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Recommend me a PS pump (full hydro)

Re: Re: Recommend me a PS pump (full hydro)

patooyee said:
I'm sorry but this is so wrong I have to say something.

First, displacement and pressure are two different things. Displacement equates to speed. If your orbital is big and your steering gets stiff when you turn fast you need a pump with more displacement.

Pressure equates to power. If your steering is weak all the time and you have a hard time steering when bound up you may need more pressure.

Pressure doesn't vary greatly among most manufacturers. Most stock truck pumps will be around 1100-1300 psi and aftermarkets can improve on that up to around 1600 psi. Much further than that though the back caps tend to blow off so that seems to be the ceiling. All the pumps can be built to have any pressure within those ranges that the builder wishes. That means there is no pressure or power advantage to any of them. If you feel that one is 'weaker" than the other it is only because the bypass valve is set at a lower pressure in one of them.

P-pumps offered 3 displacement options back in the day. Low, medium, high. High was only ever used in medium-duty trucks like Topkicks and Kodiaks. The high displacement pump used the same ring and vanes as the medium-displacement pump. It just had a bigger reservoir and more efficient intake setup to supply greater output. That means that the medium displacement pump simply bypassed more output back to the input side using the same ring. That's why you won't find the big pumps easily since you can put the medium internals in a very common low output housing (with a different back plate) to achieve basically the same thing. Pretty much any aftermarket p-pump you buy today will have the medium / high ring & vanes in a low / medium housing with modifications made to the bypass valve and intake tract to supply higher output pressure and displacement. The medium p-pump was found mainly on 3/4 and 1-ton trucks. The low output p-pump was found on most everything else. HOWEVER, even if you have a 1-ton truck, ALL reman pumps available today use the low output ring and vanes. You simply can not buy the larger ring and vanes at a parts store any more, it is impossible. The only way to get them is to either buy the larger pump that fits Topkicks or buy an aftermarket pump.

CB pumps use a ring and vanes almost identical in size to the low-output p-pump. So they will have similar output as the smaller p-pump. Not really much else to say about them.

Both P and CB use two oiled bushings at the front of the shaft to support their loads. They receive their oil supply from the HP side of the pump The fact that only the front of the shaft is supported means that the back (where all the internals are attached to) has to be balanced in terms of forces that it produces or it will apply an uneven load and bend or break the shaft.

TC has the smallest vane / ring assembly of all the pumps so it will have the lowest displacement. BUT it is the most robustly built pump of all 3 and, in my experience, suffers a lower failure rate as a result. Both the front and rear of the shaft are supported by bearings. This is why it is so robust and can also generally be spun faster than the P. Nearly all Nascar teams are running highly modified TC pumps because they are are high displacement vehicles but can live under constant high rpms.

ALL steering pumps are physically capable of displacing more than they output. This excess displacement is recirculated back to the input side to compliment the intake. To make a pump that displaces more at the output is simply taking away some of the recirculation. This means that the intake side needs to get that lost fluid from somewhere else. A lot of what aftermarket companies are doing is trying to make the intake more efficient or bigger to make up for the lost intake volume.

All pumps make noise if they are starved of intake volume. There is nothing about the design of one or the other that makes it more or less noisy other than possibly more or less efficient intake.

CBR is the newest version, I think they started coming on the high performance cars in 2010 or thereabouts. I haven't been inside of one yet but it appears to be the same displacement as a regular CB pump with a beefed up back plate to accommodate higher pressures in the 1600-1800 psi range. So if power is a big concern CBR seems to be the best candidate currently. It also has a big fat cast boss at the intake fitting that makes it easy for aftermarket companies to enlarge and weld AN fittings to. If your biggest concern is speed though there is no replacement for displacement, which makes the P your best candidate. CBR probably is the best compromise of both right now.

A lot boils down to economics, too. Saginaw no longer produces the TC cast housing. So they are difficult to procure which, I feel, is why some companies discourage customers from them. CBR is what Saginaw is producing by the ship-load right now and what is easy and cheap for aftermarket companies to get a hold of.

For a while some companies were pushing the N-pump which was basically a small displacement P with a housing that was designed for external reservoir instead of a ham-can. Once the CBr was made easily available they dropped the N with quickness.

I can go on and on. I've taken apart and studied probably about 20 OEM, reman, and aftermarket pumps to learn all of this. It was an obsession of mine for a long time. Still is kind of. I would love to get a hold of some CBr's to look inside of.
Is there a list of vehicles that the cbr pump came on, for the junkyard types?

TC & P pumps are common knowledge, and there's the large intake TC wj pump. Other than camaros, iirc, I haven't heard many other vehicles running the cbr pump.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re:

TBItoy said:
No flow on start up, more energy efficient.

No "real" reason. Also after you have a mount built to say an SAE A 2 bolt mount, then you could always just swap pumps to whatever.


It's probably "cheaper" in the long run to just buy the PSC externally regulated "race pump" kit than screwing around with $100-200 industrial pumps and homemade reservoirs though lol

Cheaper or not, I'm experimenting with it now. :)

IMG_20160205_111253157.jpg
 
Re: Re: Recommend me a PS pump (full hydro)

paradisepwoffrd said:
Is there a list of vehicles that the cbr pump came on, for the junkyard types?

TC & P pumps are common knowledge, and there's the large intake TC wj pump. Other than camaros, iirc, I haven't heard many other vehicles running the cbr pump.

I haven't paid attention enough to know. I think they are slowly making their way onto most GM products that don't use electric power assist.
 
I drove to KRC (2 hours away) and asked Cody to convince my why I should buy their pump versus any other on the market. After over an hour of talking about pumps, I left with 2 cast pumps, 2 6.5 inch pulleys and 2 remote tanks. I was told the owner used to own a performance parts company and do a lot of circle track racing and was unable to find a pump to meet his demands. He said f #@$ it and started building his own. Was also told by Cody that most nascar teams use their pumps. They are a small family owned company. I met the owners wife. And the shop dog is there everyday. Also never bashed any other company out there. I have used psc before with no problems but after the visit I think I chose the best out right now. But I have absolutely no proof.......yet.
 
You care to give us a ball park on what a pump, resi, and pulley can be bought for at the business location?
 
So I'm assuming that modifying an ol stock remote res CB pump for external flow/pressure control would be a waste of time because our couldn't feed the pump enough fluid through the 5/8ish inlet tube anyway..... maybe if you tapped the side of the housing and ran the excess flow directly back to the pump (like it does internally, but at a higher externally regulated flow rate).

I may try it. I wonder what pressure the pump could output reliably before self destructing
 
TBItoy said:
So I'm assuming that modifying an ol stock remote res CB pump for external flow/pressure control would be a waste of time because our couldn't feed the pump enough fluid through the 5/8ish inlet tube anyway..... maybe if you tapped the side of the housing and ran the excess flow directly back to the pump (like it does internally, but at a higher externally regulated flow rate).

I may try it. I wonder what pressure the pump could output reliably before self destructing

Don't know. I've looked up stock application specs for the Camaros with CBr's and it is 1800 psi. The highest I've seen any other pump spec at was 1500 psi. The back plate is what blows and is also an obvious area that the CBr addressed. So I'm guessing somewhere in that 1500 - 1800 range is where most pumps other than a CBr blow the back plate off. I'm sure there's a safety margin built in so it would just be a crap shoot as to where you personally felt safe.

Long ago Sean Stapely was telling me about how he was experimenting with higher pressures and billet back plates. He closed down before anything ever came of it I think.
 
Eddyj said:
You care to give us a ball park on what a pump, resi, and pulley can be bought for at the business location?

I bought 2 pumps, 2 pulleys, and 2 res for less than 700. I am not looking at my invoice at the moment but i think the pumps were in the 150 ish range.
 
I do think higher pressure is a neat concept. A 2" DE ram at 2500 psi applies the same force as a 2.5" at 1500 psi but wouldn't require all the displacement.

Saginaw pumps just weren't designed for hydraulic steering like we use. Too little pressure, too little displacement. The only reason we haven't moved on is because the pumps that were designed to do what we need don't fit the brackets that come with our engines.
 
Nick, another thing to consider is shaft size. The shafts in the industrial pumps are way bigger than Saginaw pumps. So there's probably a psi at which the shaft becomes a weak point as well.
 
patooyee said:
Don't know. I've looked up stock application specs for the Camaros with CBr's and it is 1800 psi. The highest I've seen any other pump spec at was 1500 psi. The back plate is what blows and is also an obvious area that the CBr addressed. So I'm guessing somewhere in that 1500 - 1800 range is where most pumps other than a CBr blow the back plate off. I'm sure there's a safety margin built in so it would just be a crap shoot as to where you personally felt safe.

Long ago Sean Stapely was telling me about how he was experimenting with higher pressures and billet back plates. He closed down before anything ever came of it I think.

I might just buy an ac delco CBR ($120) and pop a remote res inlet tube in it, and swap my pulley. I'm using a early 90s Dodge Caravan pulley, pressed on backwards, currently on my CB.

Or I'll just buy a KRC pump and pulley.


Pressure isn't really a problem now though, as I the steering is plenty easy and can wag the truck around, it's just a bit slower than I want... I guess If I can get the pressure up, I could go to a 2" ram...


It's more of a mental excercise at this point anyway. I may go wheelin' 2 or 3 times this year.


Using hydraulic pumps designed for automotive applications, then putting industrial components down stream (orbitals, rams, etc) seems kinda dumb.

If I do decide to swap to an industrial pump and run ~2500 psi, I have a 2" ram and smaller displacement orbital available I could swap on the crawler.
 
So I contacted KRC. "Norm" provided helpful information to me. Here is the response I received.

I asked him to recommend me a pump:

[/quote] Hi Clint,
Sorry for the delay getting back to you.Are you using the Type 2 Saginaw pump with the plastic external reservoir,or is it the pump that is actually inside the reservoir tank?The key for any steering pump to keep up with the steering system is crank pulley to pump pulley ratios and for look speed assist you need to over drive the pump some.All steering pumps have what I call a threshold rpm for the pump to come to full flow.Across the board they all seem to reach that threshold at between 1000 to 1500 rpms of pump speed.So if the engine idles at 600 rpm for example and the pump gets to full flow at 1000 rpms the power steering is only at 60%.This is assuming that the ratio is 1 to 1 .so to better the low end assist a large crank pulley or smaller pump pulley would be need to speed the pump up.However you also need to be aware that too much over drive can cause problems with a pump if the pump speed exceeds 5500 rpms on most OEM pumps and 8500 rpms on the race rated steering pumps.
The other thing is keeping the pump feed with fluid and the steering system full all the time.Things that delay the fluid getting back to the pump can also affect low speed operation.Coolers and especially filters slow the return down.For the most part filters in power steering system are almost unnecessary. Many are designed wrong or they just restrict the return flow.My question is; what exactly are they filtering out? Even if the cap came off the reservoir and was filled with sand no filter would protect from that as the is the second place the dirt goes and everything after that does not matter.
Any way most all of our pumps will do the job as long as we tailor them to do what you want as long as we can adjust the pump speed.
Regards,Norm [/quote]

I then responded letting him know I had a stock pump with the OEM metal tank attached. 2 returns for the hydroboost.

Clint,
The pump you have is a good pump when they are working correctly so if you are having a problem with it it may just be a pump speed issue.Get me you crank and pump pulley diameters and we will find out.
We try to put out good useable information out as well as a great product.There is a lot of misinformation about power steering and how it works non of which is any where near rocket science.The key is that power steering pumps don't work exactly the way most people think they don't and they confuse the terms pressure and flow as to what does what.
Norm
 
RebelRider said:
So I contacted KRC. "Norm" provided helpful information to me. Here is the response I received.

I asked him to recommend me a pump:

Hi Clint,
Sorry for the delay getting back to you.Are you using the Type 2 Saginaw pump with the plastic external reservoir,or is it the pump that is actually inside the reservoir tank?The key for any steering pump to keep up with the steering system is crank pulley to pump pulley ratios and for look speed assist you need to over drive the pump some.All steering pumps have what I call a threshold rpm for the pump to come to full flow.Across the board they all seem to reach that threshold at between 1000 to 1500 rpms of pump speed.So if the engine idles at 600 rpm for example and the pump gets to full flow at 1000 rpms the power steering is only at 60%.This is assuming that the ratio is 1 to 1 .so to better the low end assist a large crank pulley or smaller pump pulley would be need to speed the pump up.However you also need to be aware that too much over drive can cause problems with a pump if the pump speed exceeds 5500 rpms on most OEM pumps and 8500 rpms on the race rated steering pumps.
The other thing is keeping the pump feed with fluid and the steering system full all the time.Things that delay the fluid getting back to the pump can also affect low speed operation.Coolers and especially filters slow the return down.For the most part filters in power steering system are almost unnecessary. Many are designed wrong or they just restrict the return flow.My question is; what exactly are they filtering out? Even if the cap came off the reservoir and was filled with sand no filter would protect from that as the is the second place the dirt goes and everything after that does not matter.
Any way most all of our pumps will do the job as long as we tailor them to do what you want as long as we can adjust the pump speed.
Regards,Norm

I then responded letting him know I had a stock pump with the OEM metal tank attached. 2 returns for the hydroboost.

Clint,
The pump you have is a good pump when they are working correctly so if you are having a problem with it it may just be a pump speed issue.Get me you crank and pump pulley diameters and we will find out.
We try to put out good useable information out as well as a great product.There is a lot of misinformation about power steering and how it works non of which is any where near rocket science.The key is that power steering pumps don't work exactly the way most people think they don't and they confuse the terms pressure and flow as to what does what.
Norm

Norm knows his stuff. :)
 
patooyee said:
Norm knows his stuff. :)

Norm is awesome. I spoke with him this morning actually. I've been emailing with him for the last two weeks about spec'ing the right pump and pulley, and underdrive combo for my setup. If you call him, dont hesitate to pick his brain....hes a wealth of knowledge on everything steering related.
 
patooyee said:
Norm knows his stuff. :)

Be more like Norm. thumb.gif

Tell Norm if he has time to put up a thread in vendor section.
I'm getting ready to upgrade my steering and would love to read up on their stuff.
 
A TC pump from a 2001-2004 Grand Cherokee works very well. They are designed to flow more as Chrysler used a hydraulic cooling fan for these year models. I'm using one of these right now with hydraulic assist and I can't tell through the steering that it's in four wheel drive even though I have a welded front differential.
 
dixiepc said:
A TC pump from a 2001-2004 Grand Cherokee works very well. They are designed to flow more as Chrysler used a hydraulic cooling fan for these year models. I'm using one of these right now with hydraulic assist and I can't tell through the steering that it's in four wheel drive even though I have a welded front differential.
Thanks for the info. I'm hoping I can find a slightly smaller pulley for my current pump. The emails with KRC ended abruptly, so I guess he couldn't find a solution.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re:

patooyee said:
Cheaper or not, I'm experimenting with it now. :)

IMG_20160205_111253157.jpg

industrial or agricultural pumps are of a different breed. To get one belt driven is going to take some careful selection of the pump and the pulley size. Most pumps that I see the manufacture says the upper rpm limit is ~ 3000rpm and typically the lower limit is ~500rpm. Now put that on a domestic v8 that idles at 750rpm and has a 6000rpm redline. . . . . . .. . . I wonder if there is a way to but a variable diameter pulley on the pump? (kinda like a polaris atv uses)
 
Re: Re: Re: Re:

84mallcrawl said:
industrial or agricultural pumps are of a different breed. To get one belt driven is going to take some careful selection of the pump and the pulley size. Most pumps that I see the manufacture says the upper rpm limit is ~ 3000rpm and typically the lower limit is ~500rpm. Now put that on a domestic v8 that idles at 750rpm and has a 6000rpm redline. . . . . . .. . . I wonder if there is a way to but a variable diameter pulley on the pump? (kinda like a polaris atv uses)

There is a whole thread about it on Pirate that is years old now. Everything you mentioned is discussed exhaustively there. That setup drive the pump at about half engine rpm.
 

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