It’s good to hear the rationale behind keeping/removing the PAS and that the forum is lively about such topics!
I have a number of reasons to remove it, but mainly to eliminate anything that ‘dulls’ the sensations. I’m sure the system is very good, but I’ve yet to drive something with PAS that gives the sensation of what the front tyres are doing. I’ve driven a couple of Caterhams and a few other performance cars, and learnt to drive in an old 323. I just find the lack of feedback with PAS removes me from what is going on. The best PAS I’ve experienced was on an F360 (which apparently is the worst of the F355 - F458 re steering feel). A Ferrari is out of my budget by some margin, and also, where would I use it properly?
The car is going to be used for light competition and the odd road trip. I’m happy to have the parking-lot barge as long as it feels great whilst carving some roads up here in Scotland!
Older cars without pas had lower geared steering.
Heaving around a modern car with fat tyres but without pas sounds a nightmare.
How about just putting a smaller steering wheel on it?
That will effectively reduce leverage and increase steering weight while making it even more flickable…
When I got my Mk1 9 years ago, I particularly wanted the simplest, lightest version I could find, ie no PAS, wind up windows, no central locking, no abs. The standard manual rack turned out to be very good, but a slightly slower ratio than the PAS one. That was my reason for fitting a de-powered one - quicker steering than the standard manual. I’ve driven other mk1s with PAS, and personally I don’t like it at all, and really don’t see why a sub-1000kg roadster needs it. It does, in my opinion, dull the steering feel and for me interferes with what I’m doing. I don’t find the de-powered rack heavy at all with 195/50x15s, but then again I started driving in an era when only big heavy posh cars had power steering.
It’s very much a horses for courses thing. My present Alfasud racer doesn’t have it, the caterham I had before obviously didn’t either, and My first two cars - a Saab 99 and a polo didn’t. A plethora of high performance cars including a couple of porches did. Conversely my old class f Alfa 75 did. Of all those cars including the MX5 the 75 was in my experience by far the most involving and exciting to drive but the camber caster and toe had been set to what felt like perfection working with roll centre, roll bar, damper settings and spring rates set up by the best motor engineer and race prep specialist I’ve ever known (Roger Evans - Peak Alfa). I rate the MX5 ahead of the caterham on the road provided the MX5 is set up as I like it. Still miss that 75. Glad I have a photo of it.
Apart from at parking speeds, NAs and NBs have even better and more precise steering if properly de-powered. This is even the case with 15x9 wheels and 225 R888s, although that last combo is hard to manoeuvre around the paddock.
That’s your opinion. It wouldn’t suit me. It’s dependant upon driver and road and even car set up.
I’d personally not be overly happy if I was deprived of PAS going through the esses at Harewood in an MX5 or on my favourite local road Hartside with my steering weight all over the place while trying to judge how much road kerb I have but everyone is different. It may suit to be without at Stowe but not at the complex at Croft. Personally I think it’s the better car for having PAS but each to their own.
As you say, each to their own. Have you tried one without PAS? Because of more feel through the steering I went 2 seconds faster when the PAS belt fell off mid-session at Philip Island, and another second faster on my next visit with the steering properly de-powered. The guy who bought the car from me when I left Australia only uses it on the street and has not felt the need to re-power it.
I haven’t. That said other than the fact that my old Caterham was so light without pas it would have been ridiculous to add it I didn’t marvel at its lack of pas. It being light weight most of the time (still slowing on turn in was a bit too much understeer for me) therefore was far more important to me.
We’ll all be familiar with EVOs buying guide reproduced here without their kind permission.
“One other specification decision concerns the steering. The MX-5 was designed to have power steering, and product planner, ex-journo and MX-5 co-creator Rob Hall has said that the non-PAS option with its slower rack, engineered in haste late in the programme for certain base models, spoiled the car’s alert, incisive feel and evo’s experience bears this out. If someone tells you the non-PAS car is ‘purer’, don’t believe them.”
I don’t like all pas. I don’t like electric systems at all but I’ve never found the pas on the MX5 intrusive or leaving short of feel. I’ve no reason to change in the same way some people tell me steak tartare is way better than cottage pie. I’m sure for them that’s the case but I’m still not trying the steak Tatare
Indeed i read that into the article too. But it’s not lost on me that the MX5 is intended to have pas. There are likely many marketing reasons for this but the point I also take was the MX5 is engineered to retain feel and suitable weight to have mass appeal and I like it like that. The point of me responding to this is I’m an enthusiastic driver, sometimes racer and petrol head, probably much the same as yourself, but for every person who finds handling heaven with de powered pas, there will be plenty more who strongly prefer it with and can likely peddle the car faster or, more importantly have a more enjoyable drive, with it like that too.
I was pleasantly surprised by how very positive the PAS is on my NC.
Unlike most other cars, it lacks the usual dead spot in the centre, and does not wander when trying to steer straight ahead. It is simple, light and precise, it goes only where I point it. It is always a joy to drive it after something lesser with poor PAS.
I’m a person who normally hates PAS because all too often I find it’s generally hard work keeping the car straight on a boring flat straight motorway, needlessly tiring.
I grew up without PAS on a wide range of cars from the early 1960s, mostly big heavy cars with no problems of heavy steering, just positive and light and no float. When properly set up, once rolling even a big 30cwt Humber Hawk with (cheap re-grades at 5 for £20 in 1971) ER70 XJ6 tyres handled light and precise like a 1960s mini.
I even chose a non-PAS option on my first ever brand-new car in 1994 after being very disappointed how bad ALL the many previous hire and fleet cars with PAS were (wander, dead spot, etc).
Our two most recent brand-new cars had/have the same PAS dead/wander problems. I cured it on the Vextra by choosing tram-line-resistant tyres with a better shoulder profile (Dunlop SP). But on our current Mazda3 it’s still there even after a proper WIM alignment check; I expect/hope it will be much better once I change away from the truly awful OEM Toyo nano-energy later this year.
This is an excellent point. In Alfa’s, which are my other hobby poison we talk about roll centres and caster and camber and toe and spring rates and damper compression and rebound rates. I am a simple soul so I have to reread the books every time and still only understand it in broad outline. All these contribute to handling - which is different to steering feel but they can then markedly impact feel - example the “big75 (as opposed to the little sud) pictured in my earlier post.
Evo couldn’t even get his name right. Bob Hall used to post on Miataforum, as “Bwob”
" I like non-assisted steering. Equally, I like power-assisted steering.
What I don’t like is bad steering.
In this particular context the concept of ‘bad’ applies equally to a vague, overassisted power tiller as it does to a non-assisted one which exhibits excessive column/rack friction (which people somehow equate to ‘feel’) and/or loads up at the sight of a curve. And with my reference points, the non-assisted steering of the Miata (NA or NB) qualifies as bad.
There’s a lot to the old adage of “the best you’ve driven is the best you know”, which is why I suspect the non-assisted system has the proponents it does.
Unfortunately I’ve driven too many cars with non-assisted steering which place the Miata’s in a negative light. Mind you this is neither especially good nor hideous if taken as an absolute. However, in the context of a reasonably lightweight sports car absolutes are exceedingly difficult to apply and/or rationalize; context is what denotes the difference between that which may be merely acceptible and that which is exceptional.
The Miata’s non-assisted steering is - based on my reference points - nowhere close to the level of competence displayed by rest of the Miata’s chassis. Which means it’s not as good as it should be.
When price-engineered econoboxes like the second-generation Nissan Micra/March have better on-center feel, still with a quick ratio and are utterly devoid of load-up as lock is applied, the inadequacies of the Miata’s non-assisted steering become readily apparent. I won’t even raise the subject of things like the delightful non-assisted steering gear of Series I through SE Lotus Elans, as such comparisons cause the position of the Miata to become even more odious.
Given the work which the development staff put into the Miata, it deserved better than the underdone non-assisted steering forced upon it by unwarranted concerns from an offshore sales department. And the proposed assisted set-up was indeed a delight on the mules I drove with it. As stated in an alternate thread, it was perhaps the second-best power-assisted steering set-up I’d ever driven. Not bad when the only things better – or at least as good – cost a minimum of six to ten times what a Miata does.
…The tweaks to the power steering used on 1994 and later NAs (as well as NBs) embodied some of the work which had been done for the original gear and is better in terms of the subjective aspects of the assisted steering where the hardware in 1.6 litre NAs falls short.
Well, at least to me. But I like anchovies on pizza, all the Thin Man movies, blonde Asian girls who wear pink thigh-high boots with matching microdresses (so I married the second one I could find), every record/CD written or recorded by Yumi Arai/Matsutoya, and Watanabe Yoshimasa’s manga, so I will readily - and happily - accept that my tastes are not universal. Nor do I think they should be.
I’m still acutely peeved by the fact that if the development of the car had gone according to plan, there would be no non-assisted steering, period. Instead, the power system would have gotten the development and tuning it deserved (before the money stopped coming in as Mazda hit the wall financially in the late 1980s) and nobody would be any the wiser. Other than expressing delight at how good the Miata’s (power) steering was. The only griping would be coming from the mob who place philosophy before output. And they could always disconnect the pump."
" Particularly at center, the non-assisted rack is woollier, artifacts of the underdevelopment it received from coming into the program so late as well as an effort to reduce kickback. The original go-around was a thumb-breaker over some common road surface disruptions.
Unlike subjective feel, the benefits of the quicker rack cannot be denied, at least by anyone who understands that a quick steering ratio is part of the fabric of any sports car. Those into philosophy to the exclusion of fact are unlikely to be swayed, however.
Mazda’s chief test driver when the Miata was underdevelopment along with one of the factory race drivers (Terada-san, I believe) both mentioned that the non-assisted steering could be appreciated by those who were accustomed to wrestling with a car, and that the power steering would be more rewarding to a driver understanding and using delicacy while behind the wheel. The fact Nate mentioned the delicacy aspect lets me know this hasn’t been lost on some owners as well.
Of course if the Program Manager and the chassis development team had gotten their way, this argument would never have existed in the first place."
" My biggest complaint is that the rack is so damn slow. Just shy of a complete turn lock-to-lock is slow in my book, but then I wasn’t raised in or around Detroit Iron. I was pretty appalled when I learned that there with cars requiring more than 3.5 turns lock-to-lock. Being dropped into a Plymouth Fury III is a bad way to start Driver Training when you’ve been spending all your clandestine wheel time in things like an Austin-Healey 100S, MGA Twin Cam and an XK-SS.
I probably feel as comfortable in my blanket condemnation of cars with steering slower than that of the assisted Miata as the non-assisted steering clan does with their philosophical arguments against the assisted tiller. And with a similar lack of logic supporting the belief.
Of course if Hirai-san and Kijima-san got their way, people everywhere would be waxing lyrically about the Miata steering, as there would be no reference point to base the non-assisted argument on. Not a mistake which will be made again when the NC rolls around."
It might not be realised by all here, but the PAS used in the NA/NB models was an engine speed-sensitive system. My M2-1002 Eunos Roadster had the manual rack; thought it was horrible compare to the other NAs I have had.
I’ve been driving my NC for the last 5 weeks and have been spoilt by how good the steering is, aided by an excellent suspension set up and Eagle 215s on my car.
Collected my NA (with PAS) yesterday and was shocked by how sensitive the steering is in comparison. It’s too sensitive for me, especially on the motorway. If I knew I’d be keeping the car for a long time, I’d have the PAS properly removed as, of the two cars, the NA is the one I’ll keep and will also use on the track, with 225 semis, which I know work great with manual steering, even with all the hydraulics still attached. But I’m 66 already, and will probably stop driving soon and sell both cars, in which case the NA needs PAS for I suppose 80% of buyers.
Someone mentioned Alfas earlier. I thoroughly enjoyed 105 coupes in 1300, 1600, 1750 and 2000 guise, and Suds in 1300 and 1500 including a Sprint. But didn’t enjoy the rust. such a shame, as dynamically they were way ahead of their time.
Before I bought my MX-5 my Alfa Sprint was my favourite car.
Loved the looks, sound and character of that little car. It’s the only car I’ve owned that snarled on the up change
I’d love another but with nowhere out of the weather to keep it I’d end up watching it slowly dissolve like the last one…
Alfa Sprint was good, but paradoxically, the 105 Coupe 1300 was the favourite, as it made the most noise compared with the amount of progress it made down the road. My 116hp (when new) NA is equal fun to my 205hp NC, for the same reason. You can go what seems to be fast but still not break the law or the car.
Barmy1 - 66 - my Dad stoped driving at 61 but he’d fallen ill and couldn’t. Hopefully you are in good fettle. The most heartwarming sight was a chap with a single seater, with a Judd 3litre ex F1 motor I think, hop in it at Harewood and he’ll have been 70ish and go up the Hill as a speed that made me wince. I hope you have many years left.
I also mentioned the Alfa’s. You’ll know the sud was built at Alfa’s new southern plant providing much needed work to local tomato farmers who unfortunately had no automotive construction experience whatsoever. That said they are so simple they make an MX5 look like a Merc 600 in comparison.
The motors are incredibly tough as the boxer motion is gentle. I striped back the engine bay in mine as a lock down job and some of the metal is really good. You can see the actual set up of the thing is quality but you can see it’s not a thing for winter road use. It’s a heaven for nooks to collect wet damp mud.
Mines a sud sprint racer. It is a restored 83 shell and bits of the metal were replaced with plastic due to rot and weight saving years ago. I’ve got plastic rear qtr, bonnet, boot and wings and polycarb instead of glass except the ‘screen. It’s also got a 1.7 motor with an early close ratio sud ti gearbox and on twin delorttos 40s. It’s actually lighter than the MX5 and is competition prepared but road legal. I’m in touch with the family of Peter West of Westune who was the legendary race tuner for suds. He was an honorary BRDA member for his work. I understand Peter built my car and originally prepared it with a very special motor he engineered for 1300 class using specially modified carbs and linkages it could rev to beyond 9000 and needed to as the carbs were 45s - on a 1300.
And going back to our conversation on na’s don’t remove the pas if you are thinking of selling it. A lot of people want original cars - and they are going up in price. So don’t sell it either - think of it as a good equity investment.
I attended my first National Alfa Day (we have those ) with a sud enthusiast about 20years ago which is how I got into them. At the time I remember the articles linked to the event in Auto Italia and the club mag asking where had all the Suds gone. There were loads and then all of a sudden they more or less disappeared in the space of about four years. A good sud ti is about 15 - 20k these days - for a little sud! The MX5 with more cars but greater appeal and longevity may go the same way.
Yes, the Suds were light weight. My yellow Sprint in particular got lighter every month. They all had great engines.
The PAS will stay on the NA for resale purposes. As suggested by someone else, I’ll have an alignment done, as the steering is very twitchy. The whole car is a bit odd. Excellent bodywork and paint and interior, but some dreadful servicing mistakes - hopefully now 90% sorted.
I’m amazed that there are any Suds left to fetch £15-20k. Mine would rot away to nothing within 15 years at most.
