ok, when i first had my turbo system installed, everytime the boost would kick in, the car would torque steer tremendously. i could hardly go in a straight line when i get in boost. at first, i thought this was an alignment problem. so, i had the car aligned and i still have the same problem. i do know that my rotor(s) are warped and i am in the process of swapping them out this weekend. another thing is, i bought my vehicle salvaged. it was involved in a minor accident on the front end of the passenger's side.

the parts that were damaged were: the hood, the passenger's side fender, and the bumper cover. so my question is, could the torque steer be as a result of the warped rotor(s) or the chassis from the previous accident? i had the frame straightened out to almost to stock specs but, not quite. thanks in advance.

 

I thought torque steer was a result of uneven axles on FWD vehicles. I might be wrong, but I believe the way to cure that is to get an LSD.

 

Torque steer is do to the fact that we have uneven length axles. With turbo on, you have alot more torque and power, so the car should jerk harder now. As far as the rotors are concerned, it will not cause the car to jerk.

 

Urrgh, c'mon guys, torque steer is NOT a problem with the axles, and getting an LSD will not fix it! Sheesh . Torque steer is a direct result of having tires that aren't directly centered about the axle of rotation... in this case, the hub the tires are bolted onto. See, your tires (if you look from the top) are actually centered slightly outwards from their pivot.
|---|
|---|
|oo|======
|---|
|---|
On this crappy ASCII drawing, you can imagine the bar on the right as the axle, the thing is the general shape of your wheel (looking from the top, towards the ground), and you can imagine the 'oo' bit as the two separate pivot points. In actuality the natural pivot point is in the direct center, but that's the limitation of ASCII art now isn't it . Imagine the second 'o' as being the ACTUAL pivot point, and the first 'o' as being the NATURAL pivot point. Now, imagine you have two of these, one on each side.

OK, so far, no problems when you're going straight. When you turn, that causes slight problems because you have to scrub your tires against the ground to actually accomodate the turn as opposed to the natural turn, but that's off-topic.

Now, so far we've had a perfectly level surface. Imagine now that your car is halfway on a hill. One wheel is sitting on flat ground, the other wheel is at a 45 degree angle to the hill... like...

|---|..................|---|
|---|.....(axle)....|---|..../
|oo|========|oo|../ (hill)
|---|..................|---|./
|---|..................|---/
-----------------------
(flat ground)

As you can imagine, the wheel on the right is going to want to pivot somewhat if equal force is being applied to both tires. This is where torque steer comes from. Of course, in my beautiful ASCII picture it's totally skewed, but imagine small bumps and humps in the pavement as being minor hills. That's where torque steer comes from, and no, there's no real way to fix it .

 

There's my reply to everyone else... now for the original question... if you're bending rotors, that means something is seriously wrong here. Did you get a cheapo alignment, or did you get one of those good 22-point alignments? Torque steer on my car is bad, bad enough to grab the wheel from my hand when I'm launching (sometimes), but not bad enough to break things..

 

actually no disrespect to any of you guys out there you all make sense but really torque steer is caused by a bad engine/trans mount or frame damage that was improperly repaired. if you have 2 identical frt tires and good mounts and frame is squared your not feeling torque steer. it is simply an affect of having an open Diff ( only one tire is considered a drive wheel ) and this effect is being amplified by the increased HP & torque from the boost source. has nothing to do with long/short axles. (no offense) and as the others said LSD is definitely a good step to take to minimize your problem.. let me know if i can help....check my profile

 

ok, to be a little more specific, besides the torque steer when in boost, i can feel my steering wobble from left to right a little when not in boost or at high speeds as if the rack and pinion steering is loose. so, would this be a cause of the warped rotors? or if it is the chassis, where can i go to make sure or make it squared. would corner balancing it rid this problem?

 

raeneshadow: actually i didn't break the rotor, they are just warped from being old. and i had a four wheel alignment. not sure what a 22 point alignment is. could you explain. thanks.

 

hey, I said I wasn't sure

 

Hey if your steering wheel wobbles, it's most likely due to one or two of these factors.
1) Rim is bent.
2) Wheel needs balancing.

Try rotate your rear tires to the front and see if it cures the problem. I had the same problem a while ago.
Oh and sorry about the wrong info about the torque steer. That is what i was under the impression. You learn something new everday.