In my 68 street Barracuda, I have installed a 12" steering wheel because 3.5 turns loc-to-loc, is just 11 feet of rim motion, down from about 14.7 ft or more, with the Factory wheel.That's a savings of 25%
One full turn of the factory wheel is about is about 4.2ft of rim motion; so the grant wheel is saving me the equivalent of MORE than 1 full turn of rim motion with the factory wheel.
With the small wheel, this motion takes ~33% more torque, so it becomes a speed/endurance contest.
On the front, at one time, were 245/50-15 sticky tires at 28psi. With P/S, I can whack that small Grant wheel over, hard and fast, time after time after time; without arm fatigue.
I stiffened it up with the reaction discs, so it would feel closer to standard steering, while still retaining the 3.5 turns loc-to-loc.
IMO,
for performance street driving, with say 300hp, and with skinny tires (255 or less) on the back;
NOT having P/S is a recipe for spin-outs; cuz when the back steps out, you only have micro-seconds to correct; and the brakes ,when you are sliding sideways, only make it worse. If this happens in traffic, you better be out front a good ways, cuz going backwards at 30 mph ,facing the wrong way, and bouncing up onto the median, rarely ends well. And when you have the only second generation Barracuda in the neighborhood, with a custom, one-of-a-kind, 2-tone paint job, everybody knows your name.
With 350hp and 275s, same thing.
with 400 hp you need a minimum street tire of 295 back there, to keep the back in the back, while performing loc-to-loc maneuvers.
And it sure is nice to have P/S when yur trying to find the line with the rear tires on fire, cuz that line is in constant flux.
But I do agree that A-bodies, with 4 same sized skinny tires at 30/32 psi, and say 95% of the time; standard steering is just fine. I've had a couple of lo-po standard steering Barracudas, that were
"just fine".
