Re: Additional torsen stability factor - was Alignment

["Steve Marinello" <smarinel@neosoft.com>]

AAAWWWW, SH*T!!  Now I'm gonna get into it, too.

Scott:  I do thoroughly enjoy the TECHNICAL discussions that you provide us
with.  I also am saving the thread.  however, your need to continue the
acrimonious manner is unworthy of this list or of someone with your stated
technical knowledge and enthusiast capabilities and you have proven in the
past that you have much to offer to all of us.

But the line that draws me in...

----------
  Please let us, cuz
> your statements come up short in theory, application and documentation.
>
> Scott Justusson
>
_______

seems to clearly demonstrate that you do not want, at any cost, to accept
that anyone else may have knowledge or experience that points to another
parameter that you did not come up with in your own considerable mental
gyrations or in your own personal driving experience.  Take a deep breadth
and step off the soapbox, pop some kava kava and St John's Wort and look at
it again.  Phil's experience clearly shows that, under a given set of
conditions, the alignment, particularly the rear alignment, can lead to the
discussed U-O-U behavior.  Accept it!  The front bushings/alignment, etc.
can all contribute BUT they will only affect the degree and character of the
response as stated.

I am NOT a chassis engineer, although I once considered such in another
life.  I USED TO BE a racer of sorts, back in my undergrad days with a
Triumph GT6+.  I presently own an '83 and an '85 ur-q...decidedly
NON_TORSEN.  I don't pretend to be as good a driver at 44 as I was at 23;
reactions and vision diminish the limits one wants to approach when you have
a wife and two kids.

But, I am an engineer and I have worked on suspensions enough to understand
(most of) the discussions in this thread.  There are, with virtually
insignificant doubt, some specific truths to almost all that has been
brought here...technically, that is.

My point of reference, with the non-Torsen '85;

When I picked it up in California and drove it to Colorado, I thought it had
been properly set up before I left.  Nearly new P700Z's, 205/45-16's.  Had
some, shall we say, similar experiences at below what I expected the limits
to be while dicing through some twisties in Colorado.  Stammeler in Boulder
hung me out for two and a half days and did not get to checking anything out
on the car, so I continued at the end of my conference status quo.  When I
got to New Orleans, I had my local dealer do some work-up and evaluation.
They did this AFTER I had ordered new SP 8000's, 225/50-16's and had them
mounted.  When I pulled off the P700's, I was surprised/unsurprised to find
that the rears, one it particular showed significantly more wear than the
other tires.  I was also surprised/unsurprised to then find that the rear
alignment was significantly out.  Now, it's hard to duplicate mountain
twisties in Louisiana, but to the best of my attempts at finding and running
them, I have not been able to duplicate the UOU response.  Now, I also have
determined that, for my standards, the car needs new strut bearings, control
arm bushings and LF wheel bearing.  And they will be replaced (unless I sell
the car first), but the point is that, as in Phil's case, the problem seems
to have disappeared.  So, I make the point that the rear alignment was a
contributor to the condition.  Perhaps NOT the only contributor, but one
nonetheless.

So my point, and the end of what I will contribute OR RESPOND TO on this
list in this discussion, is that there are a multitude of parameters that
can contribute to chassis dynamics and that one or more is applicable to a
given situation, dependent on the specific loci of parametric conditions on
a given car.  Your apparent assertion that you are the only one that can
define the baseline from which everyone else has to work on this thing is
ineffectual and equivalent to having blinders on, or a good set of wood
vises applied to your cranium.  Step back and just let it go.  Anyone
dealing with theoretical discussions has to accept at some time that theory
is just that.  Differential equations, taken to their limits, only define,
theoretically, the limits reached by the parameters considered.

And please understand, I would say these things, in this manner, to my best
friends if they had seemed to go this far.  And we'd be "distant" for the
time it took for us to want to have a beer together.  And they'd give me the
same next time I stepped out of line.  And, as with them, this was stated
with considerable respect, but with limit exceeded annoyance.  Phil, Dave,
Greg, Bruce and especially Gary (and even Eric, to some degree) are all
trying to contribute to advancing our collective understanding.  You don't
further your rep or argument with continued attacks on every else's mental
abilities and efforts at understanding.

Steve Marinello