Re: sway bars counterpoint

["POWELL, GLEN" <GPOWELL@rimail.interlan.com>]

To: AUDI

>..another alleged reason for the quattros' roll softness is that without
>an automatically rear LSD, there is too much risk of one of the inside
>wheels lifting under hard cornering, thus spinning all the power away.
>remember that in AWD, you have twice the number of wheels to "lose it"
>on.

I have never seen an stock Audi, or any other FWD/AWD car, lift an inside
front.  Now, the inside rear is quite common for FWD, but not as easy for
an AWD.  A bigger front bar will reduce this segnificantly.  The only real
draw back from a bigger bar is that it will tend to make the car understeer
more (push).  But with a little trailing throttle or braking into turns
will help combate this problem, yielding a faster cornering car.   I ran a
1.25" bar on the front of my 4000Q, wishing for more.   ---JCG.

          I find that I can get quite a bit of wheelspin from the
          inside rear wheel when exiting corners hard. The best cure
          I've found for this is to run with the diffs locked. There
          is a really amazing difference in the ability to accelerate
          out of a corner with the diffs locked vs with them open.
          I've even tried locking/unlocking on the fly and can really
          feel the difference. There is *NO* wheelspin atall with the
          diffs locked. Locked diffs also can reduce the underseer
          affect; neutral/oversteer is easily created and controlled
          with the diffs locked. You just understeer terribly with the
          diffs open when applying power out of corners. You can drive
          the Quattro much more like a RWD car this way
          (locked diffs).  I find the RWD-type handling much more
          natural, coming from a CP Firebird. For me it just works.

          -glen