Originally posted by autotr8er
My experiences with the Negative Diff....Incredible Traction. I recommend it. It's the best $80 I've ever spent. I don't know how you come up with your logic, RC but Um... in a wheelspin situation, you are still putting power down to at least one tire for a second, the clutch shoes on the diff engage only if one of the tires break traction. If you have both going then there is no need for the clutch to engage.
There is one small disadvantage, weight. But a couple of ounces on a 1hp motor is negligible. Accelerate sooner coming into a long straight. The only thing slowing you down at that point is aerodynamics on the body and the top speed of the motor. Does anyone race on a track with a straight longer than 150 ft?
Decide for yourselves, If there wasn't a distinct advantage, Kawahara wouldn't produce it. People wouldn't be buying it either. If you look at the machining, it is top notch and very intensive. A lot of thought went into this little device. It's not for everybody, everyone has a particular driving style. [/B]
The clutch shoes on the neg. diff. engage ONLY when the right wheel spin fast enough. When you punch the car in the middle of a left turn, the right wheel will spin slower initially than the left wheel because of the diff. action. This different in rotating speed on the wheels will cause the car’s rear spin a little and it is noticeable and could cause you the position as RC stated. On a right turn it probably won’t show as much.
A neg. diff. is just like a regular diff. with the addition of a clutch assembly and I don’t see how putting on the neg. diff. will increase the traction over a regular diff. during off power cornering, unless you are talking about on power cornering. But then if you do on power cornering a lot, why not use a solid? Or maybe it is the extra weight you added to the rear with the neg. diff. but I still won’t describe it as “Incredible”.
I think Kawahara produce neg. diff. just to give people more choices. People buying it because it fits their driving style. I drove both the solid and the neg. diff., both work fine to me but I like the solid a little bit more.