what is torque steer

[Cam-Rush]

Do a burnout or take off hard in just about any front drive car and you will notice it, i loved it in my AE82, i like having to really "drive" the car....but it can be scary.

Myne, im not sure how you could have equal length driveshafts...
It happens because front wheel drives have the engine sideways, so the gearbox and diff is further to one side, thats why they have unequal length drive shafts, because they come out of the gearbox and have an unequal distance between them and thier respective wheel.
When you put the power down, the longer shaft has more flex, beacuse its longer, so it twists up till it gets to the point where it untwists, then the wheel spins to catch up, then it twists again, and so on.
all corollas i have seen have the shorter shaft on the left, so when you boot it, it pulls left first, then right.
as somone said, an LSD can sometimes increase the problem, infact it usually does.

you can either get thicker diameter drive shafts, to reduce flex, or learn to deal with it.
not sure what difference power steering would make. but my mums AE112 has it and it still does it violently, on hard take offs.

correct me if im wrong, this is all stuff ive read.

[love ke70]

i booted my mates early 90's lancer and it torque steered on me...i always thought it was a high power thing, but having always driven rwd it was soo obvious to me...scary shit. stick with the right wheels spinning....
and also, fwd engine conversions suck donkeys balls...

[MR22ZZ]

can also be magnified by warn CV joints... the most likely culprit in the '90 Lancer

[myne]

Myne, im not sure how you could have equal length driveshafts...
It happens because front wheel drives have the engine sideways, so the gearbox and diff is further to one side, thats why they have unequal length drive shafts, because they come out of the gearbox and have an unequal distance between them and thier respective wheel.
When you put the power down, the longer shaft has more flex, beacuse its longer, so it twists up till it gets to the point where it untwists, then the wheel spins to catch up, then it twists again, and so on.

Equal length shafts means there's a half-shaft that's fixed, with a bearing. The CV's are in the eqact same (in 3d space) location relative to the wheels/centre of the vehicle on both sides. The torque difference is minimal because the shafts are at the same relative angles.
Where a long and a short shaft would be on say, 5* and 10* angles respectively, the "equal length" shafts are both on 5*.
I believe a huge chunk of torque steer comes from the difference in angle. I might be wrong, but that's the only real significant difference I can think of.

[Jorrs]

i booted my mates early 90's lancer and it torque steered on me...i always thought it was a high power thing, but having always driven rwd it was soo obvious to me...scary shit. stick with the right wheels spinning....
and also, fwd engine conversions suck donkeys balls...

nice opinion there

[myne]

I love people that base opinions on 1 experience.

There are dangerous traits of any car. If we all based our opinion of RWD's on a drive in a '73 Porch 911, we'd probably think RWD sucked.

Hell, based on some of the cars I've owned, I could say FWD's tend to dangerously oversteer, and RWD's tend to slide their nose straight into things.

[wiso]

my GT2 suffers a slight bit of torque steer, its more or a gentle pull though, sometimes it doesn't have any at all, depends on the road surface at the time, ie. if the road has visable negative camber you let the wheel go and boot it it will kinda pull that way, but if i was on a straight and boot it it will just go straight. mostly comes from my gearbox and driveshaft setup thankfully

i got a mate with a cordia turbo he has 160fwkw, and that thing torque steers like a mofo, that will literally change lase on you, even when fighting the steering wheel, i think the power steering in the celica makes this easier, since the cordia has no power assist

[mullett]

Yeah, I had a (mostly) factory AB cordia, with power steering, and that was violent. At 50 you could steer the car with one finger, the PS was that over-done, but stand on it and it'd try and tear the wheel out of your hands. Welcome to the 80s

RM.

[Cam-Rush]

even the guys on cordia turbo forums admit that cordias touque steer is among the worst.

Id rather touque steer than accidently break into a rear wheels breakout.

Dont base you choice of car or engine transplant on a thing like this, therell be something you have to get used to with any car.
If you have enough power in anything, whatever end drives it, you will get it out of control and it will be dangerous if you dont respect it, ie if you are too liberal with the loud pedal at low speeds, youll spin the wheels, and either the front or the back will "steer"
just get used to it.

[ViPeR_NiPPleX]

Id rather touque steer than accidently break into a rear wheels breakout.

it takes a bit more power to get the rear wheels to do that under accelleration rather than homo-ghey torque steer.

[JustCallMeOrlando]

it takes a bit more power to get the rear wheels to do that under accelleration rather than homo-ghey torque steer.

Indeed. It's very hard to ungrip the tail on my car.

[love ke70]

missed most of discussion. decided to shut mouth...

[love ke70]

ok, read discussion. might have something handy to say.
ill tell you right now, im a RWD boy. but thats ok....
basically, in a rwd car if you hit a corner to quick, drop a gear and the rear end will shift out and assist your angle. hit a corner too quick in a fwd car and you drop a gear front end will try harder to go straight on. hit the brakes...car will still try to go straight on.
in a straight line. boot a rwd, if you break traction, with an lsd she will arc up and line lock. in an open diff you will either spin a single wheel, or you will spin both, sometimes the rear end will move sideways which is simply conteracted with some backing off of the right foot. and a little counter steering.in a fwd the wheels pulls in your hand and will try change lanes on you. only counteracted by a strong well timed arm, or backing off the right foot (kinda hard when boost is going on)
so yeah, thats my opinion on what rwd does compared to fwd...

[wiso]

dood, WTF, that has nothing really to do with the topic of this tread, the topic is what is torque steer, and how bad will it be in a GT2.

it is NOT a disscussion on rwd vs fwd cornering ability

[love ke70]

but theres more to doing an engine conversion than a single factor. i think the idea of what torque steer has been covered plenty in this thread, so the whole idea of the forum is to share information and knowledge. someone that has to ask what torque steer is probably hasnt done much research at all on car handling and the like. so a bit of backround info might be handy.
torque steer is abitch and ive seen alot of guys get into hairy situations from booting an overpowered fwd car.