Torque Steer? What's Torque Steer?
How quaint it all seems, looking back 10 years and remembering how the enthusiast public was fretting about the Dodge Neon SRT-4 and its half-shaft threatening 250 lb-ft of torque. How could a front-drive car put such twist through the front wheels? Well, now we’re dealing with Fusions and Sonatas putting down similar figures, and the newest crop of turbocharged front-drive hatchbacks are putting down some staggering numbers.
Having just driven a 2015 Volkswagen GTI, I was sure that the 210 horsepower/250 lb-ft figure quoted by VW was a bit underrated. Turns out that’s what it really makes at the wheels, which works out to about 241 horsepower and 287 lb-ft of torque. My car didn’t have the Performance Pack and its mechanical LSD, but I didn’t think torque steer was anything to fret about.
But if I got the APR Stage 1 ECU reflash, I’d re-consider that. The 291 horsepower figure is Golf R territory, but the most astonishing number is the 367 lb-ft at the wheels. That’s as much torque as a 2004 Mustang Cobra “Terminator”, arguably one of the fiercest performance cars of the mid 2000’s, was putting down.
More by Derek Kreindler
Comments
Join the conversation
Sure smells like an overrating DynoJet in here.
You wanna talk torque steer? I once drove a first gen Ford Probe GT turbo. I think it was rated at 130hp and 190ft/lbs. You could change lanes using nothing but the throttle.
Why is it that my front wheel drive car with an 8.2 liter V8, 550 ft-lob of torque, has absolutely no torque steer. None. Maybe 'cause it was made 44 years ago, when customers wouldn't buy a car with torque steer? OK, so maybe the feet, or the pounds, were smaller back then. But it's still a lot of torque. Part of the answer is tat the car runs with a negative scrub radius. This requires wheels with a lot of inset, which look cool with the right hubcaps. Part of it is equal length half-shafts. Part of it is fairly stiff suspension bushings, and the remaining part, I am convinced, is carefully thought out geometry. Bob
"Part of it is equal length half-shafts." I think that is a pretty big part of it.