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Some of you have seen my M...it's *much* lighter than stock up up front as I have a composite bumper (which is now repainted, LOL) and hood, no AC, CF intake, no AFM, 4 pound alloy calipers over drilled rotors, 14 pound wheels and so forth. You could steer it with your little finger on the roll...so why do I need the power steering? This aint no luxury car!! BTW the car has much improved turn-in from the greatly reduced porkage.
My M started developing a fluid leak. I cut the PS belt to see what it would be like with manual steering. On the roll, the effort was not bad at all. Maybe two fingers at 30 MPH! The only time it was pretty bad was at high steering angles when parking at 1-2 MPH. No fun at all for parallel parking - stay away city dwellers. But doable nonetheless.
I decided not to get a new belt and to ditch the rest of the PS stuff. No more pump, bracket, lines or ugly, brown reservoir. You can see the alloy sump very well now, so I cleaned that up. A bit more space for oil filter swaps. Perhaps 10 more pounds off the front of the car, and another drop in parasitic drag. Maybe I gained a pony or two. No more leaks as the hydraulic pressure is gone. No rebuilt rack dollars or R&R time either! Cool!
I cut the two black lines going to the steering rack and ran the thing to either extreme to get the oil out of it. Then (for now) I sealed the openings with dense cloth retianed by zipties. The effort went down noticeably - less fluid to move through the system? A nice bonus. You can connect the two lines to each other with a splice coupling accomodating the different inside diameters. Some folks say to do something down low with the other lines but I didn't do that and nothing bad seems to be happening.
I hear that you can stop where I did or get the lighter but slower Euro E30 manual rack and steering column bits. I see no need to do this in my case as the extra weight is down so low and I get to enjoy a slightly faster ratio than the Euro 318i factory manual setup.
One thing you notice right away is increased steering feel. Especially when cornering hard - there is more information getting to you through the steering wheel. Yes!!! Something I really cherish. At normal driving speeds there is ZERO excess effort nuisance factor. I was concerned that the effort would prove too high and the mod too hard car even for me. The SIG has some comments about guys not wanting to race for a long time with no PS. Which worried me. That seema to be a complete and total nonissue in my case. I'm running Gforce KD tires BTW. I'm not sure how well this would work on a stock weight car - it would likely be too extreme a mod.
As Colin Chapman (Lotus) used to say..."Simplify, and add lightness". Or "I want pounds out of the car". To which the designers would ask "Do you mean money or weight?" "Both!" Chapman would reply. Because I cut weight up front, I can now cut more weight and cut engine drag since the need for power steering evaporated as the pounds melted away. And the unibody structure acts like it's stronger since it has less to do for a given cornering load. The springs also act stiffer with reduced chassis weight.
If you have to change out your belts, I'd suggest cutting the PS belt first and then driving the car to experience the change in feel.
Stan
My M started developing a fluid leak. I cut the PS belt to see what it would be like with manual steering. On the roll, the effort was not bad at all. Maybe two fingers at 30 MPH! The only time it was pretty bad was at high steering angles when parking at 1-2 MPH. No fun at all for parallel parking - stay away city dwellers. But doable nonetheless.
I decided not to get a new belt and to ditch the rest of the PS stuff. No more pump, bracket, lines or ugly, brown reservoir. You can see the alloy sump very well now, so I cleaned that up. A bit more space for oil filter swaps. Perhaps 10 more pounds off the front of the car, and another drop in parasitic drag. Maybe I gained a pony or two. No more leaks as the hydraulic pressure is gone. No rebuilt rack dollars or R&R time either! Cool!
I cut the two black lines going to the steering rack and ran the thing to either extreme to get the oil out of it. Then (for now) I sealed the openings with dense cloth retianed by zipties. The effort went down noticeably - less fluid to move through the system? A nice bonus. You can connect the two lines to each other with a splice coupling accomodating the different inside diameters. Some folks say to do something down low with the other lines but I didn't do that and nothing bad seems to be happening.
I hear that you can stop where I did or get the lighter but slower Euro E30 manual rack and steering column bits. I see no need to do this in my case as the extra weight is down so low and I get to enjoy a slightly faster ratio than the Euro 318i factory manual setup.
One thing you notice right away is increased steering feel. Especially when cornering hard - there is more information getting to you through the steering wheel. Yes!!! Something I really cherish. At normal driving speeds there is ZERO excess effort nuisance factor. I was concerned that the effort would prove too high and the mod too hard car even for me. The SIG has some comments about guys not wanting to race for a long time with no PS. Which worried me. That seema to be a complete and total nonissue in my case. I'm running Gforce KD tires BTW. I'm not sure how well this would work on a stock weight car - it would likely be too extreme a mod.
As Colin Chapman (Lotus) used to say..."Simplify, and add lightness". Or "I want pounds out of the car". To which the designers would ask "Do you mean money or weight?" "Both!" Chapman would reply. Because I cut weight up front, I can now cut more weight and cut engine drag since the need for power steering evaporated as the pounds melted away. And the unibody structure acts like it's stronger since it has less to do for a given cornering load. The springs also act stiffer with reduced chassis weight.
If you have to change out your belts, I'd suggest cutting the PS belt first and then driving the car to experience the change in feel.
Stan
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