I know that the Anniversary edition Maxima comes with LSD, does the LSD help reduce torque steer at all, or is it just useful in slippery conditions ?
I also read that all Canadian Maxima SE come standard with LSD ? Is that true ?

 

I think the canadian thing is true. I hate torque steer. SO annoying.

 

All Canadian SE 20th Anniversary Editions come with the VLSD ...whether auto or manual

a LSD is useful in launching as both drive wheels will have a near equal amount of torque...it is also useful in cornering and in slippery conditions where one wheel may be slipping (as in snow)

i'm not too sure if it reduces torque steer, although i haven't noticed any when i take off at stop lights like a scalded cat

cheers

 

Hehe. I like torque steer. Makes me feel like I'm driving a beast that just can't be contained and could lash out anywhere. Oh, wait, I am...

 

LSD does nothing 2 reduce torque steer ... trust me ... my ride is like a bucking bronco!

 

I have experienced NO torque steer in my Max and would have to credit this to the LSD.

 

I gotta agree with annimax.

I don't experience much torque steer, except accelerating hard in sweepers where my steering doesn't want to unload.

With both posi and traction control, I'm looking forward to testing this car in the snow. (But not too much snow ) I suspect I'll still have to get snow tires, though.

 

I agree too none for me even after mods to give me lil more HP and torque. I might feel a little with a power shift from 1st to 2nd and the wheels light up but I don't do that very often...

 

I also have LSD and little to NO torque steer.

 

Oh ya forgot to mention..ya all of us Canadian Max owners get LSD but we don't get the AE Body Kit!

 

 

With my car it is horrible. When I floor it she pulls to one side fairly hard. I have almost hit parked cars because of this.

 

I feel like a formula 1 racecar driver, the steering wheel is all over the place.... I don't even need wheel spin, the torque steer kicks in everytime the car downshifts or upshifts to high rpms....

 

Hmmm...interesting...I have a regular se and no LSD but still get minimal or no torque steer - and I am a lead foot.

 

Alot of you guys don't experience torque steer beucase you might not be getting enough power to the ground to be experiencing it. For FWD cars, 200-220 hp is about when you will start feeling it. The SC'ed guys should be getting torque steer though.

For the person that gets torque steer w/ his lsd, it sounds like wheel hop, not torque steer.

 

I don't believe hp and torque steer are directly related, when you drive an American FWD car, wether it's a I4, V6, or V8, the torque steer could be felt whenever you floor the gas pedal. On Japanese cars, it's less pronounced, and from what I read in magazines, the Passat has almost no torque steer. I think it comes down to the front suspension design.

 

That could be true to a point. It's the drivetrain design more than the suspension design. As the two halfshafts get more and more unequal in length, the more severe the torque steer becomes. Maybe American cars utilize very different length halfshafts. donno. Also donno about passats. The only one with enough power to have a problem would be the VR6 powered one(and that one is not that powerfull) Saabs have incredibly bad torque steer in their Viggens.

 

It wouldn't even have to be severe enough wheel motion to call it hop. Especially in 1st gear all it takes is enough pavement roughness to unload the front wheels unequally or to cause the instantaneous centers of the tire contact patches to move unsymmetrically. Under those conditions, it's possible, even likely, for a LSD equipped car to have MORE torque steer.

Torque steer is a function of both front suspension and drivetrain design. Equal length halfshafts are part of the solution. Scrub radius and camber change in rebound as the nose rises are a couple of the geometric suspension considerations. Equal shock damping right to left is also a factor.

Norm

 

Are you comparing viscous coupling limited slip differential systems to clutch or gear type? I don't see how a viscous liquid type lsd is gonna make torque steer worse. These systems are not immediate type systems. It takes a little time for the liquid to solidify and even at that the rates only go up to about 20-25%. Maybe if some of these people are experiencing this little "lag".

 

I'm only saying that under certain conditions it can. Remember that any LSD is really a traction aid, not a cure-all for directional stability issues.

Certainly clutch, cone, or possibly even Torsen type LSD's are more abrupt in their behaviour, especially those with a high bias (locking diff's and spools are harsher yet). But once the viscous fluid has stiffened from a bit of one wheel spinning, it also takes a finite amount of time for it to thin out again. During this time it will permit different right and left wheel torques, which is what it is intended to do in order to provide an overall gain in torque delivered to the wheels. And this will cause some steer effects unless the scrub radii for both wheels happens to be zero, which is not at all likely under hard acceleration.

The non-LSD, of course, cannot support a significant difference between right and left wheel torque. Hence it will be sensitive mostly to unequal lateral contact patch centroid movements.

Norm

 

So you are saying that even with the relatively small lock of about 20%, there can be torque steer on a bumpy road? In my opinion only, it takes longer for the liquid to thin than to initially stiffen. Especially when the coupling is constantly receiving large/small speed differences on that bumpy road we are on.

All I was saying was that that person is probably experiencing wheel hop, not torque steer. Especially if the road was bumpy. In some cases, the wheel/tire package will make wheel hop worse as does soft motor mounts and soft suspension bushings.

Directional stability as it pertains to suspension is whole different subject, especially if you want to consider stability in general and not just in individual cases like this one.

 

My point exactly. And I agree about the relative time to thin. The torque difference that can exist when the fluid is in a stiffened state results in steer because one wheel can pull harder than the other, which results in unequal torques about the steering axes.

I don't think that the road would have to be bumpy enough for a wheel to lift completely clear of the pavement though, just sufficiently rough to unload a tire enough such that half of engine torque times overall gearing (times drivetrain efficiency, to be picky) divided by rolling radius results in enough force at the contact patch to make that tire spin a little.

What I was initially suggesting was that a less easily identifiable cause than wheel hop could be the culprit. Not to say it's the only cause. Thinking a bit further, it could probably occur just before a case of wheel hop develops, since that requires a couple of suspension cycles to really get going.

BTW, I haven't noticed any torque steer in my 20th AE, but the roads I usually drive on are relatively good and I don't do 5000+ rpm clutch dumps either. I'm still tinkering with F/R tire pressures, so I'm not sure how much effect (and in which direction) the LSD has on sweepers taken with leading throttle. I'll have to think about that some.

madmax2k1 - I think I answered your topic starting question in my previous post.

Norm

ps - be back Monday AM, my net access is at work. Just so you don't think that this newbie dropped the topic cold.

 

Haha.. HI NORM! (Cheers term)

Don't worry about it. Just having intelligent debate. (which is a rarity nowdays)

Have a good weekend!

 

Torque steer is why Audi developed the Quattro system - they determined that torque steer would be very hard to control above 200hp or so. In the case of the 5th gen max, the horsepower is close - more so with the stick and torque steer becomes an issue. Tire and wheel choice will have more to do with it than LSD though. All other things being equal the 17's will be worse than the 16's which will be worse than the 15's because of profile height and tread width. Offset will have even more effect - I can really notice the difference between my stock wheels and my aftermarket wheels which are about 10mm farther out - it's pretty tame with the stock 16's but scary sometimes with the aftermarkets (I keep them because they're 9 lb apiece lighter). This is why fwd cars have so much wheel inset - note the VW's really have a lot and very little torque steer. The Max is really pretty good - certainly better than anything GM has to offer. Wait till the 260 hp stick hits the road!

wdave

 

My 2000 SE has LSD and I don't have too much torque steer and trust me, I would be a good candidate!

 

Yup. The scrub radius related stuff is the greater effect. And I'll bet that's part of the reason why the OE 225/50-17's have a relatively narrow tread.

Gave the torque steer a couple of tests over the weekend, on good flat pavement. Full throttle from about 8 - 10 mph roll, hands off. Each time I got one small pull to the right that stopped of its own accord at a little over 1" of movement at the steering wheel rim. Hands on, it's barely perceptible. Makes me think that perhaps rotation of the engine/transaxle in the mounts also has an effect. Vector summation of rotational velocities, maybe (I don't think I got nearly enough out of that part of my math courses).

Jeff92se - I've actually been there a couple of times (one of those visits predated the show by a few years). And for a little more coincidence, there was a guy in the cubicle next to mine named Cliff.

Norm