Re: What's the big deal about Torsen?

[Dave Eaton <dave.eaton@minedu.govt.nz>]

having owned ur-q's with and without torsen, there's no question in my mind which
is better.  early (non-torsen) ur-q deservedly had a reputation for disappearing backwards
through hedges due to the open-centre-diff-'tank-slapper'-effect (ie. lift inside front wheel,
lose drive, oversteer lurch, drop inside front wheel, gain drive, understeer, and repeat).

now don't get me wrong, my old '85 ur-q was a fine handling car which handled well
enough with or without the centre diff locked.  it's just that my 20v handles *much* better.
(however counter to this argument is the old porsche 911 one which is "only-real-men-can-
drive-these-cars-so-if-you-think-they-handle-like-shit-you-can't-be-a-real-man".)

bottom line with the non-torsen was that, short of (fast) open road driving with the diff locked, 
you could never really be sure you weren't going to have a 'moment'...

btw the mb (torsen) ur-q seems to understeer more than the 20v one.  i know that the
suspension was tweaked a little with the 20v, but i haven't driven one back to back to
evaluate (phil??)...

not sure about track racing, but for the street i'd take spend more money on a torsen
than a non torsen ur-q any day.  having driven a friends subaru impreza wrx i prefer the
torsen to a vc as well.  the wrx is a fast car (more laggy and less power than the 20v),
but it's a tricky car on the limit which is not something i find with the ur-q 3b....


..>From: quk@sievers.com (Phil Payne)
..>Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 15:44:56 GMT
..>
..>In message <961211094531_167834679@emout07.mail.aol.com> PDQSHIP@aol.com writes:
..>
..>> Both the one's I drove were at the low end of proper specs (.5 neg), where
..>> they got the best handling...  Torsen gives undesteer all the time, and gets
..>> progressively worse as you add the gas....   If it locked at a setting, one
..>> might be able to address it's shortcomings...  Great, just like abs, for the
..>> wife (three years, she has yet to touch the AWD switch panel), but not the
..>> best handling by far....  It gets worse as you increase the hp....  The
..>> gen-I, OTOH gets mucho better...  BTDT
..>
..>Well, _I_ have yet to touch the AWD switch panel in my urq.  Not that it 
..>would do any good above 25mph anyway ...
..>
..>And none of the non-TORSEN cars owned by club members around me can hope to 
..>keep up around traffic islands.  Nigel and Steve on the list both have TORSEN 
..>cars (a 20V and an MB like mine respectively) and we regularly show the ancient 
..>technology where it's really at.  I'm not saying it's ideal for track racing or 
..>rallying, but for sudden serious situations on normal roads it's close to 
..>perfect.  Dave Coughtrie in Wellingborough can make me pay attention when he 
..>drives his Ford Modeo turbo diesel, but his (non-TORSEN) urq is not much better 
..>than the Ford.  The MB's understeer is easily corrected by a large toolkit in 
..>the boot - my car is precisely neutral running driver-only and just gently 
..>slides sideways.
..>