AvramD

The power isn't "pouring out" the wheel with no grip.

The problem is that it takes an engine time & resistance to build up torque. When you get stuck, you generally *don't* floor it b/c the wheel is already spinning like crazy when you're only at 1/4 throttle.

If you *do* floor it, you only do it for a second b/c by then you're already at redline, where your engine produces almost no torque. Naturally you let off b/c you don't want to wreck your engine.

An engine can't produce any torque if there is nothing to apply the torque *to*. The reason a dynamometer provides resistance to the engine is because there *is* no torque if there is no resistance. Torque is "work" (force * distance). If no work is being done, there is no torque. If all you're doing is spinning a wheel, then "almost nothing" is being done. Spinning a wheel is something, but it's like 0.01% of accelerating a 3500 lb car.

So the power isn't quite "pouring out the spinning wheel." The power was never there in the first place, although it is because of the spinning wheel.

Here's another analogy: Let's say it takes 200 lb-ft of torque to make my S4 go from 0-60 in 7 seconds. If I take 2600 lbs of weight off of the 3600 lb car (easy to do since it doesn't exist yet 8-), and then do 0-60 in 7 seconds again, how much torque did I use? About 55 lb-ft. This makes sense if you recall that a Lotus 7 has about 80 lb-ft of torque, weighs 1200 lbs, and can do 0-60 in about 7 seconds. So where did my extra 145 lb-ft of torque go? Nowhere - I never produced it in the first place.

I *could* have done 0-60 in 3 seconds if I had used it all, but that's not the point.

ErikR

You actually answered the question yourself: 66% is routed (forced) to the front in your example, which is more than enough to get the car rolling forward.

It is true that edl can theoretically force one end to get 100% R or L, but that is 100% of the 44% and only briefly. I find the system actually pulses (like the ABS...) when it brakes the spinning wheel. This is an incidental means by which you optimize traction on a low Mu surface too.