Mr. 1.6

Just wandering how you do compared to the P5s. Right now Im driving a 1.6L 2000 sedan. I seem to be slightly faster than the P5s but I dont know if its because of the weight or the drivers.

Does anyone know wich car holds more cornering force with the same tires? P5 or 1.6 sedan?

Also if anyone else does run the 1.6 do you notice lag in the power assisted steering when turning the wheel quickly from lock to lock while going from a tight hairpin in one direction to another in the other direction? Can anyone tell me how I might cure that? Its totally cramping my style.

Thanks.

Simon.

ZoomZoomH

you're just a better driver than the P5 drivers you're comparing to

autox is 90% driver, 10% car, or something like that

rowan

Of course Simon is better than me .. he's been doing it longer
But that few hundred pounds of weight would make a fair bit of difference when throwing it around.

There was a guy in a yellow P5 at a PITL event who was within a second of Wes and Ryan on r-compounds.

Mr. 1.6

haha! Rowan is that you? RJacobs? Yo dont worry your gonna figure out where to squeeze some extra time out of the courses this season when you get more course reading experience. You are always one of the cleanest guys on the track but you are taking every corner marked by the cones.

Youll read between the lines/cones more as time goes by and straighten out a lot more stuff. Check out the vids of us. I noticed that you were hugging most of the cones on the insides of the corners. Sometimes I could tell that doing that made some of your corners into changing apex corners forcing you to change the rate of direction change at a part of the corner where you could have been flyin. We should talk track sometime. Theres not enough tiime at the track.

I am interested in P5s because I bet a few more will pop up at the Hershey center this year now that you got the bandwagon rolling. I got to Drive Obender66s and its sweet! But its hard to tell if it was getting arround the corners faster because the lot was a bit sandy and the steering input and suspension is a lot sharper feeling than my car. Plus we had totally different tires. I kind of wish that you had kept your P5 so it would be easier to see how much you improve on the videotape. It doesnt really matter though. You just better kick some Type R *** next year.

But I still have to cure this power assist lag. I can save a lot of time if the car lets me turn the steering wheel fast enough.

Mr. 1.6

Hey if we got within a second of those guys all season it would put us on the podium in the points!

Davard

That's a problem on all Proteges, but mainly in 1st gear. Mazda uses something called engine-speed variable steering. The idea is that the faster you are going, the less assist you need. I don't think they had autocrossing in mind when they designed the system. As the engine speed increases, the pressure drops (Bernoulli?).

The only cure (IIRC) is to drill out the orifice on the output of the pump (from a old showroom stock racer). I'm not even sure it can be done on the Protege's pump. Not legal for stock or street-prepared, anyway. And not really recommended.

The only real cure is staying in 2nd in the tight parts.

Mr. 1.6

Thanks Davard.

So this happens on all proteges eh? Hmm why would they make it drop the amount of assist with the engine speed and not with the wheels speed? Gotta find a way to disable that system. Hopefully theres a way to stop it from sensing the engines speed so it will keep the assist pressure up.

David

I just thought that you were over powering the system. my miata and my protege both had this lag. I drove my friends Honda and it was worst than the Mazda. Now that I'm thinking about it my old 1979 Mercury did some thing like it, ( Like the pump could not keep up).

kcbhiw

Does this include the 1st gens? I've never experienced any delays with my Escort which uses the same rack and such as the 1st gens.

Mr. 1.6

Phew! Im glad other people have noticed this too! I was thinking maybe I was going crazy because everyone I asked said they dont have this problem. I didnt know if it was just my car.

Mr. 1.6

Hey I found out a bit about the engine speed variable steering . Its a valve that is pushed closed by the increased pressure of the pump when the revs spin it faster. When you slow down the engine a spring pushes it back open. It is very simple to remove the spring and vlalve all together and have full flow going through all the time.

But I am worried about the rest of the system wich will get a lot more pressure when the pump is going like crazy at high RPMs. I will probably try this after Christmas when I wont need my car so much.

Anybody know about pumps and stuff? Am I going to blow out seals or lines when I get the revs up? Im trying this either way but I dont know what to expect.

Hey Rowan I found out this stuff from the Mazdaspeed development. I sighnd up for it. Thanks!

Also thanks to my Brother in law who is a mechanic and knew what to look for.

Davard

The non-GT Escorts don't have engine-speed-sensitive steering. But even the EGT has different steering than the Protege LX (American-tuned feel).

kcbhiw

Gotcha. I was wondering, because my LX always seemed quite responsive in the steering department, even through slaloms.

Mr. 1.6

Hey maybe the guys with the first gen proteges who autocross can swap the pump from the escort into the pro to kill the speed sensing crap.