Remove power steering?

[scotthidley]

You can find p/s or non p/s racks with faster and slower ratio's, think about all the cars marketed towards old people that take several turns of the wheel, or even a truck versus say a sports car. Hek, the S10 and S10 Extreme both have p/s, yet the Extreme has a faster ratio. It's all in how that specific rack (actually gear in the s-10's case) is designed.

P/S does not change speed or ratio's at all. All it does is reduce the required effort a driver needs to apply to a steering wheel to make a turn. It can reduce feed back as well, as the hoses act as dampners, and other sorts of things can be done to reduce "noise" that travels through the fluid.

gen1, you should be able to confirm that removing it also made the engine bay cleaner, and in turn easier to work on.

 

[iluvmacs]

The weight savings are my favorite part. Good info scotthidley, I totally forgot about the fluid in the rack. Thanks for all the good posts.

 

[LTD-Scott]

Scotthidley, the caveat to doing this is the jumper line to loop the hoses together. It'd be a bad idea to run without it, but with the loop in the hose you can keep some fluid for lubrication.

And of course p/s doesn't change speed or ratios. It's just that car manufacturers can get away with faster ratios with power steering because anyone could still steer it at low speed. Like I said before, switching to an actual manual rack is a compromise because you gain road feel (and maybe some power) but lose the quickness.

I don't think I'd ever want to regularly drive a car with a power steering rack converted to manual, but if you can deal with it, more power to you!

 

[Gen1GT]

Scotthidley, you're right, I do have tonnes of room in my engine bay. Look how easy it is to adjust my cam gears with the PS and cruise control removed.....