power steering yes or no...?

[Ozone]

Most modern cars the knuckle is like in the picture.
The knuckle connects to the out ball joint and holds the hub and wheel bearings. At the top of the knuckle it is bolted to the strut and at the bottom it is bolted to the lower suspension link.

On some older cars such as AE86s, E30 BMWs and others it is different.
The hub and bear sits on a spindle which is welded to the bottom of the strut casing.
The knuckle that the out tie rod fits to is a separte part that bolts to the lower suspension link and the lower strut casing - sandwiched inbetween.
Therefore it is possible to have different steering arms on different varients.
In the 86s case the PS models have shorter steering arms than the non-PS models.

[jondee86]

Back in the late 70's and early 80's most cars in this country were
RWD and manual steering. Power steering was a luxury only found
on a few of the most expensive cars. Like automatic gearboxes, P/S
was considered to be more suitable for women...

Manual steering worked fine, and still does with OEM spec wheels
and tires. The problem of heavy steering typically only arises
after "improving" the handling by fitting wider wheels and tires. The
wheels usually have a more negative/less positive offset, which
alters the steering geometry. Someone who is more into the technical
stuff can probably explain it better

If you can retain the OEM offset when choosing wider rims, the effect
of the increased footprint of larger/wider tires is much reduced. But
since everyone likes to get those guards filled, with the biggest, widest
wheels possible, keep the power steering

Cheers... jondee86

[sergiocharged]

keiichi tsuchiya AE86 TRD hot version specially modyfied for him
use non power steering so i though power steering was the best option but ill keep my non steer rack and see if the power steering knuckles are better like i heard

[Jezza_hr]

I'm probably just reviving this thread for no good reason, but when it comes to power steering i'm in a bit of a rough spot.

My AE86 came with power steering and air con and i've just about finished doing a 20V conversion. The problem i'm facing is that i've removed the air con and would like to keep the power steering but i'm having trouble finding a vacuum line to take from the block itself as most of them were blocked off by the previous owner of the engine. Is there any way I could get around this?

Failing that i've toyed with the idea of getting an adjustable power steering pump from a citroen so I can set the sensitivity levels to my preference and since they are battery powered, they wont take any power away from the engine by running a belt.

Any suggestions?

[jondee86]

Two possibilities come to mind. The first is to replace the part of the
inlet manifold that sits against the head, with another unmolested one.
Since most ITB conversions onto 16 valve engines use only the throttle
bodies, there should be plenty of manifolds lying around

The second would be to tap a 5 mm hose fitting into any part of the
ISCV pipework (the stock fitting taps into the manifold section).

Alternatively, providing you are running the standard ISCV system.
you might like to wait and see if the ISCV system can handle idleup
for the P/S. If it can cope with the A/C load, it should (in theory) be
able to handle the P/S as well.

Oh, and all electrical accessories put a load on the engine via the
alternator. There is no free lunch :E

Cheers... jondee86

[Jezza_hr]

I'll see how I get on without power steering and may get some of the tie rods miguel was talking about.

[topi]

I have a non PAS levin, with wide wheels and lots of camber. I'm a small guy with little arms... and don't have a problem haha. People need to consume more energy drinks before they drive.

[D.O]

Miguel - Newera Wrote:I run power steering on my GT Apex Levin, my colleague with a Trueno GTV (20V) doesn't. He complains it gets very heavy for drifting and his shoulder can hurt a bit after a day steering one handed on the track (He uses the handbrake a fair bit ). Power steering's definitely a benefit... I've not had any problems drifting with power steering fitted.

If you use shortened knuckles you may (as I did) find the car becomes unstable at high (Motorway) speeds, since the steering becomes too sensitive...especially where roads have groves worn in them by trucks..

I fitted tie rods that allow more steering lock, in addition to shortened knuckles. The result was that the lock would be so much the tyres touch the inner arches, etc. On full lock moving off from standstill the car almost stalls as it needs to turn such a tight radius. So shortened knuckles with uprated tie rod ends connecting to the rack are overkill.

So I switched back to the standard PAS knuckles and kept the high lock tie rod ends. These are an inexpensive modification (About £100) that works well. I can still get good lock and I have the stability at speed I prefer. I don't have problems running out of lock when drifting.

I definitely wouldn't recommend disconnecting the power steering though. That's pointless, unless you're worried about losing a negligible amount of power to run the pump.

yesterday i was change to non powerstereeng rack...and my steering column shorter (cross-piece)does not reach to the rack (( sorry for bad english...can u help?

[speedyrolla]

Mine has no P/W steering and it sucks only when you are going to park in tight spaces and I have a welded diff as well and it can be sometimes a pain in the @ss man...

[Ozone]

Akina, you need to use a non-PS column with a non-PS rack.
Otherwise you will have to make up some sort of extension for the PS column to fit to the non-PS rack.