EZ Power Steering kit

I should add this. The unpowered EPS has a decent amount of drag that is doubled by the quickener so right now with the front end off the ground on jack stands the steering is heavier than I would like it with the car on the ground. Before all this the steering wheel spun pretty free, that is no longer true.

Taper reamer for the 2 pins and 8gwire (I couldn't decide 6 or 8 but its pretty short so I bought 8g) are coming Thursday so hopefully by Friday I'll have power steering. I don't really want to start building the cover until I know everything is working right but maybe this weekend I'll be able to get on that.

 

That's odd. If I pull the fuse on my ez it feels like it did before the system was installed. No drag or extra effort.

 

hmmmmm.....a feature the fiesta EPS unit lacks it appears, it doesn't disengage. Honestly I'm not sure I could steer anyway without it with the quickener which doubles the effort.

 

Mark,
You might want to consider using a piece of Dynamat. Many advantages. It can be shaped, insulate, and very thin. That stuff is bullet proof. If you want a piece to try, let me know, I have plenty and I can send you a piece.

 

Hmm.. the old adage "You dress for the slide not for the ride" comes to mind seeing the jeans rather than leathers. YMMV.

 

I like the idea. The general plan is fiberglass. I kind of has to be a pan that fit up from the bottom because the pedal box drops on from the top and they both need to seal to the same strip of metal...so one on top, one on the bottom. I'm thinking add some thin foam to the EPS and then duct tape to dynamat, something like that to get a decent looking shape with a little clearance everywhere then glass the top, pop it off and maybe if I'm careful its good as is but I'm assuming it becomes the start of a mold and I make the real one inside it. That's the basic plan anyway.....after the system actually works.

 

I keep telling myself that if I ride in jeans, I wont go as fast, and for the most part, for me, thats true, by the way, I ride in fully padded riding jeans.

Thank you

 

I pulled 11 or so dead mice from my E-type. Under the battery tray, inside the heater fan motor. All over the place. Then looked inside the air filter housing and found a stash of mouse poison. Heh.

 

... and a Snell rated helmet right? Just want you to be safe.

 

Most of my helmets are Snell, other than AGV, but they use AGV in MOto GP, so I think Im safe .

Thank you

 

Received my EZ steer today - ordered 5 days ago; very impressive!!

Re Snell helmet rating - many years ago I always bought Snell rated helmets but no longer pay any attention to that. IMO, their testing is not really representative of a real motorcycle crash impact. OTOH, choosing a helmet because racers use it is not really relevant to street riding either. The likely impact on a track is quite different than the possible impact on the street - the chance of a direct impact on another object is slim on the track but quite possible on the road (car, tree, lamppost, etc).

But you have to do what you are comfortable with! If that's Snell, then, by all means buy a Snell-rated helmet.

 

There are not free lunches. As others have said its going to kill feedback then, but yes will steer easier.

 

Unboxed the EZ steer...no instructions of any kind were included. I assume that was an oversight and I have sent a message requesting instructions...

 

LOL just install it by feel!

 

from page 1
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1392/1475/files/IH_UK_Ferrari_308_V1.pdf?8

 

These days I'm honestly not sure what steering "feel" is. I used to know, or so I thought....but now I'm thinking what I thought was feel was just worthless vibration and excessive force requirements. I'm pretty sure that if I can get the EPS unit to turn on I'll like it better than the OEM beat me up steering feel....pretty sure.

 

Thanks mk e, I know that those instructions were in that post and I had printed them out days ago. BUT, instructions should have been included, or, at minimum, a link to the instructions. So I want EZ steer to provide them!

 

You have quicker steering rack too, so the whole experience is going to be different.
Cant speak to 308s, but a BBi is not dissimilar. Steering feel on a BBI is when you approach the limits of the front end you can literaly feel the steerign start to go light, the force required to hold the line dimishes and you can feel you're close to the end, you know you're there and any more and traction is gone. Its also when you're on a bend and the car crosses different surfaces the the change in tension on the wheel. Thats on ferraris which are pretty slow geared on steering rations and therefore somewhat numb, bushings etc also play into as well as dreaded sidewall flex on a trx numbing it more.. The best I drove of the era was a koning 512, it has 215/15 fronts and the narrower front was revelatory, light in feel and direct, akin to my elise. I currently run 17 in wheels with modern rubber on my BBI and tire pressure significantly alters feel. I use higher psi for backroads and lower psi for highway speeds to settle the car beter.. Toe and camber also affect things. However for parking speeds its simple rack ratio and tire width, and now you have eps.

The elise is held out as paragon of virtue, but thats with 175 front tires. If you put 225 R compounds on the front for trackdays its noticeably heavier in feel untill you have speed..
Years ago I had a countach for a few weeks, apart from being an undeveloped concept car, the steering between 80 and 130ish was simply amazing, so direct with none of the springy slop the ferraris have. That was probably a much quicker steering ratio smaller diameter steering wheel, springs shocks and bushings. Unfortunately above 150 or so the front end got really reall light, makes sense as the design is like an aircraft wing and it wants to fly. At parking speeds, those tires and the rack ratio forget it.

Best steering street car was the renault r5 Tubo 2. Take a light short wheelbase car, loose more weight, put the engine in the middle so theres little weight over the front end and your steerign is really direct, same with a meyers manx.

I think a fast ratio steering rack and eps will make that 308 really reactive and light at the wheel. Its going to be different. My 19 Gulia is like that, it has no pretence of being analog or having "feel", just a really quick direct and acurate steering ratio, the front end reacts like now and the car feels weildy all the time. Its different and really appealing in ts own way.
I dont mind hefting the BBi in my driveway, to get out its eitehr revrse up a hill or do a 4 poit turn, ok if I keep rolling. Besides getting out the driveway the rest is all backroads above 50. When pushing hard, I like to know that the front end will tell me when were approaching traction loss. I also use the car pretty sparsly so its there for when the mood strikes and the day is just so. Although last year the elise was down for a few months(front oil cooler line leak) and the BBi was a semi daily, till it got too hot, ah ferrai ac, best descibed as a squirrel blowing through a straw...

Sounds lie you're going to love the rack and eps, at more moderate speeds its going to make the car more enjoyable more of the time.

 

I had some house work to do so not a lot of car time but I did have a look at where the steering controller could live with minimal effort and extended the motor wires to allow it to happen.

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Received the EZ steer instructions via e-mail from the supplier.

 

Time to start cutting!

Are you planning a 2.5 turn rack as well or just the power and see how it feels?

 

I note you said you didn't need the mounting points for the quickener, hence you macined them off. Is the body of the quickener "fixed"/unable to rotate (by the fact its input and output shafts are staggered) ?

I can't remember, are you still running the standard rack and thus solely relying on the quickener to speed the action of the rack up ?

Is the red UJ binding on the quickener body ?

 

No, I don't plan to change the rack - just add the power...at least for now. Although unrelated, I'll be installing new timing, AC, water pump and alternator belts also.

 

Standard rack, at least for now, with a 2:1 quickener. That means 1.6 turns, the faster rack would be a bolt on as I've not messed with anything down there and yield 1.25 turns.

The red u joint is as close to the quickener as I dared....about .010" clearance so not binding, it spins freely.

Basically everything is as short as I dared and part of the that is the way I decided to mount the quickener. I removed 1 bearing from the lower Output) shaft...but it needs 2 to be stable, so I welded the shaft to the EPS input shaft so its 1 shaft with a bearing on each end. For that to work right the 2 housing must also be joined so I made a pretty serious clamp that locks to the quickener and clamps onto the EPS. The offset shaft in the quickener do mean there is a little torque about 1/20th the steering input torque) and the clamp also handles that.

This makes the EPS+quickener 1 assembly that replaces the shaft between the column and rack. 2 points define a line, bearing at the rack, bearing at the column so it doesn't want another mount, that would likely lead to binding. It does however now have a torque from the EPS motor and a little more from the quckener offset, so I will add just a torque arm so the assembly can float up/down - side/side (controlled by the bearings on the ends) but can't rotate and it will be fully constrained but not over constrained (which leads to bind/flex/fatigue).

If I were doing this as a product I'd spend a bit more time to cut splines and not steal&weld OEM shaft bits but as a 1 off its fine and quick to build, doesn't look bad and should work pretty well......I'll find out in day or 2 once I get it wired, torque arm on and pins in the ujoint.

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