Originally Posted by AngryAsian
The advantage of a spool is a large amount of on-power steering and exit traction.
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Exit traction isn't quite as good as a spool.
further clarification: with spool both tires are locked together, therefore front power is split 50/50. with a oneway if the outside tire needs to spin faster it can, in which case the power will be transmitted to the inside tire. however if the outside tire does not need to spin faster then the split goes back to 50/50
Originally Posted by AngryAsian
Like floodo1 said, the one-way allows the outside front wheel to track extremely freely. This results in so much steering the rear of the car can find it hard to keep up.
google "traction circle". the reason that a one-way steers so much is that the front tires are alleviated of trying to decel the car, therefore all of their traction can be used for turning. with a spool or diff the tires are required to use some of their traction for braking, therefore they will have less than 100% ability to steer.
this is where knowing the track comes into play.
one way tracks usually dont have large speed changes. thats why people usually say larger more flowing tracks are for one ways. this makes sense because you will probably not need a lot of braking. by running the oneway you then gain the highest steering ability.
the type of track where a spool or diff comes into play is where you have high speed to very low speed sections. for example a u-turn at the end of a straight away. in this situation you need to be able to brake as much as possible so that you may continue your top speed for as long as possible. if you ran a one-way here you would have to slow down much much sooner.
naturally when you actually reach the corner you will be able to corner at higher speed with the oneway (due to increased steering) but you will already have lost more time under braking than you can gain in the corner.
furthermore from high speed to low speed the oneway often tends to oversteer due to the large weight transfer from front to rear. spring rates high enough to overcome this may have adverse effects elsewhere.
so the key is to look at the changes in speed not in the corner size. this is why a oneway can be HIGHLY succesful on even the smallest of tracks.
now someone needs to just come out with a one-way/lsd
