I am wondering how many members are using some type of electric power steering on their car. I have used electric power steering on my car for about a year now and am nothing but happy with it. I wish that there had been more information on doing it prior to me diving into it head first, but thats generally how I roll anyway.
Finding all of the parts and having things made/making certain parts was the part that could have been smoother for me, but it got done. I have been meaning to do a how to writeup, but seeing as all of it is installed and almost invisible it would be hard to take pictures of how things are mounted, although I did take a few during the process of the pump mount that I made and the new pump assy.
I started out with the intent of creating a speed control unit that would taper down the pump speed as wheel speed increased, and I bought the things to do it and I made it on a proto board and it worked. It used the stock Toyota power unit with my own controller rather than the Toyota one. I soon realized though that not only are the Toyota power units hard to find and expensive but they are BIG and its hard to find an outside area to mount them (they get very hot and require air for the cooling fins) especially in a clean and tucked engine bay, its a big aluminum finned box with several plugs coming from it and just doesnt look great no matter what, also it consumes quite a bit of power from an electrical system that is already not designed for electric power steering.
I ended up with a happy medium speed for the pump, its slow enough that the motor doesnt get nearly as hot as it did when it was connected directly to 12v, its not nearly as noisy since its not running wide open and it doesnt consume nearly the power that it would unrestricted. I ended up using a couple of LARGE resistors in parallel to get what I wanted, it just so happens that the cooling fans on the 1g have a nice big resistor on each one of them to control fan motor speed, two of these worked perfect and I mounted them inside the passenger side wheel well where they are out of sight and also get a nice breeze for cooling as these get very warm.
The way that I know I have perfected things is that I no longer even think about the power steering when I drive that car, I dont realize that its even changed at all, thats when you know the mod is done right! I ended up choosing the stock Toyota relay to turn the pump on and off with, I am using a resistor in series with the relay coil to prevent it from burning up (a common problem it seems with the Honda crowd and others that have used that relay) what some dont realize is that the stock controller uses a resistor in the control circuit to protect that relay, I of course realized it when I reached over and touched it after a few minutes of running and my skin stuck to it.
I have mine set up to come on when the fuel pump is on, that way its not on when the key is in the "on" position, but only when the car is running. Its also easy to accomplish if you have a fuel pump test lead on your harness (hint, hint). Anybody that is using something similar, I would like to hear your stories and how you like it or dont like it.
Linear Mode
