Has anyone successfully done it? I know this is more a suspension directed question, but I am gearing it more toward eliminating the belt driven one for power. I have heard a lot of purposed ideas, but not seen any application.

 

no one even thought about this?

 

Ive thoight bout it along with a bunch of other good ideas that has just been thoughts, as for that I believe bmw has it one some of there cars, when I was in school one of the engineers came n brought a car n said it had electric power steering, water pump, and whatever else that's possible besides like alternator obviously, also said it had an electronic solenoid on top of each valve to replace the cams n entire valvetrain n with that it could be most efficient since it could have cams made for low and top end and all in between.

 

There are actually quite a few cars that have it now days. Mazda 3 and the Toyota MR-S come to mind. But I think a lot of cars are doing it for the fuel mileage gains. I am looking for the power and to clear up the engine bay.

 

I run an electric power steering pump on my Evo 6.I went this route cause I gained space for my Tial 60mm wastegate.The pump I use comes from a Peugeot 206 model.Its very compact in size and the feeling of steering is realy good.Hope that helps.

 

pug 106 id says as the 206 is belt drive

 

Could you give some more details as for how it is wired up, difficulties in making it work, ect?

 

If you remove the ac and ps pumps, then you also loose the belt tensioner. All your'll have is the alternator, so you'd need to make a tensioner I'm assuming?

 

There are tree different ways to get electric assisted steering.

1. Electric-hydraulic power steering pump
Electrically driven pump replaces the belt driven pump, the rest of the hydraulic system remains. This setup is likely the easiest to implement and doesn't require changing the rack or steering column. Also probably the heaviest, least compact, and most complex system.

2. Electric-assisted column
GM, Toyota, and a few others have gone this route. Take a manual steering rack and a steering column and put an electric motor between the two to add assist. Most of these systems actually have all the sensors needs built directly into the unit and should be fairly straight forward to implement.

Sierra-Sierra is using this type of setup in their time attack car. However, I believe they are actually using a system that is fully programmable and is used in OEM and aftermarket applications. I found some info on it at one time but I'd have to dig it up again. This is the way I would go if modifying the steering column was allowed.

3. Electric steering rack
The steering rack has an electric motor built into it. The Acura NSX and Acura TSX use this system.


If you are interested in #1, do a search on Honda-tech. There have been numerous guys using MR2 pumps for road racing applications. I think a few have used the MR-S pump as well. There is also a forum for electric car conversions that has some good info on the newer MR-S pumps.

I'm planning on using the Mazda Speed 3 pump, however I will not have any feedback on it this year. I hope to have the car back up around March. This pump is very similar to the MR-S pump in that it includes the pump, motor, ECU and reservoir all into one unit that is fairly compact. With all sensors connected, it provides speed based and steering angle based adjustments. Without them, it simply controls line pressure and is active when ever there is a need for pressure.

 

I think best option is to swap the OEM belt driven pump with a electrical pump.

Electric steering rack racks are heavy, and it is not easy to find a complete rack to fit in our cars physically since they are in odd shape plus they are not cheap either, for the last they come with dynamic steering ratios and it is not easy to find a suitable one which will fit to our narrow ratio cars...

The rack that Sierra Sierra uses is really expensive, couple of grands If I am correct...

Also Redbrick Evo uses electrical PS pump, you may mail them and share the information

 

Yeah, the steering rack seems to be the least likely to be possible as you'd have to get a unit with the right pivot width. Then you would also want something with a quick ratio. As for being heavy, I have no diea how it compares to the EVO rack and pump setup. but including everything into one seems like it may reduce total weight.


FWIW, the EVO steering rack is 16.8 pounds and the EVO pump, pulley, lines, brackets and hardware weighs 13.4 pounds.

I thought the SSE time attack car used the EVO rack but then used an electric assist on the column. Not sure though.

I do agree though, using an electric pump and keeping the OEM rack and column is the most feasible way to make it work. Most of the pump setups are pretty simple to get up and running. There are actually a good number of cars out there running electric pumps to.

Most of the newer pumps include the ECU, Pump, and motor into one unit. The ECU will usually control pump pressure regardless of if the rest of the signals are feed to it or not. OEMs probably don't want to de-power the steering under any condition unless they have no other choice. The benefit with the newer pumps is they monitor pump load and if you aren't turning the steering wheel, the pump doesn't turn on so you aren't wasting electrical power.

Older pumps like the MR2 pump can be ran off a relay that turns on with the car and runs 100% of the time. It has been reported to work just fine. You can also pick up the ECU and power relay for that pump pretty easily.

The MR-S pump is probably the simplest of the newer pumps as it just takes in vehicle speed for additional inputs. No other inputs needed to have it fully functional. Problem is though, they tend to go for around $350 used... You can get them new from the dealer for around $550 though, not a whole lot mroe to have a brand new pump in there.

The Mazdaspeed 3 pump takes in engine speed and vehicle speed over CAN-BUS and then has a steering position and steering rate sensor that can be used as well. I have also had one of these apart and I think it could be possible to reprogram these ECUs with some time. They use a non-programmable EPROM, but the EPROM can be directly replaced with a flash programmable chip with no other changes to the hardware. I forget the chip number, but they are readily available.

 

The MR2 pump is looking really promising from what I can see on a couple electric vehicle websites that are using them. Going to be doing this in my upcoming build.