Firstly, I am not joking when I ask the question, but is there a kit of parts, or anything that could be suitably mounted to a xflow, that would give me power steering on my locost ?

I have a serious right shoulder problem, from breaking my arm last year, that may result in a replacement shoulder, and until I know more, I may not be able to use the locost much, as currently and driving of more than 30 mins, means im in agony for the following week

I had changed the old 13" steering wheel to a 14" and that had helped, and over the next few days, will experiment with bring the wheel closer to me, to avoid the straight arm out driving position, but apart from that, im stumped !

any idea's ?

steve

Grab an electric power steering unit from a Corsa... you can get a little module that plugs in so it thinks its in the corsa and away you go!

Should fit inline on the steering column between the wheel and the rack.



[Edited on 14/7/16 by tegwin]

Thanks, and that looks interesting, although in its current state, would be a pita to fit in my scuttle

steve

Don't bother with corsa stuff , heavy and gear driven so you have to deal with the drag when you don't need any assistance . Suzuki wagon or Vauxhall Agila is clutch drive and you can feed an rpm and speed signal from a vr sensor to make it speed sensitive . Wagon system is a lot more compact than the corsa with the ecu fixed onto the motor .
I have a v8 in my car and wanted some comforts like power brakes and steering , works really well as assistance is full at parking speed and once above 30/40mpg it's off and only works off the torque sensor input .

Also worth having a play with toe settings, when I got mine on the road this spring the steering was very light, - I didn't like it that way, I think it was toeing in, set it to toe out, lot more weight to the steering now. Could be a very quick/cheep fix for you

Pug 106 has an electric hydraulic system. Basically an electric pump mated to a normal hydraulic rack.

Corsa epas column is very heavy. Toyota corrola epas is lighter and more advanced.

What Froggy said.... ^^^ ;-)

Rally design do a mk2 escort power steering rack

quote:

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Originally posted by locost7-online.com
Rally design do a mk2 escort power steering rack

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http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=900_2111&products_id=15325

quote:

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Originally posted by locost7-online.com
http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=900_2111&products_id=15325

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Sorry yeah your are right I didn't look that close, thought it was too good to be true!

It's also permanently powered with a little pot to vary assistance and rpm simulator so not speed sensitive . I've done several conversions on Motorhomes with corsa bits and you end up with pretty numb steering to have enough assistance at low speed .
I have a corsa set up in my reliant with the sine wave feed from the Saab gearbox fed into a Saab speedo head which converts it to a digital signal that the corsa b / c ecu can read to make it work properly .
The Agila / wagon r takes the pulse signal direct into the ecu so a vr signal from a gearbox sensor or as I've done using a ford crank sensor picking up off the bolt heads on the onboard driveshaft flange on the diff giving a pulse per mile of 4000 into a vdo aftermarket speedo and split the feed off into the epas ecu .

I couldn't work out what the ppm rate would be in a wagon r or Agila but it seems to be somewhere near as the steering weights up above 40 mph and you can palm the wheel from lock to lock with the car stationary . I managed to get water in the ecu after leaving the car outside overnight and it's no fun manoeuvring it without the epas

Hi Froggy, don't suppose you have a handy wiring diagram?

Basically you need a perm 30a supply and a switched 12v ig feed plus rpm and vehicle speed to the main plug . There are a couple of redundant wires left over for the epas ecu fault codes to be accessed but they won't stop it working.
The ecu isn't sealed so it needs going over with a hot glue gun or silicone to stop the board getting wet or you can unbolt it from the column and move it out of the way

You need the whole assembly with upper column and lower link to the rack to have enough parts to make it work and the upper part has a sleeved section that you can add to your existing upper column and mount your outer sleeve onto the stub of the original . It all makes sense once you strip it down , think I got my system for £70 out of an Agila and respect due to owelly for doing it first and giving me the idea

[Edited on 15/7/16 by froggy]

[Edited on 15/7/16 by froggy]

Fantastic, many thanks for that Froggy, and Owelly.

Locostbuilders - is there anything it can't do?!

There is an easy Locost way to convert the signal from an inductive (passive) wheel speed sensor into a 0v-12v square wave just use the ignition module from an 1980's or early 1990's engine such as a Metro or MK3 Escort although a module from a Corsa would probably be neater.

To convert the 0v-12v square wave to 0v-5V I would just use a couple of ressistors as a voltage devider.

The wiring is very simple: Sensor ve, Sensor -ve , Ground, +12v Supply and Signal Out


Ford Fiesta Escort Orion Mk I II III IV Ignition Module 6153380 84SF12K057AA 9AA


Ford Fiesta Escort Orion Mk I II III IV Ignition Module 6153380 84SF12K057AA 9AA

We use the Corsa stuff on rally cars. It's quiet popular and reliable and you will find there are a few people that sell refurb'd kits for this reason.

Just remember that with all these power columns, a significant amount of stress is applied through the mountings so they must to be made robust enough to deal with this. Having a power column rip itself out of it's mounts could really spoil your day.

Froggy- do you know the reason for requiring an RPM input with the Agila/Wagon R column? Also are the newer Agila columns the same to your knowledge as the Wagon R ones are mostly around 15 years old on ebay now...

Thanks very much, TC

The rpm signal just tells the epas Ecu that the engines running . I've been using the corsa and now the wagon r agila stuff for a while and never had one fail or give problems as they're all made by Mitsubishi . I bought a spare agila Column for my seven only because the wagons etc weren't as common as the corsa so I've got a spare if they all get crushed .
As far as the type of speed signal for the agila I'm pretty sure it's the sine wave from the vr sensor I use on the diff as the signal is split as it goes to the speedo straight into the epas Ecu . On the corsa column in my other car the vr signal from the gearbox is fed into a speedo head from the Saab Which converts it to digital then into the Saab Ecu and epas Ecu .

All for corsa B - I'm pretty sure that the rpm emulator is a square wave. couple of things to watch out for if using them are, if your voltage drops below 12.3v then the ECU shuts down, which is pretty annoying and you need to weld the part that's held inpalce with resin (some safety feature on them &#128580 Which often brakes allowing the column to turn not doing anything- which is pretty scary.

Phil

Thanks for the reply. It would be simpler if it was a straight forward 12v input for the engine signal, can I use a chip to emulate the sine or square wave and wire a second one with a resistor in for the assistance level? I've heard the ebay £30 boxes can be a bit crude, I'd rather set it to a minimal level or wire it properly to change with wheel speed than use the "pot box".

Sorry to be cheeky but I don't suppose you know the weight of the column too? I saw that the Corsa B column is approx 7.4kg which is a bit of a lump.

7kgs sounds about right, and why would you want your steering changing at different speeds??- designed really for low speed around car parks on road cars. The emulators on eBay work fine just make sure to seal them, mentioned previously I think. These allow adjustment with a potentiometer that changes the speed of the pulse provided to the steering ECU.

I'm building a race car and would rather not have any PAS however I'd probably regret it after 20 minutes of wrestling! So, looking to fit an EPAS column but at high speed I'll only need minimal (if any) assistance whereas it would be nice at low speed. I'm still tempted to fit nothing to start with and see how manageable the car is, but it's nice to have a plan from the beginning!

*Meant to say on all standard cars with an EPAS system the amount of assistance varies with speed, more at low speed and less the faster you go.

[Edited on 30/12/16 by topcatproduction]

quote:

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Originally posted by froggyWagon system is a lot more compact than the corsa with the ecu fixed onto the motor .

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From the centreline of the shaft to the widest part of the motor is 200mm

Awesome. Thanks for that.

As a bonus it also looks like the Agila one points slightly "up" rather than slightly down which helps in my case.

Just for anyone else searching the Corsa B is 230mm for the same measurement, ie centre line to widest point. So it's *roughly* (and very roughly) 3cm narrower.

One more question. I can't find a steering wheel adaptor that is listed for the Agila/Wagon R+. There seem to be a few different Suzuki ones.

I don't suppose anyone knows what it's the same as?

Does the car have a quick rack fitted? A change to a standard rack will ease the steering effort. You would probably even find someone willing to swap

To answer my own question. It appears to be 21.4mm with 66 splines. After some research I gathered on various spline sizes etc this is very different from the Suzuki Swift/Jimny etc (15.0mm / 30 splines).

It does appear however to be the same as the following (21.5mm 66 splines):

BMW Z3 series E36 10/1995-01/2003: Z3 M3.2 1.8 1.9 2.0 2.2 2.8 3.0
BMW 3 series E36: M3 316g 316i 318i 318is 318ti 320i 323i 325i 325is 328i 318tds 325td 325tds
BMW 3 series E46 02/1998-2007: M3 316i 318i 320i 323i 325i 325xi 328i 330i 330xi 318d 320d 330d 330xd
BMW 5 series E39 11/1995-05/2004: M5 520i 523i 525i 528i 530i 535i 540i 520d 525td 525d 525tds 530d
MINI Cooper One Cooper S Cabrio R53 R52 R50 2000-2012 (Need 1/4" washers on top of hub so steering wheel nut tightens)

I'll probably get a Momo MA2012R, while it's a collapsible column anyway the extra collapsible boss/hub won't hurt for IVA either.

EDIT: Just to confirm, I've tried the A2012 and it fits.

[Edited on 12/10/17 by Fastdruid]

If your fitting the agila set up in an open top car the Ecu needs to be tucked away and put in a bag to keep it dry . I've gone through two Ecus due to moisture damaging the board as they aren't sealed