after driving my friends tricked out S2000 for a weekend i have to say the steering in those things is sick! you can litterally do any turn with just the touch and turn of one finger. now the whole rack has zero fluid and isn't a munual but driven by a electric motor inside the rack with a harness running to it. so what i want to know is if anyone has thought about it or ever tried it or seen one in anyone other car other thatn a S2000. thanks.

 

I believe the RX8 also uses an eletric one...

 

I imagine it's speed sensitive so you have to find a way to get a speed signal to it.

Power steering is nice when you're parking the car but I've been running a manual rack in my TII for a while now. Takes some grunt when you're zooming around the track with it, but I think the feedback you get from the tires is worth it. You can really feel what they're doing.

 

Get the Bose Electronic shocks.. then i will be impressed

 

Drive by wire, huh. Not my cup of tea, I just can't let go of the feel of a manual rack. Then again, I've never owned an FC with a PS rack.

I'd like effortless steering in my Jeep though. Mmmm hydraulic steering.

 

For racing manual rack all the way...

 

The Toyota MR2 had electric power steering at least for a few years. My roommate said some DSM guys are retrofitting them into their cars, as he was considering doing it. My two cents is that if you want power steering, keep the oem system. You aren't saving gobs of weight going electric, and if you want to do that, you should go manual. There is a great thread in the archive of how to depower a power rack if you prefer a quicker ratio as well.

 

MR2 Rack writeup

The search button is your friend.

 

How is daily driving with a de-powered rack? I am thinking about doing that when I pull out my engine. There are barely any places to parallel park here, so, so far its a plus.

 

i have a manual in my 86 RX7 but i've never gotten to drive with it. the car was given to me and didn't run so i'm in the middle of restoring it. i guess i'll find out what thats like when i'm done. thanks everyone.

 

It's not drive-by-wire. It's all mechanicaly connected.

MR2 has electro-hydraulic power steering. Not fully electric... The MR2 has a electric steering pump for the power steering fluid, instead of our engine-driven pump. the S2000 has a electric motor on the steering rack that assists the steering input depending on vehicle speed. The computer is to control all this is protected, so you can't tune the amount of assistance you are looking for.

If you wanna do this right, I would design a set-up to work with something like this: http://www.flamingriver.com/index.cf...rod/prd355.htm

Riz.

 

Drive by wire is electronically controlled throttle.

Driving with a depowered rack is similar to driving a non power steering car, i think the ratio is a little quicker though.

just run your standard power steering. if your car doesnt have it some one near you is probably parting a car that does have it.

 

I don't realy like street car stock power steering, it's made so 90 year old grannies can still park the cars. The FC is to heavy for no power steering in my oppionion, it works, and it's all fine. But the ratio isn't as nice, and a steering quickner is out of the question. So race car tuneable electric power steering would be awesome, if it were affordable for me, I would deffo put it on my to-do list.

Riz.

 

It's not the electric power steering assist in the S2K that makes the steering so great, it's the very quick ratio, combined with excellent suspension geometry and tuning. Simply replacing the FC's pump and rack with the S2k electric-assisted rack would transfer it's quicker ratio, which could be a real benefit, but little else of what makes the S2K a great track/autocross weapon to the FC. In fact, electric power steering assist, including that in the S2K, is generally faulted for numbing feedback. The real question would be, can the S2K rack be adapted/fit in an FC? And since the electric assist is computer controlled, can that control be replicated without the donor car's electronics/ecu?.

FC's, even with power assist, have a relatively slow steering ratio (not bad for the 80's, but not great either), combined with a school-bus sized steering wheel. It's definitely a blast from the past compared to modern sporty cars, let alone sports cars. The manual rack is even slower, so I'd de-power a manual rack rather than convert to a factory manual one. For road course racing the slow ratio is less an issue, but in autocross, I find myself working the wheel pretty hard - large steering wheel means a lot of motion, especially combined with the relatively slow ratio.

FWIW, here's an article on a drift S2K, and why they converted it from the electric assist, to a late model RX-7's hydraulic rack and pump (presumably, but not specified as an FD rack).
http://www.hondatuningmagazine.com/f...000/index.html

 

depowered manual rack is sweet, i love the feel. You can really feel the road and you can tell immediately if the wheels are slipping.

 

I like the stock s4 FC power steering just fine. Try driving in someone's car who has it. Feedback is a hair worse than unpowered at speed, and it's awesome when parking. Mazda tends to be better at power steering feedback than others. But if you eliminate it, do it right and change over the whole rack or it'll be even more of a pain to turn the wheel.

 

i would do a conversion for the mere tightness of the steering wheel and responsiveness..

 

not worth it s2k guys steal our steering racks as a way to get more steering angle and make them easier to hold angle while sliding. the s2k rack has less steering angle so it would be a fair amount of work for no gain

 

That is all software. If one were to make it tuneable, or even just flash the computer that would improve alot. If you were to disable the stabilizing of the rack the sodtware does, only the friction of the electric motor would dampen the feedback.

I wonder if the racing S2K's use different racks or different software? I would say factory supported teams get more racy software.

This is only for drifters, since the steering feel changes as the stomp on the gas in a drift. The speed pick-up in in the tranny, so the steering ECU gets the data of increased speed, and adjusts the dampning of the motor.

Switching out the rack is the easy solution, for people who don't wanna get into the software, and only wanna drift all day. The added effect of increased angle of the swap totally justifies it though.

Riz.