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how to make your power steering better?

Specter

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Joined
Apr 20, 2008
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367
Location
Karachi, Pakistan
If you would want to make your power steering a bit lighter, so that its much more easier to turn the car, what would you do? How can you keep your power steering performing at its best in a daily driver? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

slugsgomoo

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Oct 16, 2003
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Location
Tacoma, WA
i would rather make it heavier. One of my big complaints is that it gets too light & floaty feeling, especially at higher speeds. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif
 

Dialcaliper

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Jun 22, 2007
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Mountain View, CA
The power steering cuts out at high RPM. The idea was that you'd have plenty of power assist in parking lots, but more direct feel when you keep the RPM high. There are some modifications people have done, especially for autocross, where the speeds are low, and steering effort is high without the assist. You basically shim the cutout valve inside the PS pump so that some power assist is retained all of the time.

Steering that gets light and floaty at high speeds even with the revs up is partly a function of tires. Unless you modify the rack, add a steering quickener or put a softer spring in the PS pump relief valve, the only other thing you can do is either switch to narrower tires or a less sticky compound (or run shaved tires with less tread depth). The softer the tire compound, the more vague the steering will feel - often a major complaint of people running R-compounds for the first time.

One last thing you can do to make the steering lighter and more responsive is to dial in a little toe-out. It will make it easier to turn the car, but it will make the car less stable at higher speeds (unless you add caster)
 
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Specter

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Apr 20, 2008
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367
Location
Karachi, Pakistan
Its progressive, the reason for asking is that, some times it feels very very light at all the speeds, but most of the times its pretty heavy and hard to turn, i just wanted to know what makes it light sometimes. There is no relation with the temperature or the air pressure in the tires or anything else, it just becomes light sometimes for no apparent reason.
 

belize1334

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Nov 18, 2003
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3,317
Location
Bozeman, MT
I just got done reading the VFAQ on this. It seems that there is a pressure release valve inside the pump. As the pump spins faster it diverts more fluid around the rack causing the assist to decrease. By design, this should be effected by RPM only.

It seems to me that RMP sensitive steering is a terrible idea. Has anyone investigated a way to convert this to speed sensitive steering? Maybe the thing to do would be to remove the fluid diversion valve entirely and then install an external unit that could be controlled by a servo motor with a digital speed input. The governing factor could be something like 1/(1+speed*control). Then for speed=0 you'd get 100% of available assist and as the speed increased the assist would drop off. You could tune the "control" to get the desired rate of decrease.

Edit: Now that I think about it, didn't somebody install an electric power steering pump at some point? that would be, by far, the easiest solution cause you could just control voltage to the pump to get the desired effect. l
 
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The electric PS pump in question was oem on the 2g mr2. A board member picked one up but I haven't heard if it's installed yet. IIRC the pump needs to be controlled via pulse width modulations, not voltage.
 

DailyDSM

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Joined
Sep 6, 2005
Messages
433
Location
Carlsbad, CA
The pump is installed. I posted this picture a few months ago before the engine was back in the car:

IMG_1855.jpg


The car now runs but I haven't finished all the interior electrical so I haven't had a chance to drive it yet. The only difference from what is pictured is I ran a heavier duty feed hose from the stock reservior location.
 
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Quote:
some times it feels very very light at all the speeds, but most of the times its pretty heavy and hard to turn, i just wanted to know what makes it light sometimes. There is no relation with the temperature or the air pressure in the tires or anything else, it just becomes light sometimes for no apparent reason.




Sounds like your PS pump is not working right or maybe you have a worn out rack.
Mike R.
 

Specter

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Joined
Apr 20, 2008
Messages
367
Location
Karachi, Pakistan
I replaced the power steering pump and its working perfectly fine now. Thanks everyone! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Please do tell us about that electronic pump when your able to take a good long test drive.
 
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