Anyone get rid of there power steering? I have a 97 sunfire with the 2.2, looks like the idler pulley would not work if I got rid of my power steering. might work if it was pushing the opposite direction but not sure. Could i make it push the opposite direction if needed. Anyone sell an aftermarket kit for manual steering? Thanx for nay help.

You'd need a new rack, its not as easy as just removing the pump.





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You can just remove the pump itll be hard as hell to turn because of the gear ratio though, that would be temporary. So is there an after market kit out there. I know there are quite a few companies that make them for my 4th gen camaro.

I've looked, and never found one. Most people take the feed and return lines off the pump and put them together to circulate the fluid.

Mind you... very few people remove the power steering. There's little to be gained weight-wise, and for the inconvenience of manually steering the car (it's not light), there's not much point. Especially in a daily driver.

Same thing with A/C. Removing it means so little a gain... but when you go to re-sell the car, now the A/C button does nothing. Kind of a waste.

may i ask why u want to remove it? you like doing the manual steering?


Opening Soon Kustom J's

I wanted to do it to help out gas mileage a lil bit save a tad bit of weight maybe gain a lil power and make the engine bay look cleaner. Perhaps get some more upper body strength. Anyways with a manual steering box with a good ratio its not much harder than power steering. I mean right now my lawnmower is harder to steer than my car and it takes around 2 hrs to mow a heavily wooded lot, its not often i drive that far in my car so whats the big deal if it is hard.

As John said above, there's very little wieght savings, no manual aftermarket rack, and will not help with gas mileage. You'd only save about 10-15lbs, you can easily get rid of that just by taking out the spare tire, or over twice that much by removing one of the front seats (preferrably not the drivers one).





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You do gain gas mileage it takes gas to make power to drive that pump turning at idle it takes the most power to turn that pump.

You don't gain gas mileage, at speed, the pump barely provides any energy to turn the wheels, only when you are going slow does it provide any assistance, and there is no gas mileage to be gained manuvering around in parking lots and turning corners.





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So why would anyone get and underdrive pulley? and i dunno about you but i take a whole hell of a lot of turns in just a few miles.

To increase horsepower, not gas mileage. Think about that one... if HP and gas mileage both increased, Vipers would be the most fuel efficient cars in the world, along with SUV's, and 4 cylinder econoboxes would be gas guzzlers. More horsepower means more fuel, you don't add hosepower AND increase gas mileage.





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lots of things can increase gas mileage and improve power and air filter does. And by removing drag you are freeing hp that was already there it was just used for a pump or whatever and never got to the wheels.

Anyone have measurements on the factory rack? Length, width, position of mounting holes? Might be possible to retrofit a manual rack from an other car.

Just leaving in the power rack w/o the pump also means more work as you have to fight the power fluid still inside.

Maybe if you could find a rack that had the same mounting you could shorten the end rods and rethread them.


--------------
Yea, ummmm. I used to have a J-body...

10-15lbs is 10-15lbs The old racer's saying, its not about loosing 100lbs from one place, its about loosing 1lb from 100 places... well, same goes with 10-15lb items, there are lots of 'em that arent needed on a race car. My 2000 fully loaded (sans sunroof) 5-speed Z24 is basically being turned into a 2003 base model w/power locks so even my P/S will go bye bye... but mainly just for the track, it isnt a huge deal to swap it in/out on an ecotec or 2.4.

Oh yeah, the weight savings from loosing A/C is huge... condensor, pump, the shiney thing, lines, etc.... I'm going to gander its probably about 50lbs.

hmm if A/C can save that much weight maybe i should just get rid of mine. The bearings on mine started goin crazy, at speed it just sings lol. I just swaped to the belt with no A/C cause i dont wanta deal with it right now. I think I may have found a rack that will work too, I'm waiting on an answer.

I've thought about trying to get a Fiero rack into a Cav...... for the drag car...... its a pain with the P/S deleted, and the welded Diff........ but its only for the drag strip, so who cares (dont need to turn there )




SPD RCR Z - '02 Z24 420whp
SLO GOAT - '04 GTO 305whp
W41 BOI - '78 Buick Opel Isuzu W41 Swap

Right now I don't have power steering............You NEVER want to drive your car without it on a daily basis, trust me. I'm trying to be patient while I wait for the replacement pump to arrive. This thing sucks to drive right now (3rd Gen Z24, btw).

i used to have a dodge shadow and i took the power steering and a/c out of it and i noticed very little in performance gain but saved about 75 lbs after it was all sia dand done. however once you get up to speed a little it's more enjoyable w/out the power steering, you can feel the road better and stuff like that.parking was a pain though cause of the 5-speed and only having one hand to turn the wheel


People say that what doesn't kill you in this life
will make you stronger. I'm not sure if that is true
or not, but i do know one thing-You have to learn from
it and it has to make you better.......it has to.......

Anyone have any ideas on how i could route my belt? I was thinking the easiest way might be to just put a dummy pulley in the back where the PS was. I don't really want to do it that way though.

Anthony Lewis wrote:Right now I don't have power steering............You NEVER want to drive your car without it on a daily basis, trust me. I'm trying to be patient while I wait for the replacement pump to arrive. This thing sucks to drive right now (3rd Gen Z24, btw).

Drain the fluid, it will help some.

Underdrive pullys and removal of the power steering pump is a very minute gain. So small in fact that your not going to get any significant difference in gas mileage.

If your objective is to save gas then drive the speed limit and stay off the go pedal, you'll be surprised at the mileage gain you achieve, much more than removing your AC and power steering. For a strictly track driven car no power steering is fine, but for a daily driver it's not worth it.


-Chris

Owen Stampflee wrote:Oh yeah, the weight savings from loosing A/C is huge... condensor, pump, the shiney thing, lines, etc.... I'm going to gander its probably about 50lbs.

33 lbs. Mostly everything besides maybe a couple nuts and bolts.



PRND321 Till I DIE
Old Motor: 160whp & 152ft/lbs, 1/4 Mile 15.4 @88.2
M45 + LD9 + 4T40-E, GO GO GO

I wasn't looking for a significant gain, it just wont happen on a 4 banger. I go along with the theory every little bit helps though so I'm going to do it. I know I won't keep my foot off the gas lol, this car is just way slow compared to my other car. I'm gonna do all the small stuff i can to improve it in any way. I'll prob port the head and TB in the spring. Back to my question, any ideas on how to route the belt and can anyone confirm that 87-98 j-bodies used the same rack and pinion?

If you want your power stearing off, why dont you just turn the key to the off position while you are driving on the interstate.

dan



Get 'em Jim!

dubduce18s wrote:If you want your power stearing off, why dont you just turn the key to the off position while you are driving on the interstate.

dan

lol, yea, that's the real answer to the gas mileage problem!

95-05 J-cars use the same rack, bolted to the subframe and connected to the bottom of the knuckle.. Older J's have a different rack, mounted to the firewall and connected to the bottom of the strut assembly. They are not interchangeable.

As I said earlier.... no one I know of has been able to find a manual rack that will work, even with a little modification. And I'm talking race car drivers.

(I'm not saying there isn't a rack out there that will work... there may be... it's just that no one has figured it out yet.)