No more diff

One of the reasons we chose this car for our crapcan racer is that it’s supposed to have a limited-slip differential as original equipment. Like many of the things the seller told us about the car, this one turned out untrue.

One of the reasons we chose this car for our crapcan racer is that it’s supposed to have a limited-slip differential as original equipment. Like many of the things the seller told us about the car, this one turned out untrue.

When we hit the gas exiting a corner, the inside wheel would spin and the transmission would shift into top gear. In concert with a non-functioning transmission kickdown, that left us in top gear for the entire straightaway, accelerating much more slowly than we should. We lost many, many seconds each lap this way.

Unable to find a good LSD at a good price, we turned to our local Volusia Drive Train shop to weld the diff for us. Smart and experienced guys that they are, they welded not only the ring to the pinion spider gears together, but also the spider gears to the differential housing. This makes them much less likely to break, which is good considering the abuse they’ll see on the track. The good guys there also switched our final drive ratio from a 3.08:1 to a 3.31:1.

As for tire wear and snap oversteer, our research shows that these are non-issues for a vehicle that spends all its time on a road course. We’ll find out if that’s true or not at our next event.

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