Power steering

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Power steering

Which kind of steering do you prefer?


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Yea that'swhat I was trying to say, it feels safer because you can feel the weight of what you're chucking round corners. I once left city mode on and took a tight bend and I wasn't in control at all. Punto's are EPS, except mk1's.
 
No power steering!!! Doesn't scrub those expensive rubbers!!

Missus couldn't live with out her power steering i can't live with it!!!
 
it completly depends what it is,
if say a cinq or sei or punto or panda then no power steering (unless its a diesel or gt, or hgt in which case you'll need it, otherwise your not going anywhere to heavy:( ) as you get loads of feedback and they are easy enough to move about if you have the skill;)

if its like an autobahn basher like a hulking great audi, then you want really light power steering so it doesn't keep you awake by making you work hard, my volvos are all fairly light too, and have no feedback whatso ever (makes C roads and backlane bashing quite fun actually, all my volvos are quicker in rough bouncy uneven surfaced corners than the punto, but hopeless intown:bang:

if its like a stilo then I'd go for heavy power steering, you want something to help you a bit, but still be able to feel and get along nicely:yum:
 
if you are caning it along a b road the last thing you want is power steering. it may be hard to appreciate the difference if you've never had a car without powersteering, it makes the car feel so much more in control.

the feedback you get through the steering wheel tells you how much grip each front tyre has, its almost like having grip sensors in your hands. this gives me the confidence to go faster into corners and to brake harder, you can even aviod understeer because the steering wheel will tell you before it begins, you can feel the grip slowing going whihc alows you to react before the front tyres slip. with power steering its very much a "wait and see" game where you react after a skid a started to regain control. sometimes thats too late and could mean the diffence between hitting a tree or going round a corner.

i'd disable my power steering if the pump didnt make it even harder to turn than without power steering. thank god the HLX has less assistance than my SX did, i couldnt bare the light steering on that. even motorway driving was scary at speed.

in the future im sure adjustable asistance will become more common, and not just a city mode button like newer puntos, i want a fully adjustable range with "race or sports" mode (15% assistance), "motorway" mode (25% assistance), "town" mode (50% assistance), "comfort" mode (75% assistance) and "parking" mode (100% assistance). and then an auto mode that switches depending on driving style. that would be a good selling point for gadget fans, and its easily done with modern electric motor assitance.
 
I hate not having power steering... It takes me forever to park without it.
 
When on the motorway, your pas shouldn't even be on, all cars with pas have a point that they turn off as pas at high speed (usually 'bout 70 or 80 mph) it is just dangerous. It is therefore theoretically possible to change this speed as it'll be set in the cars ecu. Unfortunately as has been said, the steering is too heavy as your turning motors etc as well as the wheels. I do think that pas is a good addition to most cars though. What Jug says about country lanes is all true but if you get in something thats heavy without pas its hard to drive it to its limit as you end up 'fighting' the wheel. I have the fluffy problem when driving my Sei and although i could probably just swap it all over for a steering rack etc from a cinq and not have any pas, my little project to try and change its weight has me intrigued. I said i wasn't going to say ought about it until it was working but not sure when the time to do it will come up so i'll explain it here incase anyone is interested..

I need to check if the sei setup is as i think it is (for this post i'll just assume it is). The key ingredient in the modification is the torque sensor.
If as with some hydraulic power-assisted steering systems, a torsion bar is used to measure the relationship between the torque being applied to the steering wheel by the driver and the resistance being posed by the tyres.

This measured torque is a two-way process ie. if the front wheels are on wet grass they’ll turn very easily, so despite the driver turning the steering wheel hard, not much torque will need to be applied to alter the steering angle of the tyres. However, if the front tyres are on coarse bitumen, they will resist turning and so the amount of torque needing to be applied by the driver will be much higher to get the tyres to turn. In other words, the torque sensor shows both the driver’s input of torque and the torque reaction of the tyres.
The use of the torsion bar therefore takes into account the real steering effort needing to be applied – irrespective of road surfaces, tyre inflation pressures, and road speed.

The torsion bar forms part of the steering column – it twists when subjected both to high input torque and high tyre reaction torque. Two sensors are used. Each measures the amount of twist and outputs a voltage that is proportional to this. When no twist is occurring, the voltage output of each sensor is in the middle of its range (zero volts).
However, when subjected to torsion, the sensors’ output voltages change. When there’s increasing left-turn steering torque being applied, one sensor increases in its output voltage while the other sensor decreases in its output. The opposite occurs on right-hand corners.
Therefore, the larger the difference between the output voltages of the two sensors, the more steering effort that is occurring.
The desired outcome will be more steering feel ie. you want less power assist. At higher speeds this results in better turn-in cornering feel, better straightline stability and a far more secure on-road feel. Sure, there will be slightly heavier steering when parking, but we don't buy cars to park we buy them to drive.
So to achieve the outcome of less power assistance, the ECU needs to be fooled into thinking that there is less steering input effort than is really occurring. To achieve this, all that we need to do is reduce the difference between the voltages of the torque sensors. This can be achieved very simply by the use of just two multi-turn potentiometers (i think. lol) like this:
untitled7.JPG


Hope that makes sense to you.
 
If you have ever driven anything like a Lotus Elise it has no PAS or even a brake servo you will appreciate that if you want a focused drive and want to be able to point the car in the perfect position/direction then you don't need it, even cars like 106 Rallye's etc don't have it and they are amazing, same with R5GTT's, on smallish cars under 900ishkgs its really not needed.

Conversely my integrale has it, 1300kgs, even has a cooler for the fluid for homologation purposes, but its almost like it doesn't, as it weighty and very very precise which can't be said for most PAS, the Sei PAS is just awful & I find most modern cars have have a terrible dead feeling on the straight ahead, and are to slow and not adjustable on speed. As for the adjustable type thats changes with speed, i think the fact the 'M' cars by BMW do not use it when the normal cars in the ranges do says it all for those systems, not up to it for real drivers cars.

As for they are easier to park, it will state in your manual not to just turn the car but treat as it has no PAS i.e. car is moving before turning steering wheel as you would with out PAS to make it easier on you, so make it easier on system, to do it while car is stationary put loads of stress on the system and wears out tyres very quickly.

Aaron.
 
i absolutly h8 power steering i think power steering should be able to be turned off and on wene u want it like the only time i like power steering is wene im parking.
If my car is strugling to go round a corner i want to know i dont want the steering to fight it for me light steering is horibal you go round a corner and everything feels fine then suddenly u lose grip and bang u hit a lamp post.
without powersteering u can feel everything if the car cant handle the turn instead of keeping the wheels at the angle u turned the wheel to the natural steering will force the wheels to an angle were they wont lose grip like wene u accelarate out of a corner and let the steering wheel rotate back to centre itself
 
At Aaron: I'm agreeing with you totally mate, not driven an elise myself but you made the point, its a light nimble car and as such pas would just ruin it.. And in reality for my Sei it would probably be best/easiest to just swap all the steering components from a cinq. I have however been working on this theory with my dad and think it'll work. Theres loads of setting up to do after and it would be adjustable but not whilst driving, while driving it'd be fixed at whatever setting you wanted. You could even make it lighter like a city mode, if you so desired. I'm just intrigued to see if it'll work or not, if its sh*t i'll be going for no pas at all.
 
Never been particularly bothered about PAS. I managed allright before it became std on most cars(y) . Bought another punto (thats 3 outside now) the other month and it wasnt till the mrs pointed out 2wks ago it had no PAS that i realised:bang: (Doh!).
Small cars definately dont require PAS, anything 1600 -2 litre imo an optional extra and above 2litre only should be std imo:slayer:
 
Ive had 2 cars that had no power steering and then brought a sei with power steering and have had no problems. I think if you can drive then you can drive anything!! Not sure how you can crash unless you are being harsh with the steering.
 
I never had power steering before I got my Panda, and I always swore that I would never use the City button, it being too light and girlie... But shoulder injury and the need for Physio means that I now am using the City mode cause otherwise I just might not quite be able to steer... :eek:
 
If the car is light already then it doesn't really need power steering, I drive a red Micra and it didn't reall neeed PS, was a bit weird to park but once moving anywhere it felt normal.

Tipo's without PAS are a complete bastard to drive anywhere as the turing the wheel at "pace" feels like its going to topple the car and don't even bother trying to park it, just leave it in the middle of the road and go indoors, everyone will understand why... even the traffic wardens :p

My Tipo does have PAS but its "medium/heavy" so it feels like a "normal" car. In other words, steering it does not feel like trying to bench press 100KG

At "pace" the power steering doesn't feel like it changes but there is feedback through the steering wheel at all times :)
 
I like heavy steering, I hate the weight on V70 most of the time, it's way too light besides in the car park or until you get to about 80mph. The Punto is better but I still preferred my old Cinqu' Sporting.
 
vik_s said:
my punto didnt have power steering but the seicento does and i can hardly feel the difference :confused:


Try topping up your PAS fluid.


Remember that puntos (and I would assume most fiats) use Power assisted steering, not actually power steering.
 
ok guys i went to a drift school yesterday and was their allday frashing an mx5 around and guess wot NO PAS i was talking to the instructer their about my brava and how light the steering is and how i prefferd no pas as theirs more feel he disagreed with me and said that pas has still got good feel to it so i told him to take my car round a lap of the small drift coarse set out in an air field and wene he came back he was wight as a sheet and sugested i get the train home lmao he could not beleive how light the bravas steering was he said it was like steering a car on a car ramp with the wheels not touching the ground and if he said it is bad then im not arguing with him this guy can drive arfter seeing him keep an mx 5 at a 45 degree angle round a mok up roundabout for a hole minuit.

but a quik plug for um suggest every one goes to one of these days it great fun best 300 quid ever spent or it will cost you 200 if u use your car (must be fr,mr or rr) instrutor was great the tedji is only 5 foot tall but damn he can drive lol
 
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