PS depower sucks?
 

So last night i decided to do the looped depower, as i want it out of the way for my bottom mount and it had such high praise on this site. I did it like this picture basically, with the two red caps looped as well. the only difference is the loop on the left is much longer. It is still pretty tough to turn at high speeds.
My main guess is that there is still to much fluid in the system? the way i emptied it was taking off all the hoses and steering the wheel both ways a couple times.
Anyone else have similar problems? I dont think its cause i'm a pussy lol.

You should have just removed the seal while it was out like that. I have mine VTA right now as I plan on removing the seal when the new motor goes in. Try just VTA for a quick run and see if that helps. It is going to be tougher on tight turns, but normal driving should be very little difference. Your other option is to adjust your caster.

just make sure all the fluid is out, then next time you pull the engine depower the rack properly grease it and remove the inner seal.

The engine was never out, that picture is just from fm's website. I'm gonna go try to get some more fluid out now and report back later.

well when I did it, I took the rack apart and took out the piston and everything. I only notice it when below like 3 mph, other than that it just feels tighter, not harder.

Im too lazy to pull it out.

That's the way I am. I am thinking about looping the lines, but I don't feel like pulling the rack out. If it is real bad, I might just leave PS in

I yanked my shit out and looped the lines, and have never looked back......the only time my wheel is hard to turn is at a dead stop, even then its not that bad....i think your just weak! :giggle:

it's not hard to pull out PS rack. Do it the right way first time to save you some headaches later.

What he^^ said. I looped mine and I have no issues. What size/weight wheels do you have?
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yeh what are ya running?


im running 16x8 0 offset xxr 513

http://www.1010tires.com/images/whee...M_lg_super.jpg

You have to pull the rack and remove the piston ring inside it...


IMHO, the depowered rack really sucks... but I'm gonna do it anyway. *shrug*

HTFU you big vag

Back your caster off. 5+ degrees is great for power steering, but horrible for manual. Get the car aligned, set it to around 3.5 degrees. I noticed a huge improvement in the weight of the steering at high speed.

Small steering wheels won't help, either - I still use a 350mm wheel for a reason.

Heh, my wheel is smaller than stock and I run around 5.5* caster.

:giggle:

I have stock size wheels and steering wheel. Advice on trying the full depower with the engine still in or impossible?

Unbolt rack from car and follow directions in here:

Flyin' Miata : Tech: 1.8 conversion

Sheeeet... I jsut cut my lines off, pulled the pump and turned the wheel a couple times to get the excess fluid. Never looked back...and I was running a 320mm steering wheel. Never bothered me...maybe it's becuase I have manly arms with muscle :dunno: That was on my 96, I have not felt the need to ditch it on my 02 becuase it doesn't have the dead spots or suck at quick transistions like my 96 did.

Manual rack ftw. That is the real "proper way".

I love it. But I only drive my car on the street so idk about track.

except the ratio sucks...

I just looked over the FM website and screw that. I'm fine with looping my lines. Too much trouble for something I don't have a problem with now

Its really not all that bad to do I just did it, I figured I should since I was building my new turbo set up. I never check caster either but now I might have to, I just run as much as I can when I align my car, I guess this is going to suck but I don't feel like spending the time to get one more spec in to my alignment. It already takes me about 2 hours to do my car by my self just setting the camber and toe. But I guess my alignment tools are old school. Anyways to point of this ramble is it takes me longer to align my car than it does to depower the rack properly.

Says who?

Well I got out more fluid yesterday, much better than before.

says the person who likes to turn the wheel more?

I'm aware of the ratio, but 1/2 a turn is nothing I would ever notice. Really a 1/4 of a turn since I've never once turned lock to lock in normal driving.

Smaller and a bit lighter too. Plus I'm lazy so no hacking things. Win win if you ask me.

I notice it every single time I drive a de-powered PS rack.

this.

I can tell the difference going from one to the other... it's night and day. (de-powered vs. manual)

Exactly. I don't like to saw at the wheel like I'm driving a delivery truck, lol.

In this crew and loving it.

It doesn't help that this fucktard has 1' scrub radius with his 0mm offset chink shit.

If you're bitching about the depowered rack, you're probably not cutting lap times fast enough to be considered a worthy resource, and you're probably a virgin.

Forget removing the seal: all failed racks are of those type.

I looped my lines after removing virtually all fluid: hold one wheel (not the steering wheel, a road wheel) and move it lock-to-lock quickly. This makes a mess but squirts more fluid out than other methods.

That's a good idea. Never thought about doing it like that.


How do you catch the fluid? Or just let it spray every where?

^ This.

When I was looking into depowering my rack, I came across quite a few threads on m.net about blown out steering racks that had been depowered "the correct way", but not one where the person just cut/looped the lines.

Do you guys weld the quill shaft like the RX7 guys do? I noticed the flyin' Miata DIY does not go through this step?

How are they failing when the internal seal is removed?

Probably due to the assembly/disassembly steps

I don't think I got all the fluid out when I did mine and I have no problem with it. Enough fluid was removed for me to cut everything off and tie the two together

Others have said that removing the seal reduces support for the rack, and that flex in the rack causes the failures. I've seen that rack, it's stout, and if it's flexing that much you've already crashed. Having de-powered several racks, and having had a good look at the rack and how it's supported, I think they're wrong and the rack failures are caused by improper assembly.

The rack is supported at the passengers side by a very large and long aluminum bushing. At the drivers side it's trapped between the pinon and the u-section adjustable yoke. Proper pre-load of this yoke is critical to both maximize support of the rack and to minimize effort required to turn the pinon; essentially it's a compromise between these two conflicting requirements.

I think the rack fails when the yoke isn't adjusted sufficiently hard against the rack, and the rack steps away from the pinon under load. From there it's pretty easy to chip or break off a rack or pinon tooth that's loaded on its edge.

The solution is to pay attention to the pre-load. On my '95, the factory says to center the rack then torque the adjustable pre-load cap to 4.9 N-m (43 in-lbf) three times, then back off 25-degrees.

On my own de-powered racks I follow the FM model and add welding the pinon to remove unwanted play there. Also, and like Savington says, you don't want too much caster. But done properly a de-powered rack is far superior to either a manual rack (too slow, and yes, you can tell) or power steering (crappy feedback), and is hardly any more difficult to turn (with stock rims and tire size and man arms) than a power rack.

As far as the suspension is concerned, it's one of the best and cheapest upgrades you can do and I wouldn't own a Miata with power steering. If I came to own a manual rack miata I'd trade the rack for a power rack just so I could de-power it. Yeah, it's that good. Done improperly, sure, like anything else it'll suck.

Do you have any pictures of your welding job? I may decide to do that when I take mine apart.

It's all here:

Welded steering rack and compliance results - MX-5 Miata Forum

I highly recommend welding the quill. It removes slop completely. I have it on my RX7 and LOVE it.

I can only imagine what it would feel like on a car that weighs 500lbs less..

Wow, the welding thing looks pretty sweet. Anyone have a before/after pic? There are after pics in the dotnet thread but no befores to compare them to.

Take a look on rx7club.com

there are a few threads on it. Basically the quill has a bit of play in it which relates to like a cm each direction at the wheel. That's 2cms of slop before you acutally turn. I hate slop. Weld it... you can even mig it if you want. Pay some guy $20 as an exhaust shop to do it for you.

Or send you rack to Maval and have them do a full conversion on it for you. That's what most of the lazy RX7 owners do. They powdercoat it for you and weld the fluid holes shut.

De-Powering the Power Steering Rack - TeamFC3S

depower