No p/s or a/c...what next?

[CARBurn]

Ok I with a couple of friends today installed another accord motor in my car. I decided since I never used air conditioning and didn't like power steering to remove both the belts and the motors. What else should be done to completely remove these components. I still have fluid in the power steering pump and I see there is still piping for the a/c, what can I or should I do next do with it?

In case you might ask I did it for the performance gain in not having my motor horsepower drained by having power steering and air conditioning.

[87accord]

Did u notice any gains in power at all?

[CARBurn]

I haven't driven the car yet, cuz i need to remove the old carb in place of a weber, hook up the wires again and change the water pump and thermostat among other things.

I have other mods that I transferred over from my previous motor that will give me some performance gains when I do start her up.

I just know that when ever I was sitting@idle and I was to turn my steering wheel, I see the car's rpms lower, due to the engines power be sapped by the power steering, I figure that shouldn't happen with no p/s.

[ACCORD EX]

a/c only takes power when it 's on ! about PS i think this lowering idle thing when turning in park will disappear but it'll be a bitch to stear ! :p


MIKE

[carotman]

I haven't driven the car yet

Just keep all your P/S hoses thre. .

Beleive me, the thing is a pain in the ass to steer...


I was stuck without my power steering for almost a month and it sucked.

[Sabz5150]

For power steering, if you want to have any ease whatsoever with steering, you'll need to drain the system. The pump, resivoir, lines to and from the rack, and the two lines between the rack and transmission. Those two lines are for the speed sensor on your power steering.

You also may want to consider getting a manual rack... if you can find one.

-5150

[CARBurn]

Accord EX-yeah a/c only takes power when you need it, but I hardly ever used it, so I thought of it as unnecessary weight.

Carotman, actually, I'm used to manual steering from driving a 86 civic si around for two years.

Sabz1550, to drain the system do I need to turn the steering wheel constantly or what?

Aren't accords with manual steering rack hard to come by in the U.S. and that would mean the rack may be that hard to find?

All I have to say the engine bay looks so much simpler now with all that stuff removed.
Thanks for the info.

[MiGRaNe]

I had removed the P/S belt and it i never noticed any increased what so ever in HP, a mechanic told me its very hard on the rack and pinion... he might just be a moron but that would suck to be replacing yer rack and pinion 6months down the line cuz u removed the belt for 1-2HP.

[CARBurn]

Just came back from outside from draining the p/s fluid.
Hey if it comes time to replace it than I'll replace it, but hopefully by then I can locate and install a manual rack .


Again I'm not looking at the horsepower numbers, I am also looking at weight shaving and directing more of the engine's power to the ground.

[Nighthawk]

My P/S belt broke last month, and it was pretty tough to steer the car. It's fine as long as you're moving at a reasonable clip, but slow speeds are really rough. I had to plan my turns ahead of time, since I couldn't get the wheel turned fast enough.

My car does tend to drop a few RPMs when I turn the wheel at idle, though.

[jteuton]

What a nightmare just to post my opinion. i was registered at the old board and then boom...they hit you with this. well it is faster so no complaints about the board. sometimes i don't even know why i bother posting cause it seems like i'm ignored...well here goes...the a/c does take power when it's not in use and the p/s takes away gobs of power 24/7. see this is how it works. you shave a few pounds of the new cam gear and then a few off the new lightened flywheel. but you don't think that spinning around them 5lb pullies all the time takes power.....geeeezzz. Taking the ac and ps pullies off the crank will gain more power than removing 300 lbs dead weight. its the same concept as removing mass from the wheels. weight in these two areas are critical. and it's not extra horsepower ....your just getting more of what you already had to the ground cause your not tossing it away of some fat chunky pullies. so its just more effiecent. so go ahead and laugh at me and tell me i'm wrong...i don't care....all i wanted to do was fit in...guess yall won't be seeing those 9 sec 1/8 mile timeslips soon..(no 1/4 mile around here). 88' stock bottom end holding up like a rock....take care....jteuton

[SWELLS]

What are you guys weak, I can understand if your an 80 lb little girl saying it's hard to turn. I've been driving my with no p/s for two and a half years now. It never was hard to turn and as long as your moving it should be easy, so I say speed it up a little. Then again my car before this was a '64 Ford Galaxie 500 2 door fastback, I can damn near fit my Honda in the trunk.

[Sabz5150]

jteuton -

Of course, they drink engine power, especially power steering. Has anyone tried hand turning the pulleys on their engines (no belts of course)? The only two you can't turn are the crank and the power steering.

It's basic math. Your engine produces whatever horsepower/torque at the crank. However not all of that hits the ground. You've got all those goodies attached that your engine has to turn as well as your wheels. So the engine has to use some of it's power to turn your A/C, P/S, water pump and alternator. That's power that is not going to your wheels. Removing the power steering and A/C doesn't increase your horses, but it does allow the engine to take that power it no longer has to use turning those pulleys and throw it at the pavement.

Hence the differentiation between horses at the crank and horses at the wheels.

-5150

[CARBurn]

I need to clarify my self if I confused some people about "performance gains." This to me is doing all it takes to get the most of your motor, this can mean your average bolt ons to increase horsepower or dropping or eliminating power robbing accessories. I don't expect by removing p/s and a/c that i will see a 1hp increase or a 10 hp increase, I do expect more power to hit the ground from the wheel. Let's face it, as I learned in my physics class in high school, no motor/engine can run in perfect efficiency particular because energy as it is created converts in to many different forms. For cars the power they produce gets transformed into heat and other things. So a car's engine power never is a true indicator of what it can actually produce because the power gets lost in many different ways. I sure most of you already know this I just wanted to clarify my decision to do what I did.

By the way, I drove the car, and it is harder to drive but I know I will get used to it like I did when I had my 86 civic Si.