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Has anyone on here fitted a power steering cooler? I've got a WRX with an aftermarket pump which I'm about to swap back to a good OEM one. It's a long story but I made the mistake of thinking my original one was failing so rebuilt it, made it worse and then realised it was the steering knuckle as I'd suspected all along but decided wasn't the problem. Anyway, the aftermarket one struggles with sticky tyres, 5 deg camber and hard driving so while I'm sure going back to OEM will fix this, it's clear that the pump does take some abuse. I don't know whether the 13:1 rack I'm about to fit will increase this strain but I'm thinking that additional cooling won't be a bad thing.
As with everything on this car, I'm happy to spend money but equally quite like being able to find alternate solutions that aren't a £300 purchase out of the Demon Tweaks catalogue etc. Soo... STI's come with coolers I believe but I've not actually seen any visual evidence of what they look like or how they fit. However, I have come across OEM ones from other cars like Jag S Types and E60 BMW's which are effectively a large U bend with a heat sink and the inlet/outlet next to each other. My thoughts are that something like this could easily be mounted in the low pressure return in front of the main radiator with some extra rubber hose and a few jubilee clips without too much hackery and provide a significant effect at the pump. Am I being daft, has anyone done it and has anyone got any alternative suggestions (Mocal coolers etc aside)?
Thanks Don, the shape of that cooler pipe looks familiar so I've definitely seen one before, just not clocked that's what it is! I reckon I'll probably look at some alternatives as it's a pretty basic piece of pipe whereas some of the other options have heat sinks around them etc which in my eyes is the better option. After all, if you're going to go to the effort of fitting one fitting a good one makes sense, right?
Thanks Don, the shape of that cooler pipe looks familiar so I've definitely seen one before, just not clocked that's what it is! I reckon I'll probably look at some alternatives as it's a pretty basic piece of pipe whereas some of the other options have heat sinks around them etc which in my eyes is the better option. After all, if you're going to go to the effort of fitting one fitting a good one makes sense, right?
As stated google brings up a lot of variations on the theme..........
Thanks @alcazar & @DDS789 . I think if I'm going to go down the route of fitting something from scratch (the Blob WRX doesn't have one) then I'd go for more than the STI type setup of just a loop of pipe. I quite like the long OEM style one as it's easier to sit out the way and get airflow without blocking flow to anything else, but that eBay special is the same price and looks pretty decent. It's going to be later on in the year that I get to that side of things with pulling the bumper off again but that gives me some time to think about how to achieve what I'm after. Thanks for the pointers!
Power steering cooler
