I have a question for all the gear heads out there. I recently visited a website called howstuffworks.com to learn about a limited slip differential. I understand the concept of the ring gear and the pinion gears within that spin the side gears at different speeds if needed (as in a turning or traction loss situation). However I don't quite understand the difference between an open differential and a limited slip. What kind of limited slip do we have and how does it differ from an open differential? Thanks in advance to all of those who reply.

 

The base model Z has an open dif. All other models come with limited slip and traction control. I'm not very good at explaining this, but with open differential the power goes to the wheel that needs it the least. Say you're going around a sharp turn. Your outside wheels have further to travel than your inside wheels. The outside wheel also has more traction because your weight is shifted to that side. This causes your inside tire to spin doing very little to push you forward until you straighten out and even the traction to each wheel. Open differential is a tame differential. It's safer for city driving, but not as fast when at the track.

With limited slip, the tire that needs the traction the most gets it, which allows you to push harder through a turn which makes it faster at the track, but it also makes it easier to spin out. If the tire that has maximum traction breaks loose because of too much power around a turn, you will spin around unless youre correcting it, or traction control kicks in. This is why all the models with limited slip come with traction control. If you're going hard through a turn and give a little too much gas, the tcs will detect the wheel spin and reduce power to the wheels temporarily, helping to prevent a spin out. Traction control isn't needed with the base model because of the tame differential. Limited slip is more fun for a good driver, but more dangerous for an inexperienced one, especially when tcs is off.

Hope that helps, maybe someone else can explain it even better.

 

Thanks that was helpful.

 

I was reading that some limited slips use a clutch while others use ___? I'm kind of looking for a technical breakdown of how a limited slip is different than a open differential. I want to know how the internals are different because I think I understand the basic concept of the two now. Thanks to zpeedfreak for the excellent write up though. That actually did help quite a bit.

 

VLS as a matter of function allows for slip to happen before it cause's the fluid to harden and lock. While you wait for that to happen it allows slip to happen, too much slip in fact, and it doesn't take much of a tire upgrade for the tires to win and the viscous fluid to be sheared. I paid $900 to upgrade my car to the oem limited slip, its performance is not awe inspiring, nor can I say I was wise to of spend even half the money I did. It was the most fullhardy mod I have ever done to a car. And I don't even track my car. I should have went with a clutch type or wait for the torque bias diff to come out (Glen torson type).

 

I nearly spun out yesterday, I like driving w/TCS OFF when I guess I gave too much gas around a corner and WHEEEEEE.....felt like a fish struggling in butter. It was fun though, just glad it didn't result in an accident! The guy in the car beside me must have said WTF??

 

in an open differential, the torque transmitted from the engine to the ground is limited by the tire with the least amount of traction. example: if one of your rear tires was in the air and the other one was on the ground, your car wouldn't move because the one in the air will be spinning and can't have a reaction torque to the engine torque. that's why off-roaders have locking diffs (the complete opposite spectrum of an open diff). if one of the wheels is in the air, they have the full amount of torque driving the wheel that's on the ground.

in a limited slip, the diff will send a fraction (1/2, 1/3, etc. set by different designs and tuning) of the torque to the wheel that's not spinning.

so if your inside tire is spinning coming out of a turn under power, the limited slip will still put power to the ground through the outside tire. so you don't lose acceleration.

LSD's get funny when the outside tire starts losing traction because now it's transferring torque between both left and right tires.

like a previous poster said, LSD's aren't the most efficient upgrade for someone driving the car on the street. go to a driving school instead and you'll learn how to control your car with skills instead of mechanical component upgrades.