Quick, light, accurate steering is a must. The tighter the roads, the
tighter the diff settings, the higher the speeds, the higher the need.
In the 70s, the Saab factory drivers did back to back tests on their 99
rally cars. Blomqvist and Eklund who were without doubt the front drive
guys with the best results ever.
Memory says that they were a smidge over 1 sec per km quicker with the
power steering. 1 sec would be 1.6 sec per mile quicker, slight more for
the slight over.
Clearly they were doing pretty good with their cars without, but their
manual racks were, at least on their 96s, 2.2 turns lock to lock, but 1
single change and over 1.6 sec per mile......
Not too bad.

On my own Saab 96, I set the diff breakaway torque at around 96-100 ft/lbs,
and have the normal 2,2 turns rack, and on gravel never have had a
complaint.
On my last "recce" 900 I had the diff breakaway at 130ft/lbs and had manual
rack, and thought no problemo.
Installed a power rack out of curiosity.
Huge improvement, waaaaaay coooler than sheeet.
Especially nice since the 900 has one of those horrible floor gear shifters
which were the fad for a while in the 70s and 80s, and you needed to drive
with one hand on the wheel while groping blindly for the foookingearstick
unlike the much superior Saab 96 with the near sequential gearchange right
at the steeringwheel rim WHERE GOD INTENDED IT!! (Where are all the current
REAL rally cars gearchanges located????? HHHhhhmmmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMM?????)
Note the nice 96 Saabs have equal length driveshafts and no torque steer,
the 900s have very nearly equal length and with good alignment, no torque
steer.
The improvement is mostly the ability to reduce fatigue and avoid kickback,
and hold tighter lines under higher power applications.

That last bit may be a factor, guys in heavy slow underpowered, slow
steering cars may believe that their steering was never a problem,
I perfer to believe documents results from more serious arenas.
For the real truth about subjectivness and gross errors go read back a bit
what actual VW owners were ALL expressing about their racks and their
perceptions
and see how waaaaaaaaay off they were regarding quickness and you'll see
why I don't care about the reports of amatures playing with streetcars.

A note: The Saab 900 Saginaw PS rack had the exact same mm of rack travel
per turn of steeringwheel with its 3.4 turns as the what I thought
desirable Doodge Omni GLH Saginaw PS 2.5 turns rack had.
So the 2.5 turns looked good but the ratio was the same as the 3.4

Like in life: Bugger belief, foook faith. Measure.

John Vanlandingham
Seattle, WA. 98168