I was day dreaming a little bit about the snow melting and finally being able to start driving my recently purchased 3800 and a thought crossed my mind. I used to have a 98 civic with zero mods, drove it into the ground sold it to my bro who traded up for a subaru legacy, anyways the kid who traded was a family friend and he had begun the "tuning" of the old civic starting with freeing up power from the 127hp dy16 powerplant, and one of the most noticable things he did was remove the power steering pump...car felt like it had picked up 15hp...it was rediculous. I also ran that car several times on an ipod-dyno called dynolicious (would recommend) and it would never pick up more than 100hp on the motor hp when i had it, so obviously something was draining power. Now I understand that on a v6 the power gain is going to be less noticable, but can it be done to free up a few ponies, or is this one of those things that I should stay away from? I ask this understanding I may look like a complete idiot.

 

If this is for a street car, you will have to replace your rack & pinion unit with a manual type (if you can find one to retro-fit). Manual and power racks have different valving, and you will have an extremely difficult time steering the car using a power rack that's not being powered.

 

Since manual racks never came on Camaros you would have to buy a $350 aftermarket rack design for drag racing plus and alignment. Power steering pumps should not steal very much power unless the car is sitting still and you are turning the tires. I find it hard to believe your going to gain more then 1-2 HP on a straight away and maybe 4-5 around a corner. A set of header would cost a lot less and give you a lot more in return.

 

Power racks and gear boxs are not designed to work without pressure. They will wear out very quickly. The fluid does lubricate some parts. Infact here in PA if a car has a dissabled power steering pump or a steering box/rack that has hydralic connection it must be in working condition or the car fails our yearly saftey connection.

 

Alright, so this is an expensive and less than productive idea unless im planning on running a drag car is what I gather, lol, thanks guys. Like I said, just day dreaming. Ill stick to intake/exhaust mods.

 

The small gain you would get wouldn't be worth the expense, time, and inconvenience of converting to manual.

 

Most drag guys remove the power steering cause all the care about is going straight and it is weight they don’t need and another part that will break due to the quick acceleration. The 1-2 HP is gravy.