power steering feel adjustment
 

Any chance the electric power steering feel / weight can be adjusted through the ECU? I'd love to make it a tad heavier if it's to light

I thought about removing it, until I found out the rack is a 13:1 ratio.

Increasing the steering weight can be easily done if they wish to because it is all in the ECU programming. It would be nice for the steering to be more heavy when in VSC sport mode.

Improving the steering feel through programming though would be quite hard. Good steering feel comes from the geometry of the whole suspension and steering system. I haven't driven the 86 yet, but I do hope it has a good steering feel/feedback.

EPAS tends to have it's own separate control unit, and it's not at all likely that it will be accessible to tuners/end-users because of liability concerns. It should be possible to effect the steering weight by altering the signal from the steering torque sensor or, if the EPAS control unit and the motor controller a separate, by altering the signal and/or power supply to the motor. Depending on how the EPAS is programmed though, any of those may cause some unforseen issues in potentially very unfortunate situations.

I've heard was that it had a nice sporty weight to it from many reviews, and NOB Taniguchi said it had a fairly tall steering ratio, but if you're used to driving race cars all the time, that might be why.

You could probably set up a switch to disconnect the power steering. PWM on the motor itself could work too, though I imagine the controller could get angry.

The cool thing is, if there is enough demand, smart people exist to engineer a solution.

I like heavy steering: we think of the 80s often as this dismal time for cars, but E30s, manual-rack AE86s, and others have that nice weight to the wheel I miss in most affordable new cars.

As a track car, I'll delete all the power steering system and have it natural as in my old car.

Why bother when there is no parasitic power loss and extra parts like on hydraulic systems? You won't gain any power back and also I don't believe you can remove the motor from the steering assembly to save weight.

I like the heavier feel of the 350/370z steering and from what I have been reading the reviewers mention the steering is kinda on the light site. Its not a deal killer so long as it is direct and accurate (my RX8 is a good example of electric power steering done right).

I thought I read somewhere someone was looking into a way to modify the steering weight but I couldn't find it again so thats why I asked.

the whole world is looking for cheap EPAS systems for their track cars and there's people that don't even have their 86's yet that want to take it out..SMH

So you think just because it's electric it doesn't cost any power?

Who do you think charges the battery? And who drives the alternator ;)

Yup, Mr 2.0 Boxer Engine.

Some smarter systems like the VW Bluemotion only drive the alternator when slowing down, so actually reusing that power to charge, and disable the alternator when accelerating, but i dont think Toyota/Subaru have implemented such a feature in this engine?

Yes, you are correct and that can also be said of anything that requires electricity on the vehicle.

I for one will be removing the ignition coils for maximum performance.