How stupid is it really:

[Blue85]

Thinking outside the box, I wonder how hard it would be to make an electric assist. No pumps, lines, nothing. That would be lighter then a hydraulics system. You could rig up a motor and drive to manual steering box to supplement mechanical input. You would need a hall sensor on the shaft so it knew which way you were turning. Default (broken!) would be the drag of turning the shaft of an electric motor. VW and BMW has had electric steering assist for years, my GLI has it, no P/S pump just an electric motor on the rack. The resistance in the motor provides the steering feel "feedback" which I can change from stiff to loose with my laptop (it changes with speed, easy in a parking lot, stiff on a canyon road". Infinity's have no steering shaft, its all motors and inputs. Still kind of scarry not having a mechanical link. But airplanes are all fly by wire these days anyway.

Well I work on electronic steering everyday. Electric steering for cars is nothing new, but systems big enough for trucks are relatively new. FYI, the motor on the column does not work well here because the loads are too high. Generally the larger systems are rack assist or dual pinion. So now you are looking at adapting rack and pinion steering, which is harder than doing crossover.

Does Infinity really have a steer-by-wire on the road? I would be interested in a link to this. There are a lot of systems that are commonly mistaken for steer-by-wire which really aren't. You can even do adaptive steering and automated highway stuff without getting rid of the mechanical link. The safety redundancies and lots of parts usually put more cost into steer-by-wire than you get back in benefits. Not having a steering column through the firewall seems like a plus, but you generally end up taking up more room overall than a nice (and cost-effective) EPS or HPS.

 

[G.M.H]

Interesting topic, I personally don't even like power windows. Damn things freeze shut when I'm at the Tim Hortons drive thru. LOL
Quite a long time ago I read an article in a car mag about an experimental corvette or camaro that ran steering and accelerator/brakes off a joystick. It could be driven just as easily from either side of the vehicle, don't recall how it all worked.

 

[broncoman6524]

another point to bring up.

My cousin runs a Power steering rack welded to his front axle, this is used in his DD (Explorer 4 linked, king coils, 40s) and on all their mud trucks.

This in the long run might be more expensive, or the same price as crossover. But does anyone see problems with this?


Assuming all the hoses/linkages/mounts are fabricated and assembled correct?