The Electron Ion Collider (EIC) Hadron Storage Ring (HSR) will reuse most of the existing hardware from the RHIC rings. However, extensive modifications will have to be performed in preparation for the new accelerator parameters and performance required by EIC. The beam vacuum chamber will have to be upgraded and new beam position monitors (BPM) implemented to account for the higher beam intensity and shorter EIC hadron bunches. The RF system will also need to be upgraded and include new cavities to drive the new bunch parameters. In some straight sections, existing superconducting magnets will have to be reshuffled and their cold powering scheme modified to accommodate the new accelerator lattice. The hadron injection scheme will also be modified to accommodate three time more bunches and the machine protection system will need to include new collimators. This paper aims to give an overview of the engineering modifications required to turn RHIC into the EIC HSR.

A failure of the RHIC powering system occurred at the end of run 23 and led to the discovery of ruptured con-ductors on the 12x150A current leads used to feed cur-rent to the superconducting (SC) magnet circuits. These ruptured conductors are thought to have led to an electri-cal breakdown, first within the solder joint, and then across adjacent conductors of the same current lead assembly. A fatigue experiment has been set up to study the behavior of Sn96Ag4 solder joints under cycling load at cryogenic temperature. Mitigation measures to mini-mize further fatigue cycling have been implemented for the next RHIC run and will be discussed. This paper aims to describe our understanding of the solder joint cracking issue encountered and present the mitigation measures for future RHIC operation.