Torsen Torture, pt. II...

[audidudi@mindspring.com (Jeffrey J. Goggin)]

Have you ever had an accident, then reflected upon how it happened and
whether you might have preventd had you done something differently?

Well, I have ... and in retrospect, had I known the direction the "Torsen"
thread would end up taking, I would have been careful to phrase my comments
differently.  A LOT differently, in fact ... I think the problem we're now
facing is that Scott and myself (and now Orin and perhaps Eric?) are
discussing how the Torsen operates in THEORY and Dave, among others, seems
to be focused on how it operates in PRACTICE.  Clearly, this will vary by
car since the Torsen is but one part of a complete system and Audi's (and in
Dave's case, Porsche's) engineers will have taken its character into account
to some extent when designing the rest of the car around it.

Type 44 cars, for example, were not originally designed around a Torsen diff
and thus may not make its case as well or as eloquently as an RS2 that has
never had anything but a Torsen center diff.  Ditto for the Ur-Q...

For all its clever engineering, the Torsen is a dumb device and I think once
everyone focuses on how it works, not how it works in a particular model of
car, we will quickly reach a consensus.  Then, and only then, can we begin
to explore how its character might manifest itself in one particular chassis
or another ... otherwise, I fear that we'll forever be caught in the riptide
of "my car does this/my car doesn't do this" and go round and round in circles.
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