I was doing some donuts the other day and after I got done i could hear my power steering pump pretty good and now after I have been driving hard the pump starts gettting loud again. I was wondering what I can do if anything to keep it from going out. Someone told me to try and drain some fluid and add some lucas to it, but I dont know how to drain any. Help

 

My pump is pretty shot due to what I think was the previous owners donuts...and a couple of my own....but not many....anyways, yeah I feel your pain, I just got a replacement off the board, now I have to get the courage up to start tearing into things to swap it in.

 

Depending on how much fluid you would want to get out, you could suck all of the fluid out of the resivoir with a turkey baster or something along the lines of that. If you wanted to do a complete flush you would take the return line off of the pume and keep pouring new fluid in until you see the clean stuff coming out of the return line.

 

I doubt doing donuts would burn up your P/S pump, but 4th gen F-body pumps are notorious for failing, usually under hard usage or sustained high rpm operation. Sounds like somewhere in its past the pump suffered some hard usage. The problem is they are way overboosted for what they need to be doing, and the excess fluid being pumped raises fluid temps to the point where Autocross or Road Racing cars routinely boil the P/S fluid, boiling fluid usually doesn't do a good job of lubricating and cooling the pump, so it fails. A cooler in the return line sometimes helps a bit, as does running a good synthetic fluid and changing it often, but a better long-term solution is to call Jeff at Turn One (989-652-0216) and buy one of his specially built pumps. They go for $200 for the LT1 cars and are well worth it. I don't know what a new pump from GM goes for but I would imagine its probably more than that and you're right back with the same crappy pump that will eventually fail.
Working in the front of the motor is a pain, but my suggestion would be to get a repair manual for the car, buy the pump from Jeff and change it yourself.

 

Actually doing donuts is exactly what would tear you power steering pump up. When doing donuts most people turn the wheel ALL the way to which ever direction they are going and hold it there. You can't hear it over the tires, but the pump is whining when you do this due to the pressure relief valve having to work to try to eliminate some of the pressure. If you do this often or for extended periods of time it will burn the pump up. The pressure relief valve is there to 'save' the pump (not intended to be used all the time just as an every great once in awhile occurence for short bursts), but it won't even be able to get all the pressure out if you keep holding it there --- thus bad power steering pump. You can try this by just going out in your car and turning the wheel all the way in a direction and when the wheel hits the end of its travel you will hear a small whining noise -- that's it. It's hard to remember or even do with the cyntrifical (sp???) force pulling on you, but if you are doing a donut try doing it with the wheel turned ALMOST all the way. It should be plenty far to ahieve a beautiful donut and it will save your power steerin pump.

 

You're right, forcing the rack against the stops for long periods of time will build up some pretty serious pressure in the system........BUT..........thats not the crux of the problem. The real issue is the fact that the stock GM pump is horribly over-boosted for what it needs to do, all that extra fluid being recirculated by the system builds up a lot of heat in a hurry and boils the fluid, which suddenly isn't doing such a good job of lubricating the rotating assembly of the steering pump, and the damn thing burns up. I don't do donuts (not even sure exactly what you consider them to be ) but my car sees a fair amount of autocrossing running 275/40-17 Kuhmo slicks on the front and the occasional outing of road course activity, and I have fried two stock pumps without ever hitting the steering stops for more than a second or two, if even that much. The Turn One modified pumps solve the over-boost problem and everyone is happy. GM cheaped out badly on the Camaro P/S pumps, they've been a known weak spot in the car since the 1993 model cars first came out.

 

I fried my stock pump, and bought a used one off a member about a week ago. I have yet to put it in. Is it worth the money for a person who doesn't do much autocrossing or donuts to get their stock pump worked by Turn One. Is it the kind of thing that will not make a difference under normal driving? Would they take my fried one in the car now and fix it or do I have to send them one in normal working order?

 

I'm wondering the same. Will Turn One rebuild and modify my pump, or will I have to get a new/rebuilt pump for them to modify?

 

If the pump is over boosted to start with, then doing donuts would be even worse for it than if it was not over boosted. I've seen plenty of posts of people throwing belts or blowing up p/s pumps from donuts.

 

Donuts w/ a 4th gen = pump failure....(if done with any frequency)