Cleaning up the engine bay *Tuck and Shave*

20v90q said:

Removing the P/S pump and other stuff makes no sense. Why are you doing This? "want to clean up the engine bay". This isn't a show car, it's a CIS 10v non turbo. It is what it is. Just leave it alone. Remove the belt from the power steering pump and see how crappy it is to drive.

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Have you ever driven a car without power steering. I had an 86 VW Golf without power steering and I felt like I was one with the car. Driving at higher speeds feels like you actually have control of the car. And people who say that driving in parking lots sucks without power steering obviously don't have any muscles or they are turning the wheel without moving which "dry steering" is bad for you steering rack anyways. Plus PRA4WX is right just removing the belt isn't what it's really like cause you are still trying to force fluid through an inoperable p/s pump.

As for cruise control I have never used it on this car or any of my cars, I never really understood why people love it so much. And for my A/C I'm still trying to figure out if I want to remove that. To show you how much I care about the A/C, I've owned the car for 6 months and I don't even know if it works cause I haven't even turned it on yet. I'm from Seattle and it only gets hot in the Summer and 90 degree days are few and far between. Plus I lived in SoCal which had many 100+ degree days and I didn't have A/C in a couple of my cars down there. So not to worried about it.

I know I will only get a whooping 2-5 HP and 20-30 pounds less weight but that is just one small benefit. I like the look of an engine without all the bullsh!t like trhe good ol' days of just motor and trans. And like PRA4WX said it is so much easier to work on the engine without things I don't even need or care about.

I'm not trying to bash on your thoughts 20v90q, I just want you to know why I'm doing the things I want to do. And no it's not a show care but I do want to take it to plenty of shows. And everyday I treat my car like it's gonna be in a show that night

Thanks PRA4WX for knowing whats up, and for backing me up!!!!! WORD!!!!!

PEACE.
CHRIS.

Psychorallyfreak, I'm writing this thread to hear some positive feedback like you and Micah have given. I was gonna just gonna loop the power and return lines like you said but didn't know if it would be as nice as a manual rack. I've heard a lot of junk yards will trade a manual rack with a power rack straight across you money out of pocket. I was just gonna make sure that there was plenty of fluid in the looped lines and thought that would help. I know that Honda owners do the loop trick when they remove their P/S, but of course how many of us trust what the majority of them do Do you know how much of a difference there is between looped lines and a manual rack? Have you driven a car both ways? If it's not a huge difference I'm not to worried about it.

As for cruise control you are right, now that I'm thinking about it when I moved from Southern California to Seattle, Washington I did use my cruise control in my 1997 Toyota Avalon (The only Japanese Import I will ever buy again) and it was nice, but I was also on plenty of Norco (Vicodin (This was during my painkiller addiction(I was an idiot :tard: ))) However I don't take to many long trips unless I'm going camping but it's only like a 2 hour drive to most places or if I go to Vancouver Canada and that only about 2.5 hours. Another good thing about cruise control is when you have a cop behind you and need to drive at a steady 35 miles an hour :-D

When I remove my cruise control, what do I need to cap off when I remove the vac lines. I know there's the hole on the Intake Manifold I need to cap off. Right?????

i love clean engine bays, the ones that look like theres nothing else but an engine.. i hate the whole wireing and cluttered look..

I dont know what effect just removing the pump and lines would do to the rack itself. A manual rack would have to be installed, Id think, which isnt easy.

Removing the cruise should only take a few minutes, just remember to cap off the necessary vac lines.

AC components are alot of weight and can take a while to remove.

IMHO a clean engine bay like the one pictured above is really tough to do with the JT or KX engine; the CIS and associted stuff just takes up too much space, and then you have the radiator, coolant tank, yadda yadda. As Audi modernized the engine bays got alot cleaner (UrS4, B4 90, etc).

Without putting a more modern engine in there with fancy covers its really going to be a challenge to just clean things up by removing things. Makes it seem like the car is missing necessary parts more than anything.

If you can get a manual rack that would be neat though.

Just my 3 cents

I like manual steering a lot, and can tell you exactly what will be involved in converting your 4KQ other than removing all the PS stuff and swapping racks.

I installed a VW Fox rack on my Quantum. The Fox rack's input shaft (what connects to the steering column) is shorter than the PS rack's shaft, so the lower piece of the column needs to be lengthened. At the same time, the PS column and the manual rack have different splines, so you need to make a hybrid lower column that mates the two together. Also, the steering damper (which you will want with manual steering) bracket is a bit in the way of a brake line, so it needs to be cut, re-positioned and welded back together. You could possibly get away with just bending the bracket, but welding makes a neater, more OE job of it.

It's a simple conversion that is well worth the effort, but you will need to be able to weld or to know somebody who can.

Steering feel is fine. I have been driving Foxes for years, so I am totally used to manual steering. Don't let people scare you out of converting if you like manual steering. The ratio is set up on the manual racks to give the driver more mechanical advantage, but it does not significantly affect steering quickness or the responsiveness of the car.