Miata Mailing List: May 1998, Message #173

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Previously on throttle lift, The Birdmeister BBirdwell@swri.edu said...

>   Car is very responsive to steering inputs; makes me want to get rid of
the 
> power steering and return to a manual rack. Perhaps a smaller steering
wheel 
> although I wish I could think of an easy way to reduce the hydraulic
pressure 
> in the power steering system. Any hydraulic engineers out there who have
an 
> idea on how to modify this system's pressure output? If so, talk to me. I
have 
> access to a machine shop.

Well, if you want to reduce the pressure in a hydraulic system, it seems to
me that all you need to do is bleed off some of the flow before it reaches
the actuator.  In this case, a relief line of a certain diameter that
returns a portion of the fluid directly back to the reservoir should do the
trick.

A more sophisticated arrangement would use a pop-off valve which would
provide for full pressure at low speed, and when boost pressure rises above
a set value, the bypass would open and reduce the boost.  Unfortunately
this is an all or nothing affair and would probably make for some
unpleasant steering near the threshold value.

If you really want to get fancy, you could rig up an electronic valve that
opened proportionally to RPM (signal tapped from the back of the tach).  A
little experimentation should yield the elusive proportional boost steering
that everybody's been wishing for.

	-John

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John Freas (jfreas@earthlink.net)
Red '90 Base-ish #7690
Deer Park, Long Island
Team Laguna Seca
Team dlralt, PBC, Roebuck, Voodoo...
"I have no idea what those dimple things on the windshield frame are for."
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