Thinking about doing a proper ps delete on my 95 on 205 re71r's. Car will see autox and drift, so want to keep the faster ratio. Car is also daily driver so worried about low speed steering effort. Anyone in the "north of atlanta" area willing to let me test drive a properly de-powered rack in exchange for lunch or something?

 

I highly recommend a good, strong Nardi steering wheel or equivalent rather than a flimsier one if/when you make the switch. Do indeed take a drive with one before you pull the trigger. I’m too far away as well as have a true manual rack so can’t help you out on a test drive.

 

I have a de-powered rack myself and i gotta say it is not hard at all. I'm sure everyone can speak for it as well but you will not even notice it after a few weeks. Steering is more responsive and it feels way nicer with the extra weight. For daily driving if you find it to be hard you can inflate your fronts to about 30 psi and the steering effort falls off dramatically. I'd say just go for it. I didn't try someone else's before I did mine and it was totally fine. Also cleans up the engine bay which is a nice plus.

 

I depowered my own rack and would not go back for street driving or track time. However, guys I know that are serious about autocross have told me they prefer having the p/s. I cannot comment about drifting, whatever that is. Just throwing that out there.

 

For drifting you 100% want power steering.

 

Autox will never be competitive, drifting will be just enough to learn how. End goal is to make a car that will allow me to learn how to control a car as well as I can so I can drive road courses very well.

 

I depowered the rack of my late-lamented 1991 - wrongly. That is, I just removed the power steering pump and reservoir, and looped the input-output hoses to the rack. When test-driving the car, it was fine... and continued to be fine, so long as the drive was short. But after maybe a half-hour of highway driving, the steering would grow heavy. I'd not notice it on the highway, but would definitely notice it, upon pulling onto an exit-ramp.

Any hypotheses for why on a "cold" car, this simpleminded method of depowering the rack was apparently successful, while on a "hot" car, it failed?

 

I have a de-powered rack and 205 RE71Rs and it's not bad at all. As soon as you're moving like 5mph you can turn the wheel with one hand fairly easily. If you're at a dead stop it's a bit harder but still not that difficult with two hands. I also have an aftermarket wheel which I'm pretty sure is smaller than stock.