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Thread: Diffs - Quaife, Wavetrac, MFactory

  1. #11
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    oh and one last thing, you have to factor in the diff casing to ring gear bolts/rivets. The stock one is rivetted. These get drilled out so you have to have fasteners to go with the LSD. My Kaaz came with their own design of metric fine high tensile bolts. The wavetrac came with ARP's and I believe Peloquin used to as well. From memory they were press in studs with nuts to go on the underside of the ring gear. This might be where some of the diff fitment stories come from. I've seen pics of guys where the studs wouldn't press all the way in ie the hole was too small or even where the hole was too big. I don't think you can get away from that though with any of the different diffs. There's always going to be some quirk somewhere in the job. The ring gear might just fall off the diff when its rivets are drilled out. Others need a huge press to get them apart. You just don't know till you commit to it. Worth checking if you do go for a Quaife ATB whether or not you'll need to shell out seperately for ARP's as from memory they may not be included and will cost. just something to be mindful of when you are comparing pricing.

  2. #12
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    I spoke to Dave in the UK about his Quaife and it came with the bolts. I've also seen most shops sell the ARP kit separately.

    I hear you with the suspension setup. My local wants me to run MCA reds and remove the FARB entirely. He has a few race Polos so I figure he knows how to set them up for our tracks.
    08 9n3 Polo GTI
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  3. #13
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    Is that Dave Howlett you spoke to? Didn't know he had a quaife. What did he say about it?

    I don't know about running completely without a FARB. I haven't ever tried it. Just talking from personal experience with a few stiff setups the problem I could see would be your cornering roll stiffness all would have to come from the springs. Then at the straight ahead the thing would be overly stiff and have a horrible ride. My MCA XR's (they were one down from reds at the time I think) have pretty lets say inadequate high speed damping that you cant adjust separately. I think if it was going to be stiff enough without a front bar for good cornering, you'd have no teeth left when just going down the road if you still intended on commuting anywhere with it. Say you were to run 205-215 width R specs on the track from what Gary has said to me, the most spring you can run on those tryes is about 350lb/in at the wheel'ish. I'm around that already with 7kg/mm front springs. I'd wanted to go to 8kg springs at one stage because the front felt a bit soft on the track once I'd gone back to the standard FARB and Gary said that'd be the limit for those spec tyres. But if you take out the front bar then you loose a huge chunk of front roll stiffness that you can only regain with springs and that'll have you needing something well beyond 7-8kg/mm springs to regain that front roll stiffness. Mine is choppy as hell as it is and I wasn't game to go for the 8kg fronts. I guess it really comes down to how you'll use the car. If its going to be a track car that only has its rego to drive to the track
    then why not but if you intend on still driving it everywhere I can tell you the a stock front bar + 7kg/mm on MCA's can be rough as guts and that would only get worse if you were to remove the front bar and then have to throw even stiffer springs again at it.
    There was a Brazilian guy on here years and years ago who did the same experiment. He had a super track focused Gti and used to race at Interlagos. Stiff suspension etc. I cant find the before pic but this was his 'without FARB' pic. It went from being flat and planted to this without the bar. The outside front has to then be sooooooo stiff to support that corner:
    Diffs - Quaife, Wavetrac, MFactory-nofarb-jpg
    A compromise might be a front bar off a Polo Match or 1.4i. Never know they might be smaller than our stock one?

  4. #14
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    actually speak to Seangti. He has a wavetrac and I think he tried his car at the track without a front bar. I think from memory he said it did help with power down traction getting off the corner with the diff but hurt overall max corner speed.

  5. #15
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    We mostly use KAAZ 1.5 way diffs in the FWD race cars, have done for over 30 years. In that time I have serviced 1 diff due to wear and reduced function and that was after 3 x Bathurst 12 Hour races and 4 x 6 Hour races. That's equivalent to hell of a lot of road kilometres. My experience is that the need to service them at short intervals is an urban myth. Personally in a road car I'd throw some new plates in whenever I serviced the clutch and that's about it. We do use torson diffs in some RWD race cars and we service them every off season, they wear out the ramps as evidenced by the metal in the diff oil at every change. Torsons are horrid for race drivers that have an affinity with jumping the car off the curbs. FWIW KAAZ make a lot of plate diffs that are sold under other brand names.

    In a FWD car, especially those with high torque levels, a plate style diff is much easier to live with every day, they are gentler in engagement and don't provoke torque steer like a "locking" diff does. Viscous diffs are the best for gentleness in a road car, but they allow too much unloaded wheel spin on the track. At the other end of the scale the locking style of diffs can be uncomfortably savage in their engagement / disengagement. Plate diffs are the goldilocks, just right, in the middle.

    I think Sam covered the FARB debate very well (spring rate versus anti roll rate), if I was running a FWD car in a gymkhana/motorkhana event with lots of very tight short duration low G corners then I probably consider it. But with open corners, high lateral G and plenty of diagonal weight transfer a FARB is a necessity.

    Cheers
    Gary
    Golf Mk7.5 R, Volvo S60 Polestar, Skyline R32GTST

  6. #16
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    hmm now I'm really looking at that Kaaz diff'd box on the floor a bit differently. The wavetrac is exactly how you say Gary - on, off, left wheel tugging, off, right wheel tugging, off, on. Just a mental case. My Clio mate just re-did his exhaust and we went for a run this afternoon. It was similar to my car squirming around left and right under acceleration from a standing start. You've motivated me with your plate diff description and reassurance that its not going to be worn out within a year. Maybe i'll get a few more bits together and at least aim to get that in by summer for the twilight rally sprints.

  7. #17
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    VW, VOLKSWAGEN, GOLF 02J | Gripper LSD

    Pricey yes, but If you look at the options drop down its pretty cool all the different iterations you can choose from.

  8. #18
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    Didn't want to sell it but I do have a 113mm ID ring gear + pinion (standard ratio) spare that was removed from a 90,000km box. In very good nick. Was only shelved because I needed a 114mm ring gear to go with my Kaaz diff. Reluctant sale but if anyone wants it so they can confidently pre order a 113mm diff before their existing box is stripped, then I might consider letting it go. PM me if you're interested.

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by sambb View Post
    VW, VOLKSWAGEN, GOLF 02J | Gripper LSD
    Pricey yes, but If you look at the options drop down its pretty cool all the different iterations you can choose from.
    Don't know about their VW products but the Honda plate LSD's are KAAZ.

    Cheers
    Gary
    Golf Mk7.5 R, Volvo S60 Polestar, Skyline R32GTST

  10. #20
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    I've got over 180k out of my stock clutch, stage 2 for 100k of that and plenty of spirited driving, burnouts and track days in there.
    Reckon I'll get 180k out of a set of diff plates?

    Sambb those gripper diffs are 100gbp more than a quaife and a 250gbp less than a wavetrac, I wouldn't consider that expensive.
    What do you want for the hardware? I'm on the fence a bit as I've got the spare box and could in theory wait til we crack it open. I was just hoping to save a bit on shipping cost/time as I'm ordering the clutch kit from the UK.
    08 9n3 Polo GTI
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