Jump to content
HybridZ

Silvermine motors electric power steering install for 240Z and 280Z


Recommended Posts

Hi Richard, I know the kit you are talking about, I am sure it is a great kit. The reason I went with this kit was the compact size, speed sensing is more in line with modern electric power steering in cars. Having the VSS signal from the LS2 made the hook up very simple. I hope to test drive today.

 

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I tested the EPS kit today on mountain roads and freeway driving. The kit performed fantastic, on the freeway not overly to much assist, Actually felt like a modern day sports car. Driving on mountain roads the car felt  very stable. Parking the car can be done with one hand just like my Honda.

 

I have to say the car is much more enjoyable  to drive with power steering then with manual steering.

 

The EPS kit was very easy to install and worked as promised.

 

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you believe you lost any of the raw / connected to the road feeling of manual steering? When you say it feels like a modern day sports car, my concern is that a lot of newer sports cars feel a bit disconnected / mushy, particularly at low speed and sharp cornering.

 

Roughly how long would you say the full install took? Did you ever get an answer back on the offset on the steering rod?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did the install over a few days. You should be able to install in less then 4 hours, depends if you need to hunt down the tach and speedo wires. I am very critical on the instillation so I take a little more time to make sure everything is how I want it. If the engine is out it would make the install a  little easier. I did the install by my self, if you have a helper it would be easier. I do not feel like I am disconnected from the road at speed.  The steering is definitely easier under around 30MPH. At speeds under 10MPH it definitely feels a lot different then manual steering.

 

The EPS kit does not offset the steering shaft on the 240Z only on the 280Z. I received an extra firewall bracket that I will make my own offset.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recently installed the power steering kit, one of the best mods to date.  The car is much more drivable now, and have no issues at highway speeds.  I ended up using the GPS sensor instead of the speedo potentiometer that came with the kit.

 

Had no issues with the fitment on my 260z (uses the same unit as the 280z), it lined up perfectly in the location of the manual rack.  As for the tach wire, I made a splice and attached it to the red/black wire on the tach itself.  The signal is basically used to tell the unit when to turn off after the car has been turned off, so it doesn't drain the battery.

 

PS_3.jpeg.fc48ddd2fc7339e18ce4cfbf9c25000a.jpeg

 

PS_1.jpeg.e6012f87d18685860e33feef125adb6c.jpeg

 

PS_2.jpeg.9de14f511acf079a7e89d0ceec1aa0bb.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They've been out of stock for some time now.  Not sure how much of an "option" it will be going forward.  That's always the issue with after market parts for ancient cars.  Sometimes companies just stop doing what they do.  Hopefully it's just a carona supply chain issue or just waiting on another batch to be built.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Clearance on the 280Z seems worse, like it's clocked differently. I tried sitting in it and hitting the clutch though and in my brief test it wasn't an issue.

 

Just have to wire it up now. I don't have the GPS sensor, but I do have a Speedhut GPS tach. It currently has an analog 0-5v speed output I had Speedhut modify for me, that I'm not using. I wonder if they can modify it to be a digital/tick or whatever the EPS needs.

 

In any case wiring looks simple, but I'm going to clean up some crap from my EMS I left in here for the past 10 years while-I'm-at-it.

 

 

eps.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wired it up temporarily to test. Not sure why there's both an IGN and "Engine RPM" (tach) hookup. I tried without the tach wire, and it seemed to cut in-and-out of assist. Put both to a spare IGN wire and it works much better. Did seem a bit finicky rotating the hub with my hand, but I'll have to put a real steering wheel on it to be sure.

 

Edited by BLOZ UP
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, BLOZ UP said:

I wired it up temporarily to test. Not sure why there's both an IGN and "Engine RPM" (tach) hookup. I tried without the tach wire, and it seemed to cut in-and-out of assist. Put both to a spare IGN wire and it works much better. Did seem a bit finicky rotating the hub with my hand, but I'll have to put a real steering wheel on it to be sure.

 

The tach wire is used to give the signal to the power steering unit to turn the unit off when the car is turned off.  This is what was explained to me when I asked Silvermine this question.  I'm assuming IGN would be used to power the internal relay in the unit?  So you would need both of them to be wired in correctly. 

 

As per my pic above, I tapped into the back of the tach gauge to get the RPM signal.  It all worked out for me very well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I definitely need to tinker with my tach and vss wire on my install as well. I hooked them up _I think_ the same way mrk3cobra did, who reported great success with it. In my case, I "feel" like the steering is much too loose at speed. I expected EPS to basically 'turn off' above around 30-40 mph. I wired a kill switch into mine, and it feels drastically different at driving speeds if I fully disable it. I was hoping for a much more progressive feel with EPS across all driving speeds, but again currently it feels like vss is being under-utilized or not utilized at all. I'll probably try adding a 'kill switch' to that wire as well and see how it behaves if I kill that wire while driving, and see if it makes any difference at all. If not, I may ping Silvermine and see if there's a way to tweak the EPS to provide less assist across the board. I absolutely love it at parking lot speeds, but it feels too jittery and active to me at driving speeds so far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

After installing the steering wheel it works great (in my garage, anyway haven't been able to drive it due to brake issues). I still have the tach and ign wires both connected to an ignition source. I'm guessing it needed the steering wheel to correctly sense torque, as you'll generate much smoother/consistent torque with the wheel over trying to crank the hub like I was.

 

There's an autox this weekend that I think the car is ready for so ill report back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How'd the autox go? What are your thoughts having now driven the car, presumably in street and racing conditions? I still need to do electrical checks on mine, as personally I feel like I have way more assist than I'd like at speed. I've gotten to where I flip the kill switch over 20mph or so...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...