I'm in the process of mounting an old school mercury external hydraulic steering system and I have a question about steering travel. I noticed my Bravo has around +/- 26 degrees of steering travel to the physical hard stops but the external system is going to reduce me to around +/- 21 degrees. Is this normal when converting to full hydraulic external? My only option is to hack the wing plate and get the cylinders closer towards the drive but I don't want to go down that road if possible.

Any feedback is appreciated!

sometimes you do loose some travel with ext hyd units

Have you checked the stroke of your cylinder against others on the market?