RPMs around a track. Over revving the pump can cause premature bearing wear, burn up seals and blow up the pump. Although we haven’t had any issues with the pump, we didn’t want to take any chances and decided to reinstall the Flaming River unit.

Top: With the pulley removed we are able to access the two bolts that mount the CVF pump. Bottom Left: You can see our Flaming River pump with the v-belt pulley, the CVF pump and the new adapter. Bottom Right: Here you can see how the CVF pump has three mounting holes where the Flaming River pump only has two.

CVF sent us their pump with the Wraptor kit. Their pump is a plated aluminum Type II power steering pump. This is different from the factory Saginaw or Federal style pump. The Type II pump is used across many vehicle platforms. Its light weight and has the option of a remote or side mounted reservoir. Due to the Wraptor’s compact design, CVF opts to use a remote reservoir in their kits. The pump works great and haven’t had any issues thus far, but the Flaming River pump is designed for higher sustained RPMs during racing.

Looking at both the CVF and Flaming River pump they don’t physically look much different. On the inside is where you will find the small differences that allow the Flaming River pump to withstand the demands of racing. The two pumps are physically about the same but the Flaming River pump is missing one of the side mounting holes that CVF utilizes.

Top Left: The pump adapter bracket is precisely machined to keep the pump parallel to the main Wraptor bracket and align with the the mounting holes perfectly. Top Right: We had to remove the motor to fix a few things and decided it would be a good idea to swap pumps now. Bottom Left: Using our rented power steering pulley tool we had to remove the v-belt pulley from our Flaming River pump. Bottom Right: With the v-belt pulley removed it was time to press on the power steering pulley adapter onto the Flaming River pump.

With the billet CVF pump adapter is allows us to reach the bottom mounting hole on the Flaming River pump that we couldn’t reach before. The adapter is a very simple piece and you might think that anyone could make that. Well, just like the rest of their Wraptor kit, for the belt to align correctly everything has to be within a strict tolerance and be squared. Although it looks like a simple adapter, there are a lot of hours spent designing and engineering one little piece. If the adapter would tilt the pump or have incorrect spacing it could ruin our belt or worse yet it wouldn’t stay on.

The Flaming River pump utilizes a press on pulley just like the CVF pump. We stopped by our local auto parts store to rent a power steering pulley installation tool. Following the same instructions that used during the Orange Crush Wraptor kit installation, we installed the new pulley adapter onto the Flaming River pump. With the pulley adapter pressed on we reinstalled the CVF pulley and was ready to mount the Flaming River pump.

Top Left: We finished up tightening the lock nuts down on the two long bolts that run through the adapter bracket and pump. Top Right: The pump is mounted and all the nuts tightened down on the back side. Bottom: We recommend leaving the fitting caps in the pumps until you are ready to install the hoses so the inside of the pumps are not contaminated with dirt or anything else.

With the Flaming River pump ready to install, we mounted the billet adapter bracket to one of the existing holes. The two long bolts that are included with the adapter are for mounting the pump. One of those long bolts also run through an existing hole in the main bracket. With the adapter and pump mounted we were able to install the pulley. Before placing the serpentine belt back on we double checked that our pulley was inline with the rest of the pulleys.

When pressing the pulley adapter onto our Flaming River pump its possible to press it on too far or not enough. After verifying that our pulley was aligned with the rest, we were ready to put the serpentine belt back on. Once the motor is back in Orange Crush and all the lines are hooked back up we will need to re-bleed our power steering system.

Above: With the last pulley bolt tightened down its only a matter of time until we reinstall the motor and can hook the power steering lines back up and bleed the system.

We have to hand to it CVF for tackling this small problem with precision and quickly. Many other companies wouldn’t care and would leave the solution up to the customer. CVF took time to design an adapter bracket to bolt on another companies pump on to their Wraptor setup. They didn’t do this to make millions of dollars but to help out the few individuals that need or want to run a slightly different pump.

Knowing that it would be a small percentage of customers that would need such an adapter, they could have easily ignored the issue but the didn’t. We are greatly appreciative of their dedication to their customers. We can’t wait to get back out there on the track with Orange Crush and the Wraptor setup again this year.

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Gavin Wollenburg

Gavin grew up around Mopars in his lakeside home in Ohio, his father showing him nearly everything he needed to know about haulin' some serious rear in his '72 Dart Swinger. Since then, he's made his little A-Body a serious autocross contender and regularly shows the modern boys how an old Dart does it!

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