any racing experience with electric power steering?

[bryant]

has anybody had any significant experience with electric power steering in autoX or road racing with electric power steering?
i saw mention in another thread of how it would act like a jackhammer on the steering box. i have a hard time conceptualizing that it would be that hard on the steering box but provide smooth feel in the steering wheel and in the steering response.

[UMI Tech]

I crew chiefed on an asphalt late model with an electric pump. Never a bit of trouble. The driver liked it. I wish I could remember the brand.

[SLO_Z28]

Ive driven a well set up car that had it, it felt very natural. I wouldn't hesitate to use it on a build. I however REALLY like the quick ratio manual rack that's on my Honda, and would do something similar in the future.

[no go nova]

MR-2 comes with it from the factory.

[Twentyover]

I crew chiefed on an asphalt late model with an electric pump. Never a bit of trouble. The driver liked it. I wish I could remember the brand.

I'm guessing he's talking electric motor shaft assist, not electrical motor driven pump hydraulic assist.

So anyone adapt it to one of our cars?

[Motorcitydak]

I believe that you may be referring to my comment on electric power steering column's. Those words are directly from the top guy at Woodward steering when I was ordering my steering rack from them. I believe that he used the word crowbar, basically just using a large lever. An electric column is simply a force multiplier. You turn the steering wheel with X force and the electric motor adds more depending on it's setting. Unfortunately I cannot add any knowledge or experience to your question.

A properly set up from end with manual steering will be perfectly acceptable however. As long as your scrub radius is good, you are all set. Basically you want a line viewed from the front of the car to go thru the upper and lower ball joint to land at the middle of the tread on your tires. If you want to check this out easily, just park your car on some dusty cement and turn your steering wheel back and forth. Then roll your car backwards slightly and see the pattern left on the tire. If the center of the circle left is in the middle, you are good. Most old muscle car's however are setup very poorly in terms of suspension geometry

[bryant]

thank you for the replies.
so if the scrub radius is not centered on the tire, is it a matter of changing the offset of the tire or does the spindle design need to be addressed?
and yes im referring to the electric column.

[GrabberGT]

thank you for the replies.
so if the scrub radius is not centered on the tire, is it a matter of changing the offset of the tire or does the spindle design need to be addressed?
and yes im referring to the electric column.

It would depend on your target tire and wheel size and how much room you have to play with. You can only change your wheel offset so much before your start eliminating performance choices.

When I had the 245 tires up front, turning the wheel manually was no piece of cake. Now, 265 and 275, for me, is a full body exercise.

[bryant]

mo's car has 255s on the front and they are not bad to turn. his car has a manual ratio box. i plan on using the power steering ratio box so i know it will be harder. i think im going to try to adapt the gm electric column into my car.

[Bryce]

An issue I see with electric assist, especially the column attach style. THe gear drive induces an axial load to the steering column, this mean the system needs to have some type of thrust capability.

[bryant]

An issue I see with electric assist, especially the column attach style. THe gear drive induces an axial load to the steering column, this mean the system needs to have some type of thrust capability.

im not fully understanding what your saying. is the axial load on the housing? what direction is the thrust? parallel to the steering shaft?

its your build thread that has me pondering the electric power steering, and it is the column attach style that im considering.

[Motorcitydak]

What Bryce is saying is that the steering column is going to itself try to twist and move in its mount because it is adding force to the steering shaft. It needs to be solidly mounted to the car or else it is going to rotate. However the force applied via the electric motor will push in any direction it can. If either the firewall or steering column mount are not perfectly solid, you will have deflection. If you see the stock mount of the electric columns have the bracket welded to the housing which bolts to the column mount from the car. That mount can be modified or made custom but be sure to weld that new mount to the column

Basically both mounts need to be a lot stronger than normal to handle the increased loads.

Also yes, having a perfect scrub radius would make steering much easier. The problem with muscle car's is that they usually have the ball joints inboard of the wheels making even decent scrub radius impossible. I am using the c6 knuckles and hubs on my car and 18x10 wheels with very minimal offset. With that setup my scrub radius is actually perfect so I 'should' be able to steer my 315 front tires relatively easily, however 7 degree's of caster will probably change that

[Nothingface5384]

are you looking at the Uni-steer Electra-Steer kit by chance? or something else Bryant?

[iadr]

We have them at work on a lot of the asian brand I'm a parts manager for, also a few on a German brand I was previously with. The OE stuff has very, very little feel...over all an unnatural feel I would go out of my way to avoid.

*Please*: go test drive any Hyundai Elantra newer than 2007 and report back to us if you like the steering. I'm 99% sure you'll go away horrified and glad you "dodged that bullet".

They are also extremely expensive. The Hyundai Column & computer come together as an assembly and the MSRP (list)for the part is over $4200!

[Nothingface5384]

my lil 2012 kia rio 5 has electric steering, doesnt feel weird or bad on the road..easier to turn vs rack n pinion cars..has the ease of turning like my 72 buick and 73 ford maverick powersteering

[Cobra 498]

The newer Mustangs have electric power steering, the feel is not too bad, about like the previous hydraulic gear. The only decent power gear I have ever experienced is the ZF hydraulic unit, you can actually feel front tires beginning to loose lateral grip like you can with a manual gear.

[Bryce]

The newer Mustangs have electric power steering, the feel is not too bad, about like the previous hydraulic gear. The only decent power gear I have ever experienced is the ZF hydraulic unit, you can actually feel front tires beginning to loose lateral grip like you can with a manual gear.

I believe the mustang puts the eletric motor directly on the rack instead of in the column. This may cahnge the feel....

[Bryce]

im not fully understanding what your saying. is the axial load on the housing? what direction is the thrust? parallel to the steering shaft?

its your build thread that has me pondering the electric power steering, and it is the column attach style that im considering.

I was saying that there will be a load going in the direction of the steering shaft both up and down depending on the direction of steering wheel rotation. This is do to the conical gear on the end of the eltric motor that is turning the steering shaft.

[Todd in Vancouver]

all the ZL-1's are all electric steering and works very well.

[Red67Mustang]

I was saying that there will be a load going in the direction of the steering shaft both up and down depending on the direction of steering wheel rotation. This is do to the conical gear on the end of the eltric motor that is turning the steering shaft.

I believe it's a worm gear on the motor, so there should not be any load in the direction parallel with the steering shaft. All the load would be on axis with the worm gear centerline and develop a moment around the centerline of the steering shaft (to assist in turning the wheel). Assuming the motor mount is part of the carrier around the steering shaft, then it seems the only unresolved force would be the motor's tendency to rotate opposite the direction of the driver's input. The column would need to resist that reaction.