Which one would you recommend for road use with the occasional track day? Bear in mind this will be doing allot of miles touring
Quaife or equivalent ATB diff is probably the best bet for you. The plate type diffs will wear out with all the road miles a lot quicker. The ATB type do not wear at all.
That Wavetrack diff would still be ok for your needs as it is a similar design to the Quaife ATB geared diff.
I chose Quaife for my track toy, mainly because of the name (reputation) but also because they're UK based - so if anything goes wrong, it's a shed load easier to resolve than dealing with a US based company like Peloquin.
Which is the best option for a O2A box, i'm leaning toward Quaife for the same reasons Mook. What sort of price should I be looking to pay?
Yes and if you're getting someone to fit it then expect to part with around 1100 + VAT including the diff. It is without doubt one of the best mods you can do to a FWD car that's used for occasional or full time trackday use.
Out of interest, slight hi-jack, has a Wavetrac been used by anybody in comparison to the Quaiffe or Peloquin, just trying to hear of how the "innovative" design benefits in real world driving when applying drive torque under zero load? I've got one but its still in its box from April. Cardboard and not gear
Regular ATB's transmit a multiple of torque from the slipping wheel to the gripping wheel, so if there is zero traction on one wheel the other wheel gets zero torque. The idea behind the Wavetrac is even if one wheel loses grip completely the other wheel still gets driven. I believe the ratio is customizable by switching out the gear things inside the Wavetrac, so you could buy several and swap them out to suit your driving style or grip conditions or whatever.
I could well be wrong, I often am. But, from what I've read, and, as I understand it: The Wavetrac is basically a Torsen type geared diff., with an added feature. ie The Wavetrac slip couplings. The diff. slip pre-load is set with springs on these types of units, to give a pre-determined max. ratio of bias, between the two wheels. On the Wavetrac, there is the addition of slip couplings. These have wave shaped ramps on the two halves of each coupling. As the two wheels start to travel at different speeds, the two halves of the couplings move against each other, ramp up, and create more load in the pre-load springs. The drive mechanism, which causes the ramping, is due to the friction between one half of the wave coupling, and the body of the diff. The amount of extra load appears to be adjustable by changing the friction material behind the one half of the Wavetrac slip couplings. Very Interesting.
The wavetrac is still a torsen diff, it just has an extra plate arrangement to lock the centre when it get a wheel unloaded. I find it good to drive, but I've never driven any other LSD. Where I used to under steer on power out of a corner, I can now pull the car straight with the throttle. Braking seems improved too stays straight when I've got one wheel locked and the weight's transferring from side to side. I've got a peloquin to try too, I just haven't had time to install it in a box yet. http://www.wavetrac.net/
So the Wavetrac sounds like a quaife but with the added abilty to lock even when one wheel is totally unloaded. Sounds pretty excellent . I know the peloquin behaves the same as the quaife. Gurds
That's right. No issues with the transition from braking to accelerating. They're a nicely made unit.
If you go on their site, you can see a nice vido showing how it works. http://www.autotechdriveline.com/a_wavdiff.shtml
