RE: T*rsen stuff

[QSHIPQ@aol.com]

Sorry to Huw and others, not new thread, but just easier to write
Phil writes:
>When I say minor, I mean minor.  Two or three degrees of opposite lock,
>remaining constant whatever the slip.

Guess what, that's not a constant to the torsen in a given turn.  Oops.  Read 
up on your statements v the device, please Phil.

> I see light at the end of the tunnel.  Phil needs a retraction of 
conclusions
> right off the bat,

>>All of your arguments try to support a proposition that spider bite is
>>inevitable in a Torsen-centre car.  If this were the case, people would
>>have been killed and there would long since have been a recall like the
>>current TT one.  'Sixty Minutes', Spiegel, Top Gear and last but not
>>least the UK Audi quattro Owners Club would have beaten Audi to a pulp.

Driver error, is a common phrase, included in the 60minutes aftermath.  The 
nice thing about awd is the ability of accident investigators to conclude 
"too fast for conditions" including torsen q's.  Read any small town 
newspaper that lists citations: "Too fast for conditions - PDI (property 
damage incident)"   Without witnessing the accident, they will do the 
reconstruction if a death occured.  How 'exactly' does one reproduce U-O-U?  
Or do we say just "lost control", doesn't that indeed cover it?  Same 
question asked of me, and yet all t*rsen technical references give a bunch of 
given variables, really basic ones.  So basic, 'alignment' isn't even 
mentioned.

Interesting your comments Phil, and yet, we can see from the archives last 
year, that *YOU* claim torsens weren't used in racing.  If they are such 
great center diffs, why won't/didn't audis own racers use them?  Better, more 
predictable devices found elsewhere for a given race chassis (with racing 
alignment and suspension)?

>The simple fact is - on a properly maintained car (like mine) aligned
>with the stock settings spider bite flat doesn't happen.  

Correction, you haven't made it happen. Did you replace the front swaybar 
bushings or not?  So, Phil let me get this exactly right.  In your car, slip 
angle and/or traction differences that max the BR rear while accelerating 
isn't oversteer?  And, in your car, slip angle and/or traction differences 
that max BR front while accelerating isn't understeer?  That's one heck of an 
alignment Phil, you really *must* get us those numbers.

>You can
>produce as many theories and read as many SAE papers as you like -
>you're not going to magick the phenomenon out of the air.  

No, get the paper (that's one for BIRA), it's not thin air, it's the nature 
of the device while turning.  Your false claim of it so noted, making the 
posted "you misunderstand torsen" comment somewhat ironic.

>There's a
>bunch of about a dozen Torsen drivers in the UK Club (Roger Galvin also
>has two, John Robinson, Graham Caddy, Richard Simmonds also with two,
>etc.) who haven't a clue what you're talking about.

Ok, guilt by association? BTST from you already.

>  John Robinson and I
>have over 300k miles in Torsen ur-quattros as daily drivers in all
>weathers - four wheel drifts being the order of the day.  Not a trace -
>not even _ONCE_ except in a badly aligned car which I spotted on the
>first day I owned it.  John's is the uprated MB featured in Dave
>Pollard's book, BTW - and if anyone thinks I'm a hairy driver ...

Amazing, I don't make any claims about my driving skill or my friends, and 
four wheel drifts exactly *weren't* the order of the day for me and 50 torsen 
cars at Road America.  Not to mention my and others prior experiences backed 
by documentation of the design of the device.

>If you experience it again - your car's broke.

Great tip, Phil, I'll try to pass that on.  Maybe you can make a better 
effort at making correct statements about the device in your car.  And, since 
you managed to thoroughly shut down Jeff Goggins informative home brew 
alignment instructions, the least you could do is share some 'exact' 
reproduceable specifications.  Touting 'exact' alignment specifications, then 
don't even ask BRM what they were or are?  I'd (usurping 'we') would rather 
have Jeff walk us thru a home measured alignment, it's more useful.

Are you sure Dave E agrees with all you've been saying?  The archives would 
dictate otherwise, so would some basic torsen facts.

Scott Justusson