LSD question

[NoHachi]

Assassin, I'd love to read those articles if you find them eventually. Regarding some of the other remarks, I figured out how to get my head around these things, but a few drinks yesterday are stil making my head hurt.

One thing I can say immediately: if you are braking in a straight line, and the rear wheels are locked, any resistance to a change in the rear wheel speed differential (aka diff-action) will result in understeer. The rear of the car will just plow straight on and resist rotation.

Also your examples of how diffs work are wrong..its the stuff you see a lot on the internet but its just not how the little buggers operate. Read the stuff in the links I posted earlier, they explain things a lot better then I can with an hangover.

@Domi: first: Good sims like GTR or GPL are GREAT places for getting a feel for this stuff. I know several racing drivers that claim most of their setup knowledge was gained by countless hours of tinkering in GPL.

My take on the 1.5/2-way diffs: They lock the wheels together untill they are overpowered. While they lock (during braking and no- or little steering) they stabilise the rear of the car preventing the car from making sidesteps on small steering imperfections. This allows you to setup the car comfortably towards the turn-in. Once you turn in, the torque diffential across the rear wheels breaks the clutches loose and the rear starts to turn (and also, you usually reduce braking effort towards turn in, so the diff is engaged less severly). So diffs would really benefit a clean driving style. Dunno...difficult stuff it be...