Silly question on steering

[mrpoody]

Having made it half way through the scooby rack conversion ( rack is in and working and feels so much smoother than the tvr) I need to power it back up to power assistance - fail its mot if not power assisted I am told.
Why can't the original tvr pump and reservoir be used?
I'm not an engineer, nor even a decent diy mechanic but the conversion , so far, has been a pretty basic spannering job thanks totally to all the helpful forum topics and how to guides.

[Belle427]

Im guessing that people who do the conversion usually have non pas cars so dont want to pay the Tvr tax on buying the pump etc. Also it takes a bit of load off the engine so more bhp!
Electric pumps seem to be readily available for decent money.

[phazed]

As above. You can use the standard pump and reservoir, just repipe it.

[BoostedChim]

My take on it is you'll get a small performance increase using an electric pump as the standard pump only needs to be spinning at idle to give assistance so as the revs increase the pressure relief valve constantly relieves the excess pressue. By reducing the inertia on the ribbed belt ever little helps, the electic motor can then just turn at the correct speed to provide assitance without relieving any. The downside is the electric pumps weigh a bit more than the standard one. I'm just about to do he same swap and intend to use the standard pump initially. I might swap to a saxo pump under the driver headlight eventually.