torsen, torsen, whither thy bite....

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

well guys, 

as any intrepid reporter would, i set out tonight to study the vagaries of the
torsen bite (aka boris the spider)...

factor in wet night, 11:30pm, a station-wagon (shopping basket) equipped with
said torsen (boris the spider), and a vacant 2-lane (wet) roundabout, and we
have the makings of an experiment...

well, lost count of the number of times i went around in 2nd gear (6-8 times),
pushing up to red-line in the wet....

nothing, frigging nothing....

accelerate too hard into the turn, understeer push, button off, and the line
would tighten, back on the gas and nice oversteering slide through the exit...

boris?

in the end, i went around too fast and floored the gas 4 times through the
corner; on, off, on off, and each time on deceleration, the line would tighten,
the old girl would come into line, and we'd get ready for the next provocation.
 i went arond twice like this...

trg, slip angles, traction, tmax, tmin, tshift...

no boris, nothing.  the car behaved exactly as expected, in extreme conditions,
using 2 lanes of the public highway, in the wet with 315hp at my right foot in
2nd gear...

over to the panel.

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q