Originally Posted by
heretic
Desert Rat, how would you make a ball diff semi-tight? On the tiny carpet track where I run these days, my car seems to like a tighter rear diff quite a bit. Problem is the diff becomes a bit crunchy pretty fast. I have tried with ceramic balls in the thrust and carbide main balls: in that case the big balls seem to suffer. I have replaced the bigger balls by ceramic ones, and then it's the thrust plates which become notchy, because I have to put more tension on the assembly. I have also tried AW grease on the main balls (slips too easily, as I feared) and 1 million Tamiya grease (a bit better but inconsistent, and the thrust still loses its smoothness over time).
Any ideas? I was wondering if there was an option for ceramic thrust rings somewhere, or at least some harder metal than the stock ones.
I've never had my car in such a way that it wanted a tight rear diff to gain steering, I could always add steering with other tuning options. A looser rear diff allows the rear to follow the front instead of trying to rotate "on the nose" and holds better corner speed as a result.