So as a few of you know who follow me on social media, I had a big power steering failure leading into the kink at barber (which is a high commit fast left to right-hander where a lot of wrecks happen). Looking back at some video data and through my own memories, I could feel the steering not wanting to return to center a few turns before, it must've cooled off on the big front straight, but leading into the kink after the hairpin and chicane, I had nothing. I'm happy to report nothing catastrophic happened on track, I've turned enough laps in this car and at Barber to know something was up. I wrestled the gorilla for 1/2 a lap back to the paddock. Losing PS in the middle of a flyer is not that fun, however!
Anyhow, the PS never returned all day, when I got back to the paddock, the fluid was cooked, and all over the place. It was a brand new reservoir, new fluid and I run the little motorcycle overflow tank like many of us do. The fluid was smoking hot and smelled awful upon inspection. I replaced the fluid trackside and tried to bleed the system, but the pump just never wanted to pump, I suspect the pump was dead. The OEM PS system has 167k miles on it, so I will blame that on the failure, don't think this was a freak accident. In the 10 track events and 5k miles I have put on this car since I acquired it in April 2020, PS has been rock solid other than the infamous spewing of fluid.
I tore the system down upon returning to the shop and nothing noteworthy was going on in the pump when I tore it down individually, but I don't know these pumps well enough visually to see if there's any problem. I was planning to replace the entire system due to the amount of metal sludge I found in my reservoir. Ordered a new pump, lines, cooler, and rack. Probably best to have a spare rack at my mileage anyways.
The car was great for the three sessions on street tires, really impressed with my aero and new 3.62 Drexler diff. I only got two "hot laps" on slicks before the PS died, so never hit a PB for the weekend, but did come within 1-2 tenths of my fast slick times from last year on a set of old stock RE71's with the new setup, so that was cool. Bummer that it went out when it did!
Onto the solution - electro-hydraulic kits. After sharing my experience with Mr. he turned me on to electro-hydraulic (JPmarketing) setup for our platform, which looks like it is very simple and looks to be reliable from some of the feedback I've gathered. I also found these two threads which nudged me into more research.
https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1308104
https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1274968
It's kinda-sorta available through Motorsport24 and JPmarketing but neither one of them have brackets made which is half the battle. I've also had some lengthy with Jason from @OGShark as he is running the MS24 kit. OG has a kit in the workings as well which sounds like it will be a very good and similar solution to the other offerings.
Ultimately I needed a solution like yesterday as I have an event December 17-18 at Sebring, rather than installing all this OEM stuff back in and working twice, I've acquired most of my own parts (hoses, fittings) and partnered with Leddy Motorsports to be a placement tester for their bracket. The pump I've personally is sourced is from Poland/Germany (actually out for delivery today), which is the same pump both JPmarketing and MS24 use - single-speed on or off MB pump. I'll provide some feedback over the next few weeks when I get it on track, but i'm assuming that i'll have a similar experience for those who have. Many people will worry this will mess with the "steering feel" which our rack is a bit different because it uses an EVO, which sends back unneeded fluid to the pump to keep high speed feel and stability the same regardless of how much fluid is thrown at it. So steering feel should be totally unaffected by changing the pump, as we are only changing the way fluid gets delivered to the rack. Through some info from MS24 and OGshark, it looks like the cooler can be removed as well since the fluid will be running much cooler not spinning at 8450 rpm. I will be personally be doing some temp testing on the fluid with an inline temp sensor to my aim, and some thermal infrared testing back in the paddock of the fluid before and right off a hot lap.
Motorsport24 kit is sourced from Europe at a pretty high price (around $2100 with no bracket), but OG's kit and the other vendor I am working with (Leddy motorsports) should be a much more cost-effective option. I want to make sure I give credit where credit is due as OG already has an alternative kit in the making, and we've spoken in length about the cooler being removed and pump placement. The best part about it is the whole left side serpentine gets removed, which is awesome from both a space aspect and gets the engine revving a bit quicker. The caveat is AC removal. There may be a workaround to keep the ac via a shorter belt, but space-wise the pump is pretty tall, so it takes up some real estate where the ac compressor currently sits. This is the ultimate goal. I will keep everyone updated via my build thread, I'm hoping it takes some load off the motor, makes the PS system more reliable and quits spewing PS fluid all over the place.