Good feedback, as with most threads, this morphs into something beyond what was originally intended (see all the coments on A/C and the feel of power/manual steering vs. the orginal discussion just regarding power) but its all good and pertinent stuff nonetheless.

One other thing I did not mention that a friend of mind who used to do research for Honda did mention was that some of the components in the steering assembly are made to tolerances with power assist in mind. Take away the power and eventually things are going to break. Essentially, some components are not made as strong as they are in manual systems because they don't need to be a strong because of the power assist. He said that if you do remove the power from your system your going to want to do a power/manual conversion because at some point your going to break some teeth off somewhere.

Other comments: Some people said above that removing the power steering pump alone is going to give you increased power. Really? How much parisitic drag could possibly be generated by turning a power steering pump that while driving straight is not being tasked with doing anything? I would bet the resistence is almost nill. But, scientific evidence I have not

Other notes:

Yes LT6916 I did read DVPGSR's thread on his P/S removal and breather, hence this discussion.

Good points made:

- Removing P/S creates space.
- Removing P/S is for preference of steering, not for power.
- Removing P/S and A/C and going to a single belt under drive pulley will make a
difference, I would hazzard a guess of about 4-7hp gained depending on vehicle
make and running with your A/C on vs. off.

Thanks again to those who posted, good discussion.