To Power, or not to Power...

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srg610

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Hi guys, just wondering, if you had a chance to change over to power steering would you do it, or keep the manual set up? Is a manual car really that hard to steer? Thanks
 
I have one of each. Power is nice on the Sport,but Duster drives fine without it. Also less stuff under the hood to work around. Believe I'll leave it that way.
 
My car was power. I swapped to a mnuak box. Much nicer to drive. I never like Mopars power steering, its way to over assisted.
 
I also like the road feel I get from manual steering. I also, and I know some people freak over this, like manual brakes because of the feed back and effort that it takes to work them.
 
I switched my Cuda over to power because my wife is real small and couldn't turn the manual steering easy. I HATE IT. Like Adam said it's way over assisted. No road feel. I'm going to experiment with different hydraulic relief springs to see if I can get a happy medium. Hopefully it works.
 
i have manual steering and brakes, i thought it was fine. my dad has manual steering on the roadrunner and its a pain to turn. so i dunno. dave
 
fishy68 said:
I switched my Cuda over to power because my wife is real small and couldn't turn the manual steering easy. I HATE IT. Like Adam said it's way over assisted. No road feel. I'm going to experiment with different hydraulic relief springs to see if I can get a happy medium. Hopefully it works.
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Are you holding on to the manual stuff? I have to switch to manual for the big block/big header tube swap I just did.
 
The smaller and lighter the car, the easier it is to turn a manual steering box. Thinner tires help as well vs. wider tires though the effort between them is a small difference. It's alll adds up.
Manual steering boxs are in general, IMO, not that bad to live with at all.
 
I don't like manual steering just because of the ratio they use to keep the effort manageable. You just don't have the same control over your car, especially in emergency manuvers, with a manual box that you do with a much faster ratio power box. The effort once the car is rolling is not the issue but it sure is in a parking lot. Plus there is a huge difference in the effort requred to turn the wheel from the stock 6.95 tires and the 235/60 tires I am running. Also, the weight savings people talk about is not that great, about 25lbs.

If your car is going to be primarily a street driven vehicle do your self a favor and go power. Get a Firm Feel box or go smaller on the steering wheel diameter if your are concerned about the assist.

I have all the parts on the bench to swap my 68 Barracuda over to power, just haven't gotten around to doing it yet.
 
I've got power steering in my '74 Valiant. It's nice when parking and manouvering in tight places, you can do it by one hand. BUT it really is way too over assisted for high speed driving - very hard to read the road. Mine is street car, so I'd keep it.
 
I switched from power to manual in my old 68 roadrunner and really had no troubles with it. I liked the small steering box for the manual, it made header placement easier. No one in my house drove it but me, so parking wasn't an issue because with that huge stock steering wheel it was pretty simple.
 
This where I would have ordinarily put in a plug for FirmFeel - except I had to complete the rebuild they botched by leaving out one of the seals.

But after that it is great. I got the Stage3 and couldn't be happier with the way it drives - good tactile effort to turn, not over-assisted at all, but still "powered." OTOH, I could kill the sloppy b@$tard at Firm Feel who worked on my box. But that is another story.

I wish I knew someone else that builds them like this, because I could use another one for the TNT New Yorker.
 
My 340 car was mnl (5.5 turns lock to lock). Maybe if it was an auto car (it's a 4-spd) I'd have stuck it out. But it was just too slow - note, not too hard to turn.

Now I have auto at 3.5 turns lock to lock, and it's much nicer.

On the other hand, I know there are fast ratio mnl boxes with about the same ratio I have now (what is it 4 turns L-2-L?), but with 225 60R15s I don't know how much fun that would be?
 
I drive my car on the road and it has power...the guy that had it before me put on a saginaw pump from a 3/4 ton truck. no one likes to drive it because of the steering but I do.

as for the brakes...I have thought about hydro assist...but power brakes are nice.
 
agree, the mopar power steering is too loose and when you make a slight turn youve gone to far.
 
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