First am i right thinking that torque steer is when you are giving it some gas, the revs get up and the wheels start spinning and the car snakes side to side? If so how can i reduce it? Can i do it with certain chassis mods or can it only be done with an LSD of something???
one way to reduce torque steer is to have equal length drive shafts, much like the uno turbo had. there was an article in the golf about an american guy with a scirroco he used for high climbing and he had done such a conversion. not sure if a LSD would reduce it as, the RS focus is said to suffer on rough surfaces (see top gear) at the end of the day with a powerful front wheel drive car u'll never get rid of it, one of the downfalls of having the steering wheels transmitting the power as well.
if you went for a diff it would help a bit...it'll feel very different, more like tramlining than torque steer. either way you'll get seriously good traction. i'd go for a quaife atb (auto torque biasing) over an lsd myslelf. not that i can afford to...but i do have edl (electric locking diff) and compared to my mates highline which diesn't have one i get sooo much better traction, especially in the wet.
Thought it was a relatively simple conversion to equal length driveshafts? Just a case of getting an extension made for the gearbox output so that you can use a short driveshaft on both sides?? Of course the extension will have to be more torsionally stiff than the driveshaft, or it wont have any benefit.
it's cos the long shaft twists more than the short one quaife do a driveshaft extension i think but quite sure it's megabucks as usual
So it looks like everyting that could help would be mega expensive, i'll just keep fighting it, it is fun but i nearly clipped another car while i was onvertaking thats why i asked the question.
I have khumo KH11 195/45x16 which are apparently a 'summer' tyre these. Which i think are excellent in the dry but spin a bit when its damp when i hit about 3500rpm. I am getting a set of 15" winter wheels of acf8181 on saturday so i'm open to suggestions for tyres for winter.
Actually upon a little research, torque steer is due to the short drive shaft no twisting so much, and causing toe change in the wheel to which it is attatched, this causes the car to steer. Cant see why a driveshaft extension would be mega bucks thouhg - unless its made out of some mega fancy alloy or something?
Surley it doesn't really matter which drive saft causes the problem..? If they are both equal then there will not be a problem?
I wonder if the shorter one could be weighted so it weighed the same as the longer one? Or is it already thicker?
ITs not the weight, its the torsional stiffness, the longer one twists more for a given torque compared to the shorter one, thats what causes the imbalance. So equal length shafts eliminate this - hence why an driveshaft extension can be used from the geabox on the longer driveshaft side so that two short shafts can be used.
# You can see the extension tube in this picture. From the quafie website DRIVE SHAFT EXTENSION TUBE Extension tubes are available for these gearboxes to enable even length drive shafts to be used. Drive shaft extension tube - QMEXT
That looks expensive, maybe i could knock one up with an old toilet roll tube and an empty bottle of fairy liquid . So the extention will be very, very stiff and it would be like the driveshaft was connected to the hub. Are there any prices on the website?
Yes it will be very very stiff, and essentially it will be like the driveshaft was attatched directly to the output flange of the gearbox. Not sure what they make them out of, nor is there nay prices on the site. Might drop them an e-mail and see what they say about material and cost.
i get torque steer sometimes when i drop a gear and boot it past people...can be quite scary sometimes, just have to hold on real tight!!
Also one thing you're all forgetting is steering geometry, un-equal camber on a car will make it torque steer for example Worn/weak bushes in the wishbones can make it do it too Polybushes in the TCA on the old RST running 16psi helped wheel location and reduced torque steer. edit - Andy mentioned the toe change Edited by: G_V_K
Thing is though, if you know your car real well you can anticipate and torque steerna nd simply compenstae for it while accelerating.
