Give your Classic Car Electric Power Steering - HOW TO

Installing the Saturn Vue Electric Power steering motor in my 1975 Datsun 280z. Same logic applies to any classic car with manual steering. Hope this helps and maybe saves your forearms :)
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[@neighborhoodkids2000]

A full parts list would be pretty cool. Thanks for the info it’s exactly what I was hoping to see.

[@Trumpetmac]

I just did this upgrade on my 280zx ls swap. Mine is under the dashboard using a 2007 Toyota prius electric power steering system. Works Awesome!!

[@cobimcbride9591]

Were you able to do a modulation knob? if so where did you find it?

[@Van_frederick]

@@cobimcbride9591 I'd like to know this aswell

[@StewartMotoring]

I thought I posted the sensitivity knob in the video where to get it on eBay. At least what the listing looked like. Is that what your talking about?

[@tonymontana4349]

Using a Prius design if anyone knows how I can do the sensitivity adjustable knob or where to buy the plug and play thanks

[@accordfreak1]

@terrance do you have details on your setup

[@gus91343]

I did this back in 2017 to my car- still working great!

[@7s29]

Nice. I plan on fitting one of these on my car. It'll make driving the car so much better, and less tiring.

[@PhillipTieuChainz]

Def take this to the next level by having the switch adjustment done by the speed sensor to ecu output. I would love to see how that's done. something like 100% assist at less than 5 mph while 0% for anything beyond 5 mph.

[@StewartMotoring]

Yea that would be the next level for sure. I have an ecu master emu. It should be smart enough to program something like that. I’ll have to look into it.

[@latimer4964]

This is what I did. I'm running a Prius EPAS system. I built a config page where I can build input control maps based on the VSS.

[@oliverroedel1111]

as an older guy I learned that you never ever turn the steering with the car stopped. you always go e little bit, that helps to turn the steering and prolongs the steering components life. that´s valid for all kind of steering systems, even hydraulic or electric.

[@ignitionac117]

So awesome, I was looking for this in order to free some HPs form the engine!

[@raduorban]

At some point the tyres on the epoxy floor almost sounds like the 20 century fox theme 😂😂😂😂😂. Nice video ✌✌✌✌

[@ForgeSpace]

Dude, that is awesome! If I wasn't going to go with hydroboost for my brakes, I would be doing this!!!

[@jesse5222]

Awesome video. I want do electric steering on mine as well so thanks for posting

[@jjones5083]

I used to work as a steering design engineer and would NOT do this. 1 These EPS units are designed for use inside the car where it's clean and dry, with moderate temperatures. Not under the bonnet, where it may be wet or hot. Water ingress may cause corrosion on the circuit boards. 2 According to Newton, all the assist torque is reacted through that little mounting bracket. 3 The input shaft normally has an upper steering column and a bearing at the top, which eliminates bending loads. Unlike this installation, which practically guarantees them, due to cardan joint angles etc

[@darionherbert8449]

I used the nissan versa motor on my mazda b2000 so I don't have the adjustable assist but my steering box got some slop so the next project is a steering rack conversion. I'm in the caribbean so our cars are rhd. The steering box is located at the front of the wheels and most cars the rack is located behind the wheels so it's not as simple as placing the rack in front the wheels, the wheels will go in the opposite direction of the steering.

[@psychodocter]

Gr8 mod and vid! Nice work and TY 4 posting it!

[@tonymontana4349]

Came out pretty good thinking about using this type of setup

[@tonymontana4349]

I just fabricated the bracket for my Prius steering on my car man thanks a million I really appreciate ur video it kind of gave me the go ahead once again man thanks

[@carllattimore8227]

Thanks for the video. This will definately be going into my swaps going forward. I liked the switch panel at the end as well!

[@justin________7477]

Thanks for adding the links and info - doing an EPAS conversion on my Camaro and was trying to figure out which motor/controller combination allows for the potentiometer dial adjustment like you have.

[@comfort_in_discomfort]

Excellent. So much more enjoyable to drive this way. Nice work.

[@yotaismygame]

FYI you can get the whole column for much cheaper if you just go to a wrecking yard. I didn’t even have to pull mine. Could make a business buying them up and posting on eBay lol Interesting take on doing this. Thanks for sharing

[@buchmannray]

Great video, I'll be doing this to my 74 Corvette

[@evandisick6934]

Amazing man. I have no power steering on my 65 Mustang and it’s horrible! I wish I had the skills, tools, facilities to do this. And while I’m at it, throw in the girlfriend to test it!!!

[@davewm9589]

Nice work, looks like it will really help out in those tight parking spots.

[@StewartMotoring]

Yes! Parking lots were/are not my friend. It’ll be easier to steer but now I really gotta get an lsd (currently welded) and then they will be no issue at all 😄

[@davewm9589]

@@StewartMotoring yikes a welded diff and a parking lot sounds like a inner circle of he&&!

[@Gwagon33]

Great upgrade and well explained 👍

[@StewartMotoring]

Thank you. Appreciate it

[@danlaw1007]

Love to see the 1jz in there and TRD gear knob i have in my Levin

[@paulshamblin6260]

That's really cool. Now turning your steering wheel activates a snare drum 😆. You start no way to adapt a hydraulic power steering like a ZX unit to the car?

[@luzsolis3096]

Very nice job Mate!

[@MrBigleo25]

Can you go into a little more detail on what parts you cut down how much you cut out and some of the wiring

[@MARCHOFTHESAS]

looking to do something like this on my 55 customline. lets see what i can find out about it

[@Dolf260z]

Good Install and upgrade Mate! Only thing I don't like about the unit is how big and bulky it is. I wonder if there is some factory option that is a little more discrete? I hated going to parking lots in the Z.

[@grahamt4959]

By factory do you mean stock from Datsun?

[@thisislargemouth5566]

I'm getting ready to dump a 302 into my Datsun pickup and I need to figure out power steering. I was going to use the factory mustang pump and run it to a hardbody power steering box but it doesn't look like that factory mustang pump is going to fit. This is something I'll have to look into.

[@carlosmendoza6998]

are you going to cover the ECU wiring with water resistant material? id be afraid of it shorting if you go over a deep puddle of water or if it rains since the ECU is near the firewall where the water touches, and ive read that the electric upgrade is difficult to manually dial in at higher speeds, since the ECU, i believe, uses stock speed sensor data to adjust the sensitivity in the electric motor.. so at higher speeds, the sensitivity is decreased so that you dont oversteer at higher speeds if you have to swerve quickly iirc, like you said at the end. It'd be interesting to see or attempt a workaround around that with your ipad speedometer setup

[@rosslawrence4628]

You are right about needing water proofing. I killed a stock ECU with rain water. I don't feel the need for adjusting the power steering for my DF Goblin, but there is an aftermarket controller that has GPS speed information, and will adjust the sensitivity based on speed.

[@tvrusa5196]

Thanks!…. Just the video I needed to see!…. Do you know if this unit would work without a dial? …. Playing with idea doing it to my TVR.

[@simonsautorepair8082]

Hi buddy thanks for the video where did you get those joints? Any part number?

[@icemanb5065]

looking like the most reasonable way to mount it without wrecking many parts. Will water touch the ECU box?

[@StewartMotoring]

I don’t drive the car in the rain but if you do you’ll want to design with that in mind, I did add a shield for it though just incase

[@jaliennation9169]

nice. i hope that weld holds up :/ i want to do this! are there spline to spline adapters?

[@shemheliodore9637]

I’m thinking of doing this! How’s it been, and the handling especially when you get up to speed

[@chopperking1122]

how much pos. caster are you runing in the front end ?

[@efiniGTX]

Hey, i’m in the middle of the same swap. What throttle cable did you use?

[@StewartMotoring]

It’s called a LOKAR universal throttle cable. Just adapted that to work for my setup. Not overly priced either. Bought on ebay.

[@p__jay]

don’t think it will fit that way with my 280Z turbo engine…the turbo and exhaust is in that position = too much heat as well. I’ll see if it can be installed inside and retain the collapsible column 🤞🏻

[@karumehuie1407]

I have a 2010 exiga on my electrical power steering light come on the dashboard what that mean

[@tonymontana4349]

Nice setup can u please send me the link so I can buy the sensitivity adjustability thanks man

[@bkracing8891]

What size fuse are you running on the big wire or you just tie in to positive battery no fuse? The positive accessory wire from the switch just goes to a small 12 volt wire no fuse?

[@StewartMotoring]

I actually didn’t run a fuse for the big power wire it, I suppose I could or should. I just used oversize wire and the ps motor shouldn’t pull over pull. But I guess a fuse anyway would be a nice safety. May do that later. Accessory wire is ran to a power block which is protected by a fuse.

[@aone7528]

Please make a full parts list

[@idokwatcher2062]

Can it be rewired to only assist below 30mph/50kmh?

[@StewartMotoring]

Not the way it’s setup currently. Would have to integrate some kind of speed sensor input data.

[@merykjenkins3274]

These 'dial up' sensitivity mods are pretty dangerous. If you have it set with heaps of assist and forget to turn it down, you could end up oversteering (and then overcorrecting) on the freeway and having an accident. The potentiometer wires are connected to a device that converts speed of the vehicle to the amount of assist, usually in the ecu. Doing this mod without replicating the speed/assist function is not safe. It can be done with a $10 arduino and a bit of playing around with some cheap components. Or you could have a 'parking assist' button that gives you 2 minutes of max before automatically falling back to a safe setting for high speed. That would be even easier and probably how I'm going to do it as I'm not going to be travelling too fast in my 68 land rover, but I don't want to be doing barrel rolls on the freeway none the less 🙃

[@acescottking]

" It can be done with a $10 arduino and a bit of playing around with some cheap components." I'd like to see how that works. Have you tried doing it?

[@merykjenkins3274]

@@acescottking I've not done it with a power steering mod as my old banger is stone age stuff. It all depends on the type of power steering you get and the type of car you have. If you can't get a signal from an ecu (mine is purely mechanical), then you need a method of calculating speed. I would use a $5 hall effect sensor module on the tail shaft and feed that into an input pin on the arduino. Then it's a bit of maths to figure out how many rpm of the tailshaft equals how many k's or m's per hour. Then use the outputs of the arduino to drive a 12v pwm module in place of the potentiometer. Then of course there is a bit of coding to figure out the output voltage curve to the rpm. But some of the power steering units I've seen won't accept an analogue signal and need a digital input from the ecu. If that's the case then you need to figure out what that signal looks like and get the arduino to replicate it based on the calculated rpm. I built a system like this years ago for a different application but using a mini plc instead of an arduino. Like I said, I probably won't do all that. I'll have a button that operates a cheap timer driven relay. The normally off contacts will allow 12v through a resistor set for high speed and the switched contacts will connect 12v through a resistor set for low speed. That way it's fail safe (switches to reduced assist in case of failure). I built one of these for an application in my garage and it cost me about $6 (and no coding!). The downside is, it's not variable and you only get good assist when you press the button. But either of these methods is infinitely safer than a potentiometer.

[@NonStock_1]

hi, I am going to swap this eps on my drift project, but I was said that prius eps can't return the steering wheel as it doesn't have steering angle sensor. Can you give me some advice about this? I would like to know how it could be fixed or which is better one for this purpose (maybe opel corsa b or c eps) ? thanks :)

[@StewartMotoring]

What do you need this return steering wheel function for?

[@NonStock_1]

@@StewartMotoring I have a drift car, so in my case it's very important to return wheel going sideways

[@jakewilcox4361]

wondering how this turned out. is the steering feel numb? has the motor failed on you at all?

[@StewartMotoring]

Not sure what you mean by numb, but since I have the dial for assist I can really get any feel I like. No issues since installation. Sometimes I turn it off and I just can’t believe I used to drive drive without it.

[@jakewilcox4361]

@@StewartMotoring numb as in less road feel than before installation.

[@unleavenedkaraiteplus3412]

Nice swap but that ECM wasn't designed to run outside, meaning it isn't water proof.

[@StewartMotoring]

Thanks, I’ll let you know how it holds up when I drive into a lake.

[@Em-ck2zt]

Can we get a part list plz

[@ka24det]

Why am I watching all of the electric power steering retrofits on KZbin? I have absolutely no need for this information!

[@StewartMotoring]

😂

[@horacegray2417]

Have you had any issues with the wiring running 10 gauge?

[@StewartMotoring]

No issues, still works good

[@horacegray2417]

@@StewartMotoring that’s great the instructions that came with the power plug, said to use 2 awg. I thought that was way over kill. did you run any type of of fuse or circuit breaker on the power supply wires?

[@StewartMotoring]

My battery has a breaker type fuse which is maybe 150 amps, but my power wires runs from there to alt/starter/power steering. So no specific fuse for the ES motor.

[@horacegray2417]

@@StewartMotoring good to know I read on forms that they want to in-line 50 to 60 amp fuse or breaker in between it so if yours is working fine then I’m good with not putting one in. Thanks for the fast reply.

[@404_profile_not_found]

"Its so hard to turn!" Girlfriend turns the wheel without straining

[@ianhowes9225]

I ordered everything I just need to understand where the wires go

[@StewartMotoring]

The eBay wiring kit has a diagram

[@abdulkaderalothmani6231]

Dman, I like it can you do I can do it my classic car 1965 cadillac deville

[@2460speedy]

Shouldnt the motor unit be placed under the dash?

[@StewartMotoring]

If you can fit it under the dash go for it. I don’t expect my engine bay to get wet. It may get hot but should be alright.

[@Dont_Gnaw_on_the_Kitty_1]

@@StewartMotoring Expect the unexpected and plan for the worst case. Your installation looks a bit unsafe.

[@StewartMotoring]

If electric steering fails it will revert to manual steering. Which this car had manual steering from factory. It’s fine bud

[@brettbergen9206]

u still have the fusion?

[@StewartMotoring]

Yea

[@sensei1781]

If the motor dies would the steering lock up?

[@StewartMotoring]

It would not. What’s nice is the engine does not have to be running to have the benefit of electric steering. I often push my car around the garage and just need to flip the power switch.

[@sensei1781]

@@StewartMotoring sorry I meant more the motor of the power steering pump itself, not the actual vehicles motor.

[@StewartMotoring]

Oh, if the steering motor dies then it would just become manual steering. No assist.

[@trumpisaconfirmedcuck5840]

That's really not that bad with manual steering. I had power steering go out on a 94 caprice (4200 pound car) and that was a bitch.

[@wolverinemods6386]

Where can i order this from

[@StewartMotoring]

Ebay

[@wolverinemods6386]

@@StewartMotoring how much to get a mechanic to install it ?

[@bigcubanc3880]

I think you made a mistake I think you should have put it inside the car the old Rig.

[@jcook69camaro]

your helper looks better with her hair down.. JK nice install

[@tanaseav]

God, that's awful, mounting point is horror, wiring is a mess, clearance is catastrophic. I don't see how you would to it any worse, maybe with zip ties...