Mackenzie C

i drove my friends vx hatch, and it wasnt to bad. i think it was because the car is little, i dont know. anyways you get used to it, i thought it was goin to be all hard and terrible.........but ish pretty coo.

Civic2Scooby

I took out my non power steering and put in a plugged power steering rack....I lub manual steering on such a lil car.

Kai

Steering difficulty depends on three things.
1) Tire size: wider tires have more resistance to being turned
2) Vehicle weight: heavier cars push down harder on the tires, creating more resistance
3) Steering ratio (and wheel size): tigher ratios have less of a mechanical advantage to turn the wheels

The VX has small tires, is very low weight, and has a loose steering rack. If you don't look under the hood, most folks won't know the difference.

Andy

Another major issue is movement. From a dead stop, your fighting the wheel to turn (IE parallel parking). Once the car is moving, it's very easy and at highway speeds, you probably couldn't even tell the difference. I put a GS-R steering rack in my '92 CX and just ran the two powersteering lines back into each other with a T to an excess line to keep fluid in the rack and with 205/50 tires on GS-R rims, it wasn't hard to drive at all. Took some upper body strenght to turn the wheel when stopped but otherwise, it was fine. Felt real solid and connected to the road too which I liked (I was using the GS-R rear subframe and ES steering bushing too).

If you drove his VX for a while (I don't know what rack the VX's have, but I'm assumign it's the same as the CX) you'll notice how large the steering ratio was. It's like 2 1/2 turns from center to lock with that rack. To make a 90 degree turn you have to hand over hand the wheel to make it. That drove me nuts and the GS-R rack really helped.

dumkuh

I have a '94 Civic without power steering and I have already got used to it , it was kinda hard from the begining especially when you park. But overall its O'K!!! Have no complains about that....

alphaxxn

I like my no p/s.

I almost bought a full steering rack from a PS civic.. but decided against it... too much money.

I am not sure if its because of the gear ratio or no p/s, but my car seems to be very direct on freeway and above 20 driving

dx2gsr

[QUOTE=Kai]Steering difficulty depends on three things.
1) Tire size: wider tires have more resistance to being turned
2) Vehicle weight: heavier cars push down harder on the tires, creating more resistance
3) Steering ratio (and wheel size): tigher ratios have less of a mechanical advantage to turn the wheels

i actually found it easier to turn the wheels with a wider tire(EG DX) as compared to the stock tires.

205/40/16 > 195/65/13 or whatever stock 13's tire size is

Mackenzie C

i see, yeah i think im goin to buy a dx or cx hatch. does the suspension relate to this in anyway?

Quikstep

parallel parking sucks with no power steering. other than that it's not so bad.

Kai

If you had a back-to-back test of identical brand and composition 195's and 205's the 205's will be harder to turn. Not much though, because 195's and 205's are both fairly small tires.No.