Has anyone out there installed or had installed the Quaife limited slip differential? All the extra ponies from pulley and other mods is moot if you only use it to smoke tires. Even the stock cooper s has quite a tendency to spin the right front tire. It is enjoyable and impressive to the population, but I'd rather put power to the ground.

 

Oops. Sorry. thought this was about something else.

 

All I know about LSD and the Mini is that at Daytona
one Mini was a DNF because of the LSD blowing out.
I don't know which type it was....

 

Putting an LSD in a classic Mini made it quite a different car ... not all good at the start but once you got used to road driving, it was great!
In the old cars, which didn't have things like equal length half shafts, the pull at acceleration was phenominally smooth ... the things that one had to get used to had to do with cornering(mainly) when the shafts turning almost together made it seem like the car was trying to pull itself apart; In a Classic Mini, the rear Sway Bar was a must - it made it seem like the back end was tracking evenly with the front without a feeling of being whipped around the corner.
For hard driving - and hard accelerations out of corners - it turned out to be the only solution to ridding the car of wheel tramp.

In a New MINI, where suspension advances make the car seem to be from a different universe, the LSD may not be as necessary for street driving - it's an expensive way to get rid of the wheel tramp around corners - but it's a neat toy ... and that's what most of these mod's are anyway ...

wow, man, a whole different kind of lsd flashback to the 60's ...

 

I've had the Quaife installed since late December but have only recently gotten to experience firsthand what a difference it makes. With Spring finally here we have gotten two autox events in with the car and the quaife makes a huge difference coming out of corners - it starts to spin and then the inside wheel gets traction and then wow. It is still possible to spin both tires if you have too much throttle.

If you do nothing but normal (or occasionally spirited) street driving then save your money. If you routinely push the car or Autox or do track events then you should consider getting one of these.

I know of about six MINI owners between here and MINI2 who have installed quaife's. They all either autox, road race, or are planning too.

 

Thanks for the quick response. The other posters mentioning original Minis with LSD's are certainly referring to "Flintstones" technology. Was the install a real bear, or expensive if you had it done at a shop?

 

I KNEW posting about LSD would bring some interesting characters out of the woodwork(or the sixties, anyway). Thanks for making my day!

 

I just want to win the phantom one from Mini Mania.

 

"Flintstones"?!?!

 

I put a call into Tony Nuzzo today to see if the rumor of a diff. failing on him @ Daytona was true. I will keep you up to date when I get some more info.

 

I just heard back from Tony Nuzzo and he has confirmed that the rumor about the diff giving out @ Daytona is false. They will be running the same quaife setup @ Miami in April.

minirips2- We ,helix, have put a few of them in and I can say that it is quite a big difference. It is a pretty big job (time and $) and there are a few trade off's, but putting the power down with BOTH wheels feels very nice.

 

Chris, any idea what are the odds are of Quaife updating the design so that there is no interference between the LSD and the tranny housing? Has anybody mentioned it to them, or is the required grinding simply the standard take-it-or-leave-it situation? I'd prefer to buy/install mods that "just work/fit", but coming from a RWD+LSD car, this is probably the top mod on my list after Yoko tires. Any reason to worry?