I have an 05 mcs with the LSD. I always thought on a LSD equipped car, when you spin one wheel in one direction, (when the car is on a lift) the other wheel will spin in the same direction. This is true with the LSD on my 91 entra SE-R, and others i've seen on hondas. On my MCS the other wheel spins in the opposite direction of the wheel you're spinning, like on an open diff car. So what's the deal? Is this how its supposed to work, or did they forget to put it in my car? Who else out there has an LSD equipped car that they can test with?

 

On all of my LSD cars, the wheels spin in the opposite direction. The only exception to this was when I was using a clutch-pack style differential.

To the best of my knowledge, all gear-driven differentials (lsd or not) exhibit this behavior.

 

The LSD in the MINI is clutch based so the normal test that works with gear based differentials doesn't work. If you want to test it out do a hard slow speed left or right turn and punch it. My 05 will light up the inside tire doing this maneuver since it doesn't have a LSD in it
Mike

 

ok, thats good to know. I've tried testing it by punching it a little in 1st or second gear coming out of a tight turn and i still get some wheelspin, but i'm not sure how much wheelspin to expect with the LSD. My sentra doesnt make enough power to be able to spin coming out of a corner. I guess the real test will be at the first auto-x. My 03 would have a real hard time putting the power down, but i havent driven the 05 like i'm autocrossing, yet:smile: . Thanks for the responses, guys.

 

I don't know where you live...

Put one wheel in the snow, and one wheel on the pavement. Accelerate hard. If the car moves out of the snow, you have some kind of improved dif. If it sits there and spins, you have an open diff.

You could also try wetting down the pavement if it does not snow where you are.

This is essentially the same as the hard left turn test listed above.

John

 

A clutch type locker should work the same on a lift. The clutch is designed to hold both axels together and only slip when cornering. This is the way the “Trac-Loc” works in my Mustang.


Dave

 

lsd will turn as described because there is no load on the diff. as soon as put power to it the diff will "lock". The "snow test" is a good Idea, I like it.