what do you guys think of manual and power steering i am going to swap over my 72 302 to my 70 mav and was wondering how bad is the manual steering on a mav and is it worth the extra H.P ? or just swap the power steering stuff i am '6-8'' 260 so i am not a small guy
i was wondering the same thing i heard that there isn't that much diffrence except a little more power needs to be involved thats it
Not worth the few hp gains,imo.I ditched my power steering because i like to be able to "feel" the road,and these cars are scary with power steering doing 75-80 down the freeway.It's all in what You perfer.
part of the decision is what size of tires are you going to be using. i run a 165r15. its really easy to turn that small of a tire. if your sticking a 8" wide tire up front you might want to keep the powersteering.
good bryant i didn't think of that i an running 16's by like 7 inches ? but i don't think it whould be that big of a deal i used to drive my dads 70 ford f150 with manual steering when i was 16 i have had my mav over 100 mph and it was not scary about how much hp will i gain without it about 5 to 8 hp ?
Not much HP at all. Maybe 1/2 if you're lucky. Without any steering inputs the pump is always in bypass mode and not generating any pressure. No pressure = no power being used. It's not a performance mod. I am going with a manual rack simply because it makes the engine installation much easier. Ford also used to over pressurize the power steering, which made the car feel floaty or twitchy going down the road. Most people are able to drive their car with 1 finger, which is just not enough feedback. When the car is rolling, there is very little resitance from the tires to steering input. The car is hardest to steer when it's parked and the wheels aren't rolling. Even just barely creeping forward or backward makes it much easier to steer though. The only bad thing about a manual rack is that it takes another half or full turn to go lock to lock (higher gear ratio). An old manual rack will feel more like a modern power assisted steering system. IMO.
If I keep my Maverick around long enough to want to mess with it more, swapping to manual will be one of the things I do, these cars are so light that power isn't really needed.
