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MrktMkr1986
It has to do with the car's design, not just having a lot of torque applied at the front wheels. Torque-steer is caused when a moment (torque) is created at the tire by an offset in the steering system. There is an imaginary axis (called the kingpin inclination) that passes through the centre the upper and lower steering pivots on the wheels. Here's a diagram:
Torque is a force applied perpendicular to an axis about which it rotates. The wheel rotates about the kingpin inclination, and the force is applied at contact patch. This creates an extra torque, which pulls the car right or left. The closer the kingpin inclination is to the contact patch the less torque-steer is present. Naturally, as you increase the force on the tire, a greater torque is generated due to this relationship.
It's also caused by unequal drivetrain geometry. If the halfshafts (transverse driveshafts that go to the wheels) are of unequal length the angles at which the CV joints lie with respect to the wheels will be different, and under power this will result in more torque being sent to one wheel than the other.
GM was one of the first carmakers to use a longitudinally-mounted engine in a front-drive application, starting with the '66 Oldsmobile Toronado (and you thought 303hp was a lot to the front wheels: the Toronado had a 7.0L V8 that made 385hp!). The fact that the engine was mounted longitduinally meant that the transmission was smack dab in the middle of the car, and the halfshafts were pretty much the same length. GM was also one of the first carmakers to adapt their transversely-mounted front-drive drivetrains so that the halfshafts made the angles and lengths equal. The 4T65-E used in the Impala and Monte Carlo is designed so that the halfshafts are of equal length:
You can see in this photo that the transmission itself extends quite far around the engine so that the passenger side halfshaft is the same length as the driver side.
A lot of high-powered front-drive cars don't have very noticeable torque-steer. The Chrysler 300M had its drivetrain mounted longitudinally, equal length halfshafts, and little to no torque-steer at all. The previous generation Acura TL was the same way.
The Altima 3.5SE on the other hand is a good example of a high-powered front-drive car that has more than its fair share of torque-steer. Its drivetrain is trasverse, and the transmissions have unequal length halfshafts. As does the new Acura TL.
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