no power steering
 

Ok so I had a lot of time on my hands today and I decided to pull my ac out. I have an ex 5spd and used the alternator belt off of a dx to run from the crank. So while I’m under the hood I decide to remove the power steering belt just for shits n giggles. OMG. What a difference. First off I must say that the gains between 4-6 grand are very noticeable however the complete loss of control is also very noticeable. I had heard of a lot of people cutting their belt before but damn it’s just not worth it. I was out driving around for about 45 minutes tonight and damn my arms are still pumped. Now like I said the gains are really good so I’m kind of tempted to maybe convert to over to a manual steering rack maybe from a 96 civic. Grey told me that the hybrid uses some type of electric rack I think that maybe lighter has anyone got any experience with these? I was also thinking maybe I could connect the existing steering pump to an electric motor any ideas?

Feel free to wander off topic with your experiences with no p/s. all input is appreciated.

oh yea electrical rack? thats interesting.. but i personally would want it to have its own power suply independant from the car... look into it.. im interested.. maybe we can all brain storm on how to do it.

Will it hurt the car In any way driving around without the powersteering hooked up?

no the car runs just fine like a dx would. the computer wont throw a code at you either. i removed the system for weight not to take drag off of the crank. when the ac system is off your pulley just spins freely anyways. when you turn it on you hear a clicking noise, thats the little clutch in the pulley engauging the outter rim of the pulley :_doh: .......oh wait i just saw your talking about steering. um no i dont think its bad for that car maybe a little hard on the power booster but other than that i cant see any real harm being done.

i need my ac, but an electronic steering system would be cool....

hey wtf! I have a DX and it HAS power steering :confused:

hmmm... I guess its another one of those options that some DX models just don't come with, like an ac. Next thing you know, someone'll have a DX without immobilizer or ulev or something.

btw. with no power steering, it just makes the steering wheel feel a lot stiffer and heavier right? When you're rolling it doesn't feel like much of a difference, but trying to turn the wheels while you're at a stop, you gotta pump it?

ya my buddy just got a 94 civic sedan with a fully built gsr motor and no a/c, no p/s. thing is fast as **** but hot when it rains and sucks when you are going really slow to turn. really gotta crank the shit outta it.

So basically you just take off the belt to remove power steering? I've driven a car before without P/S, and it wasn't that bad, so I wanted to do this with the Civic, too.

the car i learned to drive on (my moms old 91 dx) had no power steering... huge workout on the arms... i hated it

u guys make it sound like no power steerin is a pain in the ass to drive. havin no p/s is nuthin. the only thing u cant really do is turn the wheel when at stop, but turnin on the go is not hard; does not take that much force.

well if you pull off the belt you just disable it and regain the hp that it takes away but if you want to remove the system, i dont there is any way to convert a power steering rack to a manual rack because they operate completly differant. the car you drove with out ps before was likley equiped with a manual steering rack. they are a lot easier to move because unlike powered rack you dont have to push against the hydrolic.

you didnt read the whole post, at first i thought he was talking about ac

ok i admit is not that bad when you are rolling but id be fu*ked if i had to make a tight turn in a parking lot or if a car rolled out in front of me.

Yeah, parallel parking without P/S is tough..... but driving isnt bad.... to me it feels like I'm more connected with the road.

Yeah, I didn't mean that I wanted to completely remove it, I just wanted to disable it and free up some HP. And the car I drove that didn't have P/S was a '66 Mustang. It took a little while to get used to it, but it's nothing to complain about. Unlike all these other sissies. :_ontome: :p

I dunno ... I've driven a car w/o pwr steering ... I've also driven my civic w/o power steering ... the gains you get are close to nothing and it's not even worth it