We found the Raymarine wheel autopilot that came with our boat to be underpowered and not so reliable. So I bought a Furuno NavPilot 711c controller and a Raymarine Type2S ram. Since the Type 2 actuator seems a little overpowered for our boats I put the quadrant pin at a 9" radius. That reduces peak torque, but requires less stroke of the ram. Total stroke of the actuator is 12", but I'm only using about 10.5". That gives some more wiggle room on where the base is mounted.
I bolted a 5/8" aluminum plate to the bottom of the quadrant to hold the ram's pin. Using the two 3/8" tapped holes at the front of the quadrant made that pretty easy. After reading all the suggestions on this forum (like here
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1094), my first plan was to mount the ram to the starboard side of the hull, just above the cockpit drain. I glassed in a small plywood shelf and bolted it down. I liked this location because it's out of the way and I could still climb over the water heater to get to the stern and port side.
Everything was great until we looked below while it was running and saw the hull flexing 1/2" or so every time the actuator moved. The hull just isn't stiff enough at that location, especially since the ram force has a big component perpendicular to the surface.
Version 2 is like what conch recommended: the ram is mounted below the sump of the cockpit floor (under your feet when standing at the helm), between the two steering cables. I glassed in some 3/4" plywood to provide a flat mounting surface and get the ram to the right height and put a 1/4" stainless 316 backing plate in the cockpit sump. The teak grate still fits without modification. This configuration works well: since the autopilot's force is parallel to the cockpit floor, there's no bending.
Squeezing between the water heater and the autopilot is tight and uncomfortable but not impossible.