Quaiffe explosion

[Viper X]

Hey Dan,

Understand the construction but as of yet, no one, including Taylor and Unitrax can explain exactly how the Quaife knows when to bias torque and how it does it. Maybe you can?

It is the inside or "unloaded" wheel that can and does spin, while the outside wheel remains un-powered or very lightly powered. In one case this happened at 85 mph in a turn with R6's. But, it only happens sometimes and at about 10K track miles or more. Has happened to several of us on the track as stated and at our car control clinic (in a large parking lot) when attempting to drift the car. About 50% of the time while trying to drift, the diff screws it up the power transfer.

Not sure what the wear items are in this diff (besides bearings) but something has changed over time.

Dan

 

[Viper Specialty]

Hi Dan,

Its fairly simple actually. The Quaife is a Torsen based diff, which means that it is a spiral/helical gear type diff. It works on the "worm gear" principle.

Imagine a worm gear turning a standard helical gear. Now, if you spin the worm gear, the helical gear turns easily. However, if you try and spin the helical gear by itself, it will not spin because of the unbalanced friction from one gear type to the other and designed ratio. Now, if you "slightly" apply pressure to the worm gear while trying to spin the helical gear, it will move freely as you have overcome the unbalanced friction between the gear types. Basically, a Torsen works much the same way. When you lose traction on one wheel, the diff wants to lock due to the above principle. When you are going around a turn, and not losing traction, the gears are unloaded [like helping by spinning the worm gear] so the diff free-wheels like an open diff.

Here is an animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9iPqIQ_8iM