Now that I have my fully depowered rack in I can talk about it.
The steering rack was a pain in the **** to get out and in. I'll say that much. I even had the transmission/rear mount out because I swapped in a low km GSR one.
So I got the rack pressed out and took the piston off. Greased the whole rack, put it in, greased the pinion. Reinstalled inner tie-rods, new tie-rod ends.
I have some play in the center now (about half an inch each way but the tires do move with that movement) which may be from the adjustment bolt (torqued to spec from helms manual) maybe it needs to be tighter because it's a rack pulled from a 250k car? I'm not sure. I also DO have a bad left wheel bearing which I will be pressing in shortly once I remove the knuckle. I'll see if that fixes my slop.
The steering itself is ridiculously lighter compared to looped lines. Feels like power steering almost when moving above 2nd gear, even at a standstill it's a lot easier to turn but still maintains a bit of rigidity that the looped rack possessed. I definitely like it a lot better and I can finally palm my turns and whatnot. If you want a project I do recommend it if you have nothing better to do but it's a lot of work and you do need a press to push the rack out of the steering box as stated in the helms manual.