Can someone give me some info to refute this?

[DasErde2@aol.com]

Mike, I am going to try to put every thing I have found to say Audi sucks as a
performance car, at least at the road production level.  I am just going to be
objective, and take everything that I know and put it down straight.  Let's
start with Chocholek:

(Torsen's inventors to go on to do other things -- he finally refined the
design enough so that it would survive as well as work.  The Torsen, he
said, is really quite "dumb" -- his *exact* words, I kid you not! -- and 
is nothing more than a bleepity-bleep "gear-jamming friction device.")

Torsen is an inexpensive, cheap to build and maintain, idoit system.  Audi
makes alot of money off of the public with it.  It is so passive and stupid
that it could never account for the varying conditions of high performance.
Why do you think Torsen diffs are dissapearing from the modern Audi?  EDL's
are replacing it!

(In any event, they finally got things figured out and started marketing
Torsens as aftermarket replacements to dirt-track racers, where it met 
with some success.  However, this stopped within a year or so because they had
some concerns about the company's liability exposure -- I didn't ask him 
to explain this any further but think he was implying there were some
reliability problems in high-powered applications -- and the decision was
made to concentrate on serving the OEM market instead.)

Reliability problems with high power applications.  And dirt-track racers are
basically outlaws, I've never heard of anything else.  Dosen't it bother you
that it's another American crap device- just like everything else the make?
Are you going to introvert your entire car philosophy just to save your love
for Audi?  

(He said he remembers the only requirement Audi had for the diff was that 
it allow the car to climb a hill with two wheels on the road and two wheels
off; they were also excited by the fact that the Torsen would allow them 
to use ABS all of the time.)

Wow.  Amazing research and develpment.  I beg to differ.  Audi used it because
they needed a quick fix for their open diffs ABS problems, and DOT and OSHA's
new regulations.  Audi did no further research, as Chocholek admits!!!!!!!!
Are you blind?

(I explained to him that many Audi enthusiasts, such as yours truly, are using
the cars in ways that Audi probably never imagined -- autocross, open-track
days, some racing, etc. -- and some of us with Torsen-equipped cars have
noticed a few handling quirks that we eventually concluded were being caused
by the Torsen as a result of the way it functions.)

Hmmm.  Never imagined use for high performance driving.  Looks like Chocholek
didn't design torsen for performance.  Hmmmm.  

(I asked him if it was possible for the Torsen to be "fooled" and allocate
torque incorrectly and he thought it was unlikely this would happen under
normal circumstances but agreed that it was definitely possible where one
end of the car -- i.e., both front wheels or both rear wheels -- was 
sliding instead of rolling.  He said that in this case, the Torsen *will*
incorrectly allocate torque to the wrong end of the car.  He again 
reminded me that it's a "dumb" device -- there's that word again! -- and 
distributes torque based only upon the resistance offered by the driveshafts,
which it
interprets as an indication of how much traction's available: The greater
the resistance it encounters, the more traction it assumes is available.)

Chocholek says it WILL happen in that situation.  I don't care how remote-
it's a pinto waiting to explode.  Not every Pinto exploded,
but.................

(He admitted this will fool it as well and more so as the corner radii becomes
smaller [which certainly correlates with my autocrossing experience] and
said this was one of the reasons that Land Rover rejected the Torsen.  For
most normal driving, though, he didn't think this was a problem since the
typical driver slows down for corners and/or backs off on the throttle,
which reduces the amount of torque the Torsen has to allocate ... for
racing, though, he definitely agreed it was a problem even though racecars
tend to have smaller slip angles.  In fact, he said, there was a factory
driver -- he couldn't remember who -- that absolutely refused to have a
Torsen in his car because he found it made the car too difficult to drive.
There was also another driver who didn't particularly like it but agreed 
to race with it on occasion, depending upon the event.  [Could the fact that
one driver didn't use a Torsen be the reason why there is so much
conflicting evidence about whether Audi ever raced with one or not?])

Companies like Porsche, Land Rover, etc. rejected torsen.  Guess they just
don't know what Audi knows about performance, on and off road.  (Laughing) "he
didn't think this was a problem since the typical driver slows down for
corners and/or backs off on the throttle"  Can you read the English language?
This is not performance.  And what about the driver who refused to have it in
the car?  

What a joke.  The all powerful "quattro" isn't even the real system they use.
All those wins, all those supposed victories, was all just BS.  I don't blame
BMW for getting angry, Audi is using a non-production product on their race
cars.  That is the definition of an unfair advanatge!!!!!  If their road
system was so good, why the hell don't they use the thing?  Are the stupid?
Can you invent another excuse for this?

(At this point, he asked me more about how the car behaved during those 
times the Torsen was suspected of being fooled and I explained to him the 
typical "understeer/oversteer/understeer" scenario.  He speculated that it's
definitely possible for the Torsen to cause this, depending upon how much
torque's present and/or how well the chassis copes with the torque shift,
and said it may even be possible that it can get caught in a vicious loop
where correcting for oversteer by dialing-in some opposite lock with the
steering wheel changes the slip angle relationship between front and rear
wheels enough to cause the Torsen to incorrectly allocate the torque for a
*second* time, which in turn calls for the driver to make another 
correction... however, he was very quick to add that he thought this sort of
thing 
was likely to happen only in exceptional cases and not everyday driving.)

Everyday driving.  That is the key word.  This system was designed for
everyday driving, and as for performance, READ THE FUCKING WORDS OF THE
CREATOR!!!!  Are you retarded?  No one can be this stupid or slow.  The
possibility that this dangerous thing happens goes up with performance
driving!  

And let's analyze left foot braking, and overall braking in a Torsen system.
The diff "freewheels" only when no torque is applied to it.  In performance
driving, this is not always the case.  There are instances where there is
torque going through the system- and goodbye braking.  The systems fight
fiercly for control, and the result is shit braking.  And left footing?  Bye
bye.  But now you are going to excuse this by saying "Oh, Quattro dosen't need
left footing, it's so magical"  or "Quattro dosen't need brakes, it has magic
properties that slow it down".  I sight all my stats collected on Torsen cars
to show that they SUUUUUCCCKKKKK.  Only the IV with EDL is getting better.

Segment II.  I think I have destroyed torsen BS as much as I can.

Now that we have realized that Quattro and Audi race cars don't match, and
that Audi's race cars are purpose built and have little to do with road cars
(or nothing at all), we can move on it the last saving grace of Audi- open
diff and FIA Gruppe racing.  The Ur-Q, as I have proven, had a completely
different racing engine, with different fuel injection, head, intake, turbo,
etc.  And the fact that they won twice to my knowledge, 82 and 84.  They were
beaten by Lancia RWD and Peugot RWD in 81, 82 and 85 respectively.  I have no
stats on anything after that.  And drivers championship, which they did win
all those years, means very little.  So what- those drivers are so badass like
Rohrl, Mikkola, Bouton, etc- they were bound to clean up.  Rohrl used to race
for Renault of Peugot I think, and he beat all of the Audi drivers at the
time.  The fact is there car was NOT all conquering of anything.  RWD drive
cars competed and won against them.

The last thing I can honestly respect is Pikes Peak.  They did in fact win
those years, and did do a great thing there, even though the competion wasn't
up to standards with ralley.  But they did do it.  And Porsche has five times
more victories, actively campaigns their STOCK cars their, and has won a
record 4 times straight (Zwart will garnish 5th and the all time record this
year), and they have unlimited enteries that won in 94 and set a new record.
And going back all the way, Porsche has dozens of class victories.  Who is
more respectable?  I will give you Pikes Peak recognition for Audi, but it's
again nothing on level of Porsche.  Sorry.

And all the statistics- I could be here till doomsday proving they're SLOW ASS
cars.