RE: sports

["Dave Eaton" <Dave.Eaton@clear.net.nz>]

slight contradiction here scott.  you say "How do we explain, even in high
power low cf conditions, understeer rules locked center diffs under gas or
coast?"

and then later claim of the sport (with locked centre) "Not true according
to the test drives, it's a "neutral powerslide" car, in both the rallye and
road versions".

seems to me you're arguing both sides here.  perhaps you could tell us when
you have arrived at a conclusion?

fwiw, when discussing the sport with walter rohrl, he talked mainly about
the understeer, and about getting the car to turn in properly.  the road
tests i have of the sport concur...

if you need information about how the weight distribution of the s1 changed
from the sport(as you clearly do), i suggest the juergenski (sp?) book.  if
it would help, autocar's test of the sport said that it had a 62.1% front
weight distribution (vs a 55% front for the ur-quattro).  as i'm sure you
know, the s1 removed the radiator to the trunk, and went to considerable
trouble to get weight rearwards.

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q
'88 mb 2.3-16

-----Original Message-----

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 12:01:56 EDT
From: QSHIPQ@aol.com
Subject: Fwd: Sport q, S1 and rallyes

Dave E. writes:

>remember that there is a 100% torque bias with a locked centre (effectively
>the same as no centre differential at all).  that is you can have 0% torque
>to the front, or 100% to the front, or anthing in between.  ditto with
theback.
>there is no way of "controlling it".  it just happens.

For exactly the length of the wheelbase.  Again, extreme conditions aren't
how diffs are considered in terms of performance.  I've seen no reviews, nor
had any btdt on oversteering a quattro into a spin, have you dave?  Given
that 100% of the torque could be at the rear wheels, isn't that quite
possible?  How do we explain, even in high power low cf conditions,
understeer rules locked center diffs under gas or coast?

>quite frankly, according to the drivers, the sport quattro (the precursor
to
>the s1) was an absolute pig.  it was based around a centre locker, or
>nothing, and was extremely twitcy.

You may want to read my interview with Stig for more on this.  The S1  and
the Sport both started with torsens, and ended up with lockers.
Documentation from audi and the "pre-debut" rag reports clearly show, that
the variable torque center differential (torsen) was to debut on the Sport.
Clearly, one can track history of that decision by looking at any sport road
car.

>the s1 was a considerable improvement and no-one is really sure why.

Obvious to some of us.  Maybe we could believe Stig hisself.

>certainly a lot of effort was put into weight distribution.

Do you have any documentation of this guess.  I don't.