I am curious...could driving in the snow ruin the differential if 1 tire spins and the other does nothing?

 

Our LSD allows limited slip so one wheel might be spinning a bit faster than the other, but both drive wheels will always spin regardless. Since snow has such low friction I doubt it will cause any damage. The only thing you gotta look out for is when one or your drive wheels is on a high friction surface, and the other is on snow. That would be bad.

 

If you're gonna spin the rear, make sure they're both on the same surface.
If you've got one on pavement and the other on snow, you'll hear some nice cruching, after which you'll no longer have an LSD.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Robb33
Our LSD allows limited slip so one wheel might be spinning a bit faster than the other, but both drive wheels will always spin regardless.

 

Not always - most LSD's on performance cars are to improve handling and power delivery on uniformly slippery surfaces: tarmac, asphalt, concrete, etc. It is not a traction control device, necessarily. The 2004 Acura-TL-S can have a LSD, but it also has traction control, so they do not think them equivalent.

 

dude, are you worrying about one tire spinning faster than the other?


NEWS FLASH - It happens every time you make a turn, that's what a differential is designed for, to allow different wheel speeds.

don't worry about it

 

I agree RR. I can feel my LSD kick in quite a bit in snowy city-traffic. Before the LS kicks in at a stop light I get that "lateral floating" that us snow-pilots know so well. Once it activates I get full traction and forward motion.

I know it aint good but I'd be curious to know what long term effects are. I suppose it doesnt matter ...i lease.

 

True, but spinning a tire for a sustained period is not the same as the short and restricted wheel speed variance that you are describing. I don't have an opinion on whether this will damage the Torsen, or not - I would hope that those that predicted damage are basing it on something.

 

Our cars come equipped with a Torsen differential. This is the same differential the original HMMVV (is that how you spell it) comes with (I have no idea if the H2 has Torsen differentials).

Basically it allows the differential to send more torque to one wheel than the other, up to a particular multiplier (for example, three). The upshot of our differential is that it will immediately react to torque changes between the wheels (while other non-open differentials require a wheel to actually start to slip before the car benefits). The downside is that since it's a torque multiplication effect, if one wheel has no traction, the other wheel will get no torque (any number times zero is still zero).

The reason it's used on the HMMVV is because there's a neat trick that you can do if one wheel loses all traction. Simply press the brake pedal, and that allows power to go to the other wheel. The reason is because the brake will provide resistance to the spinning wheel, which can allow a multiple of that torque to go to the other wheel.

For more info about differentials, I suggest reading this:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/differential.htm

and specifically about the torsen differential found on the S2k:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/differential8.htm

Quote from the second link about the HMMVV and the trick to move with a wheel off the ground:

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The HMMVV, or Hummer, uses Torsen

 

Very interesting. Thanks for the tip.