How bad is a manual steering box? (87 GMC SWB 2WD)

[sfriesen]

Here's the deal. At the moment I've got a stock power box on my 87 and I'm just strong arming it when I drive it (not very often anyhow). I've looked into some remote mount reservoir systems but the problem is that they all mount the pump on the drivers side of the engine, which makes great sense, except for the fact that my alternator is mounted low on that side. I'd really rather not change my wiring harness around and buy new alternator bracketry and pulleys to move it over to the passenger side to fit a new pump in there too. How much better is a manual box going to steer vs. my power box with a crossover hose between the two inlets? Driving around town isn't terrible, but when it goes to the track I want to have a little more control of the truck if I need to steer out of something.

Again, power steering would be grand for driving ease, but I drive this maybe once every couple of weeks, so I'm not that worried about comfort. If a manual box will make the job significantly easier than what I've got on it now, that'd be ok until I decide it's time to go to a rack up front.

thanks in advance. Non-power Power steering sucks monkey @ss.