So I had an early R56 with factory LSD (2007) that car had loads of torque steer. My '15 R58 has virtually none. From stuff I've read they changed the tuning of the electric steering assist. That effectively dials it out for the LCI cars (2010+ or was it 2012 can't remember). There is an article on it in the depths of motoringfile.com. Check for R56 LCI.

 

They can apply the fix for the older cars too:

http://www.motoringfile.com/2010/10/...steer-fix-r56/

 

Hi,

I fitted a quaife atb diff to my 2007 mcs. Currently running 265bhp ish and 280 lb ft. Runs a helix paddle clutch on the lighter weight one piece alloy flywheel. I run standard dampers, polyflex black bushes, uprated eibach from and rear sway bars. Std 17" wheels on 205 michelin supersport 205 tyres.

The quaife diff is an excellent unit. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

The traction improvement is massive. Pulling out of lower speed bends, whilst I can still light up the wheels, it is indeed both wheels and the car is still making actual acceleration and progress, even though wheels are spinning. I assume this is because both are spinning and trying to grip, rather than one wheel wildly wheelspinning highly above road speed.

I do have torque steer, but with so many different factors, you need to try and work out what part of the torque steer is driven by the diff. I found that with quite pointy geometry, tyre pressures at 35psi cold, the car was seriously wanting to change lane as the power kicked in. I pulled the tyre pressures down to 28psi when cold and the difference is huge. When working hard on country roads, trying to put down the power, you can feel the power shifting from wheel to wheel but it is fun and controllable, not a nightmare. No longer is it feeling like it is light at the front and steering weird.

I haven't driven any other frontwheel drive car with a more serious diff (ie OS G plate diff) however have not felt the need due to how well the car responds to the current setup. IE I am not making a direct comparison. Just observations of current setup.

What I do find interesting is the people who have had their quaife fitted and don't claim to have had time to test it. I pulled out of the first junction and tested it in 2nd gear on full load as the car was coming off the steering lock, then a few bends later tried powering on coming out of each bend and working out how the steering and grip was changing and benefited. I can't work out how people can drive without seeing the benefit straight away unless you literally never press the throttle in your regular driving routine (assume we're talking driving round NYC or something?).

In conclusion, I love my ATB in all circumstances. The interuption to the steering that it gives, is fun rather than annoying and when driving on Scottish highland country roads (where it goes every week), it really is a great fun, involving car to own and drive. Without the diff, I'd not enjoy doing a one wheel wheelspin in 5th gear in the wet.

Random story: This weekend on one of my country drives, I was on a single track road, barely wider than the car and a foot either side. I came to another car going the opposite way and pulled off the tarmac on to what looked like an okay grassy verge. It was VERY soft and VERY wet and the left wheel started immediately sinking. I kept the power on and the left wheel span up, but the diff worked as hard as it could and kept power to the wheel on the tarmac and it pulled out of the mess. All my years driving other front wheel drive cars tell me that without a doubt I was going to be stuck there if it wasn't for the diff. So not only does it help when lapping circuits as fast as I can go, or country roads, or snowy situations, it also helped when I made the mistake with the soft verge. I had forgotten the torrential rain conditions the day before and made a mistake that the Quaife saved me from.

Got to say it did make an interesting noise as it was doing it though... :-)

Cheers

Steven RW

 

In my experience they only kind of work together. If you've been able to overpower the e-diff in the past you can still do it with the quaife. Our car generates enough lateral grip that it can do a pretty good job of unloading the inside tire in some corners. As you know the Quaife is a torsen style diff so if you unload a wheel it essentially turns into an open diff. The e-diff will eventually reign it in and allow the Quaife to work but you're still losing time. We can see on the data logs where one driver is pulling ahead of the other on corner exit because they're less aggressive on the throttle.

I think the Quaife makes a difference but I think the shocks have made a bigger difference. I'm not sure there is any way to really eliminate it.


As a whole I love the Quaife in our car to pieces. It's really transformed the car on the auto-x course. We've probably got around 400 auto-x runs on ours and no issues so far.

 

Great replies guys! I did some more reading about the Giken v the Quaife as well. It seems for the HDPE ( track day ), back roads, and sometimes autox guy the quaife is for me.

If you are serious and are driving competitively the OS Giken may be a better fit. Also all the quaife threads I see echo the fact that it needs to servicing/attention post install. Where the Giken needs some servicing or parts can wear over time.

Is that right? Also the quaife being roughly half the price is attractive to me.

 

Correct and the exact same assumption I came to.

Zero servicing and 99% of my driving career, I will not miss not having an OS G or other plate diff.

ATB transforms the car with nearly no hassle factor at all.



SRW

 

i just installed an ATB in my car 2 weeks ago when i was doing my clutch. i can tell you, even keeping the car at low rpm top break in the clutch, i can still feel the diff pulling me through the corners on the street.

i have about 50 more mile to break in the clutch, and i have my first autox with it this weekend. i cannot wait to put this thing to the test. i have a feeling by what i have felt so far it will be great.

 

Why do you break in the clutch? Once it's engaged and in synch between gearbox and engine. Why does it rotating faster matter?

I appreciate why you might not want to do a very high rpm standing start with loads of clutch slip with a brand new clutch, though even then I'm not sure it matters but once engaged why keep rpm low? Is it about keeping the torque through the clutch low? Most minis generate max torque at quite low rpm.

Not meant to be challenging just don't get it.

Thx

Steven

 

I keep it low to not temp myself to shift at higher RPM. I am a rather aggressive driver on the street and do not trust myself to remember to drop the rpm before I shift.

 

Steven - Having made a comment about not really having had a chance to test it out, I will say that it is not for lack of wanting to. It has been more of lack of opportunity. Since I had it put in over a month ago, it has been zero deg F (-32C, I think) to about 20 deg F around here, with snow and I have snow tires on (somewhat expensive RFTs). I kinda though that sort of thing was better done when it was a little warmer and with more appropriate tires. Now, I have done a few slides with it on snow and sleet covered parking lots. I think that must count for something... But the action of the Quaife could have been covered up by the action of the eLSD. So it is kind-of hard to tell which is which. Today got above freezing, so there is hope we may eventually thaw out some day.

I had my clutch and flywheel replace with the Quaife. The replacements were all stock parts and there was a definite break-in period. You are right that once it is engaged and when shifting at speed between gears there is no slip (better not be), but I noticed a difference over time as to how it engaged from a standing start and the little bit of slip it goes through to get the car rolling. It is now more like the it was before I had it replaced.

 

Good point on not overpowering the lightly loaded drive wheel.

I have worked hard to not overpower that wheel and over use the brakes. I am hoping that the Quaife picks up that duty from the eLSD and I save the brakes for what they are supposed to be used for

 

Bought my S in Nov 2009, installed the Quaife in 2010, car has no Ediff...


The single biggest improvement to the torque steer, and the "jumps almost sideways when you hit a mid corner bump", handling issues was replacing the stock springs and dampers with the TSW springs and Koni's, and the Hsport rear bar.


The car still exhibits torque steer, but only when very aggressively starting from a stop. The car no longer steps out when you hit a midcorner bump. (it was downright scary when the car was new, and I was driving in the rain with the stock RFT tires...)


Anyway no issues at all with the Quaife, just change the tranny fluid every 30K miles. (but you should be doing that anyway...)

 

curious, have any of you guys running the Quaife done the install yourself?
I watched a video on youtube, the procedure is straight forward (I've setup a few differentials in solid axle trucks) to me, but I can't find any bolt torque or preload specs ANYwhere. Is it just "torque to industry specs for the bolts and hope new bearings on the diff itself seat fine in the old races" for installation?

 

yeah i put it on myself. just took the old one out and dropped in the quaife with new bearings. the hardest part was cleaning the case surfaces to reseal them. i just started all of the case bolts by finger then used an impact to tighten them. i have around 10,000 miles on it so far with no issues.

 

how many miles on your transmission when you installed it?

 

As mentioned earlier in this thread, a Torsen style LSD combined with the ELSD would preclude the LSD to go open as the ELSD will apply the brakes to that open wheel.
Would be nice to have a OS Giken user chip on here.

 

my tranny had 76,000 miles on it when i installed the quaife. it is great upgrade and works well, i used to have to autox with my traction control on because the car would not put down power on corner exit. now i have to turn it off because it kills my corner exit speed because of all the grip the lsd creates. you can feel it pull you out of the corner.

and a side not, my car does not have an elsd.

 

thanks, good to know. My car is just about to click over 80k, so I doubt I'll have any issues dropping one into my car then. And yes, no ELSD in my 07 either, and with an open diff it really struggles to accelerate in anything but a straight line.

 

Three weeks ago installed, all by itself, a new clutch package,dualmass flywheel(JCW) and Quaife ATB. Not a bad thing,watching Youtube videos, reading some forums like Ford Fanatics/UK.There is good advice for drive shaft bearing shimming and re-assembly,which are important phases at work.I recommend the use of original shaft seals and mainseal, the wrong place to save!!
- After three weeks the experience more than just good , Quaife is great! Noticeably less of torque steering, good grip to full throttle acceleration,no wheelspin.Att all,pretty easy job, I recommend!!

 

Happy New Year!

(and apologies for resurrecting such an old thread)

How can I tell if my R56 JCW (01/2009 model) has an e-diff or not? Are you referring to the DTC function? Is that supposed to be the e-diff people talk about on this thread?

On my MINI, I get the following options:
a) Start the car, drive 'as is' with all the electronics ON, thus preventing car from sliding (even wheelspin whatsoever....)
b) Start car, press DTC button and drive. Allows some 'slide', but still, the system will eventually step in, if the car is pushed close to it's limit
c) Start car, press DTC and hold for few seconds. That's takes the car into 'open-diff' mode I suppose. No electronic assistance at all

So, is (b) what you guys refer to as e-diff?

I am visiting a small track very rarely, and I have come to the conclusion that (b) is far from ideal for pure track driving. The way I understand it so far, is that DTC tries to mimic a mechanical LSD, but that never really happens in practice, because DTC seems to apply brakes to regulate the wheels. Which also means increased brake fatigue. I am not claiming that my track driving skills are superior - but no matter hard I tried to drive in a way that DTC won't step in to 'correct' the car, it's also impossible when pushing the car towards the limit.
On the contrary, a mechanical LSD (e.g. Quaife) will torque bias between the wheels (without applying any brakes). Isn't that supposed to be wayyyy superior compared to what the DTC does? Because I read from a previous post that on an R53 (which supposedly doesn't have DTC), installing a mechanical LSD sought huge benefits - whilst the benefit of a mechanical LSD on R56 (and it's supplied e-diff) is marginal. Is that really the case?

 

You don't have ediff in a 2010. Yes a mechanical LSD is way better for a number of reasons. The only downside is cost. All in it was about $2000 to have a Quafe installed. An OS Gilkin LSD would have been about $1000 more.

 

Mine's a 2009 - therefore I probably don't have e-diff as well..

So the use of DTC is some basic traction control and does not imply an e-diff. Hence my assumption was misplaced.
I was hoping that this would/should be a 'standard' feature in a Works MINI. Oh well..

Just for reference, "QDF38Z-2" is the Quaife part code that's applicable to both R53/R56

[EDIT] Here it says otherwise (last paragraph). Says that e-diff is 'standard' on Gen2 JCW. Mine is a Gen2 JCW...regardless of that, is there any way to actually check?

[EDIT2] Then, it goes on, regarding/verifying my initial assumption I mentioned on previous post i.e.:
"The EDLC uses independent braking to limit wheel spin in order to increase safety on the street with some inherent understeer on the track. Serious racers report the EDLC is NOT adequate for the track, not to mention the EDLC causes the brakes to overheat on some tracks, resulting in premature brake fade!" Therefore, I probably do have an e-diff. And it's drawbacks (compared to the mechanical LSD) are the ones I observed earlier...
Hence, the benefits for installing a mechanical LSD (Quaife or Giken) should also be substantial on an R56 too.

The Quaife option, at least on paper, is totally maintenance free (in the same respect as the standard open-diff). Does any of long term users (>50K miles) had any wear issues in regard to installing the Quaife? Any feedback would be welcome!

 

Our 2010 fJCW had the e-diff and our current 2009 fJCW I'm also fairly sure has it as well. I don't think there is really a way to check as it's just software and there isn't any mechanical telltales. Our 2010 was heavily autocrossed in STX trim. The e-diff would really heat up the front brakes and I'm sure it would do it at the track also. Putting in the Quaife made a massive difference at autocross. We only had about 25k miles on our 2010 with the Quaife installed before it got sold. I've not heard of any people (with any car) having long-term issues with gear type diffs.

In response to your earlier post the e-diff is never disabled. In your "b" scenario I think the traction control is disabled but the stability control is disabled. In the "c" scenario both traction and stability control are off.

 

Thank you for clarifying this. So, the e-diff is a low-level software function that cannot be changed - always working in the background. Regardless if someone switches DTC on/off. Or even with scenario "C" (no stabi/traction assistance), the e-diff will still be in effect. OK, got it.

Useful to hear that there are no wear and/or other complications in regard to installing a Quaife LSD. Because if I decide to keep my JCW, this will be the next upgrade for sure.