torsen: just a lot of hot air

[eliot <eliot@eskimo.com>]

if i was paranoid i'd say that there is a lame conspiracy to undermine
the torsen.

consider that a significant portion of the torsen's smearing campaign is
the claim that the factory's racing effort "never ever" used the torsen,
the implication being that the road cars are meant for and bought by
wussies and that real men would take their audis with manual center
locks.

when it is pointed out that this claim is false, the reaction is even more
hilarious.  the press has been lied to and have been falling for it for
the past 10 years, the screams went. when challenged to provide proof of
this devious and wicked conspiracy, the silence is deafening. 

i'd like to see this line of reasoning in our criminal justice system:

"man has killed in the past.  you are a man, therefore you are a killer"

"the press has been wrong before in the past.  your claim was gotten
from the press, therefore it is wrong."

just as hilarious is the fact that upon discovery that the racing effort
used slightly unconventional implementations of the torsen (i.e. a 60/40
split) the campaigners immediately declared that a real torsen would have
a variable torque split (such as 75/25/75) and that a "fixed" 60/40 beast
has got to be a fake.  it must have been embarassing to later find out
that 60/40 only referred to its steady state (i.e. no-slip) charactersitic
and that it is indeed capable of an unknown variation from the nominal
60/40. sure lends the campaign a lot of credibility when its participants
don't even have a grasp of the basics, doesn't it?

at this point one has to wonder why the 60/40 data is considered "true"
while the initial revelation about the use of torsen in racing is
considered false.  hmmmm

then there is some mumbling about how a torsen that splits 50/50 is evil
while the racing team knew better and used some other split.  so where is
the evidence that the racing cars are more benign than the evil road
cars?? 

W H E R E ? ? ? 

do we have testimony from mr stuck, beila or bintcliff?  nope!  aha, "i've
raced before in the past, so i *KNOW* that the racing audis are much
better behaved than the evil road cars". (see above) 

seeing that the campaign is rapidly crumbling it's time to grasp at the
straws, or rather the holy grail of the torsen documents.  let's pretend
to quote from it and spew out reams of incomprehensible gibberish in the
desperate hope that the poor confused saps will give us the benefit of the
doubt.  who falls for it, i wonder?  anyone?

ok, so a 75-25-75 torsen audi can misbehave given a specific set of
conditions.  BFD!! is any one else here aware that in a 911 if you lift
off at the limit you will go into the hedge backwards?  some people
actually like that!


eliot


(procmail filters ready at the inevitable onslaught of hate mail!)