[s-cars] EDL vs ELD explained....

[Varon H. Fugman]

Yes, Keith, thanks for the great write-up!

One more benefit of the mechanical diff lock over EDL is that you can use it
even with ABS disabled... and my car seems to stop a lot better in the snow
without ABS.

I had been thinking of trying to disable the automatic rear diff-lock
drop-out at 15MPH so I could have it locked longer for running ice trials
(on a frozen lake in January/February in Wisconsin), but then I realized
that even with the differential unlocking at 15MPH I was getting pretty good
straight-line acceleration on ice (Nokian Hakka Q's 215/55R16)... it's
turning and braking two tons of quattro on a slippery surface that is the
problem!

And while the Torsen center diff is absolutely fantastic in regular on-road
winter driving conditions (heck, the car is a regular snowmobile on
snowy/slushy streets), on smooth ice it makes handling in corners somewhat
tricky... sometimes more power in a turn causes the rear to come around
nicely, but other times it just understeers.  I suspect that with the
extremely low coefficient of friction all around that the Torsen may be
hunting for traction--sometimes shifting maximum torque to the front
(causing understeer) and other times to the rear (leading to oversteer.)

It has taken me two winters running the car on ice to feel like I might
finally be starting to get the hang of it.  Much harder to drive fast on ice
than my old FWD car (except for the initial launch, that is!)

Varon
'95 urS6

P.S. Here's a picture from last January... we had a lot of water on top of
the ice that day!
http://www.w-a-g.org/events/ice/2002/2002-01-20/batch1/photos/MVC-111S.JPG