How much energy does it take to turn a power steering pump

[markweatherill]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I used a 120v power drill, varrac, kill-a-watt meter and a hand held optical tachometer.
.

You'd need to consider the efficiency of the electric drill. 200 watts drawn by the drill won't equate to 200 watts of effort.
That is, how much power does the drill consume when it's just spinning freely?
Apologies if you already took that into account!

[spacemanspif]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I am surprised how fast it warms up.
It must be stopped.

Isn't it better to have warm fluid that pumps easier than cold/thick fluid?

I just found a delete option for Ford 4cly engines on another forum. The 2008 Escape has the old engine with electric power steering so there is a bracket and idler pulley that can be used on any other car with the same engine. Idler is same dimension as PS pump so you don't even need a new belt. If I find one in a JY I'm going to give it a try but I'm not willing to spend $80+ to get a new one

[oil pan 4]

I can reuse the radiator mounted transmission heater to warm the fluid.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by markweatherill

You'd need to consider the efficiency of the electric drill. 200 watts drawn by the drill won't equate to 200 watts of effort.
That is, how much power does the drill consume when it's just spinning freely?
Apologies if you already took that into account!

Of course I took that into account. I measured the drills unloaded power draw at both test speeds, before and after each test.
To free spin the drill up to 850rpm took more than 200 watts.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

Or an electromagnetic clutch for the pulley like most alternators have now. The ECU could just disengage the pulley under certain conditions, as it does a "smart" alternator. "Smart" pulley driven power steering pump is born. Could put such a pulley on an "on/off" switch too and ckntrol it from the dash. So you would only draw power from the engine at the low RPMs that oilpan is saying draw very little power. But his test was without turning the steering wheel, so wouldn't turning the wheel increase power draw somehow?

I was looking into those alternator clutches and most appear to be one way clutches and dampeners.
That way when the auto transmission shifts and the engine RPMs suddenly drop you don't have the alternator trying to push the belt.
Apparently this can make some kind of noise or shimmy.

As best I can tell when you use power assist to turn the wheel with the vehicle sitting still the pumps power consumption goes up to at least 1hp even at low engine speed.

[Mustang Dave]

Thank you for posting this information. I didn't realize that the power steering pump's parasitic drag increased that much with RPM.
This past May, I replaced the stock crankshaft pulley on my Mustang with a 25% underdrive pulley from ASP. Thanks to underdriving the power steering pump and the water pump, I've gained about a mile per gallon.

[Frank Lee]

You know there's a guy with a Ranger who put an a/c clutch on his power steering pump and detailed it all here on EM.

[oil pan 4]

I added the clutched power steering pump ranger to the wiki mod page years ago.

I found some more info on Saginaw pumps.
All belt driven power steering pumps do the same thing so this largely applies to them too.

According to hot rod magazine the early P1 Saginaw type pump moves up to 20GPM at 5,000RPM.
The saginaw type 2 makes 15GPM at that speed.

I would really like to just take my grossly over kill Saginaw pump and just clutch it.

[deejaaa]

I would like to clutch mine but have concern about engage load burning it out. on a minibike site, there is a manual cone clutch. there were some that lost friction material due to loads but could be use on PS.

[oil pan 4]

I gave up on trying to put a clutch on the Saginaw P1 pump and just went with a 12v hydraulic power unit instead.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ion-32895.html