I was trying to find out more about Magnasteer and found this:

Delphi Magnasteer Description

The part that caught my attention was that it was lap top tuneable. I'm sure that was aimed at OEMs that might want to use it, but maybe there's hope for the aftermarket, or the home tuner.

Is anyone tuning Magnasteer yet?

Edit: I may be answering my own question, but the article

Magnasteer article


is poorly written so take anything they say with a grain of salt. About 60% of the way down the page it says you can tune a magnasteer with a Tech 2 or equivilant device

Another edit:

It sounds like all Magnastar does is magnetically change the effective stiffness on the spool valve torsion bar. It causes the bar to twist more at low speeds, increasing PS boost. At higher speeds, it causes the bar to act stiffer and therefore twist less, resulting in less boost and a bit stiffer steering.

It sounds like it would result in the steering being a bit less numb at speed than plain old dumb power steering. Whether less boost yet would really help feel or not remains to be seen.

 

 

 

If this helps a little-
For several years, the C5 shop manual said that the magnasteer in that car could be adjusted. Chevy admitted that it couldn't but it took years for the manual to catch up.

 

Oh I so wish that this could be the case...the only, and I mean ONLY thing about my new C6 that I can even remotely question or complain about is how over boosted (light) the steering is at slow/low speeds, feels fine to me over 30mph though. If Magnasteer could potentially be tuned/effort increased via Tech 2, LS2 Edit, HP Tuners or EFI Live that would be awesome. Otherwise this car is PERFECT.

 

What about just disconnecting the Magnasteer elctronics? From the brief description I saw, that would cut the boost you are seeing at low speed.

Unfortunately, it would increase boost at higher speeds compared to the reduced boost it has now, but that might be balanced off by the fact that you would be eliminating the magnasteer control system input.

 

Is that possible?
Would the car still maintain at least some power assist?

 

I think so, all the magnasteer does is make the little torsion bar in the spool act weaker or a stonger. It doen't contribute directly to the muscle part of the power steering.

In most power steering systems there is a small torsion bar that gets twisted a small amount more as you turn the wheel harder. The harder you turn the wheel, the more the little torsion bar gets twisted. The more the bar gets twisted, the more boost the valving send to the steering mechanism.

On some systems you can replace the bar with a stiffer bar and that cuts down on boost, usually resulting n a bit better feel along with a stiffer steering wheel.

From the desriptions, all Magnasteer does is help or resist twisting of the little torsion bar in the steerng.

If Magnasteer were disconnected and it's designed right, you would have normal non-Magnasteer power steering. I have seen a couple of comments about people disconnecting the earlier Magnasteer controls for competition driving.

 

Interesting stuff.
I wonder how hard this is to do.

 

Thanks for the links and the thought-provoking topic.

A few things occur to me:

1) "At zero mph, a negative current of approximately two to three amps flows to the Magnasteer coil."


Three amps? Dang. To all sufferers of DBS on the 2005 MN6 I would offer that disconnecting your MagnaSteer might be at least as likely to help as removing the [unused] Euro-light relay (#46?). I know, I know, please don't ask me why auto-equipped cars don't get it if the MagnaSteer is somehow implicated. If I knew that I would be selling DBS-fix-kits on Ebay for $19.99


2) "Above 45 mph, the direction of current to the coil is reversed and continues to gradually increase up to a maximum of about three amps at 75 to 85 mph. Reversing the polarity of the coil causes the magnets to attract each other, which has the effect of stiffening the torsion bar. This reduces the amount of deflection in the torsion bar that normally occurs when the wheels are steered and causes an increase in steering effort for better road feel and high-speed steering stability."

So, could a properly biased simple diode added into the circuit driving the magnet fix the steering 'numbness' that some complain of feeling at highway speed, by allowing the MagnaSteer to boost at low speed, but negating any effect otherwise, since the signal at high speed is opposite polarity?

3) "...there is only one fault code: C1241 (Magnasteer circuit malfunction). The code is set if the module detects an open or a short in the coil circuit. If this code is present, the Magnasteer system is disabled and will not vary the steering effort as vehicle speed changes. The C1241 body code can be read with a Tech 2 or equivalent scan tool. The Tech 2 tool can also be used to perform a Magnasteer function test. The test varies the current to the coil so you can check for a change in steering effort when turning the steering wheel."

If this doesn't show up as a DIC code bugging you every day, it might be worth experimenting with some of the above.

 

There's a thread I started in the autocross section about a company that has a line of power steering modules that reduces the amount of assist. It's not fully tunable, but good for anyone that wants less boost, cooler power steering fluid temps and possibly a more reliable power steering module too.

 

Excellent, I'll go check it out, thanks.