power steering pulley

hytorksc

Registered User
i thought i posted this question before, but here it is again;

has anyone here ever considered enlarging the power steering pulley to lessen the load on the engine further? i have underdrive pulleys, but i noticed that it's fairly hard to turn the power steering pulley by hand. it's harder to turn than the supercharger itself. shouldn't there be a significant gain of power to the wheels if this was done?
 
it's harder to turn than the supercharger itself.

Only while the car is in vacuum, is the supercharger easier to turn. Once under full boost a stock SC requires about 70 hp and a heavily modded one takes 100-120 hp just to turn the pulley. That's why turbos have a top end advantage over superchargers.

I think the power steering pump only pulls about 5 hp max. A larger pulley may also turn the pump too slow at idle. When my idle dips to around 500 rpms it's hard to turn the steering wheel, this usually only happens when parking.

You can eliminate the power steering pump while drag racing by using an extra long flex type lower hose that is pulled toward the drivers fender with a bunge cord instead of routing through the accesory belt. Then when your at the track switch to a shorter belt skipping the PS pulley. I've seen this done before but I'm afraid something might go wrong and I'll need the power steering more than the extra HP.

David
 
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thanks

thanks for clearing my understanding on this. My supercharger is modded heavily and will take at least 100 hp to turn i'm sure. well then aside from installing a larger TB, i guess this is about it as far as finding free power- i've done everything to reduce parasitic losses at the front of the engine.
 
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