Locker

Does anyone have an opinion on whether or not losing traction in the rear would cause the front wheel with least grip to suddenly be overwhelmed and break free aswell? Or would it likely just bring the back under control again quicker?
 
I think a few factors need to be taken into consideration like which centre diff each person has, tyres and the amount of grip on each tyre and the terrain that your driving on would become major factors in providing an accurate answer to your question.

Cheers

1WD


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I guess i was thinking of like some baseline situation that you could then use as a ruler of sorts against others. Like say a-t diff, raining but roughly equal traction on all wheels, and your standard all terain tires.
 
thats why as i read about those old jeeep rear full lockers that works similar to this people say it can be weird or dangerous to just drive car like you used to because it doesnt drive anymore like it should on normal situations . so big question will it click then all those time when you dont need it so it will click , but like what is line from when its unlocks to when it locks , best way sure it would be to drive it , try do thos maneuvers and then feel for yourself.
 
I would say NachaLuva’s video of him trying hard to break traction doing full lock circles in a wet car park at full throttle with M/T tyres and a 20kg Centre diff shows that it would be hard to break traction unless you have little to no grip on your tyres.
Nachaluva’s M/T’s would break traction before most A/T on a wet road as A/T’s have more on road grip as a rule of thumb so long as they aren’t worn down. I was worried about on road handling too but I don’t think it will be a problem, I think once we fit a Torq locker we will need to re-evaluate how we Offroad more so, as this would be more likely to be the place we loose traction, but I’m still curious if anyone else has a better opinion regarding Onroad vs Offroad handling changes with the new locker fitted.

Cheers

1WD


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didint saw this test yet . and its on older outback
"]TorqMaster Trail Trial Subarus June 22-23 2019 - YouTube

"]Subaru TorqLocker Preview & Noonday Trail - YouTube

pretty nice explaining how and when it locks and unlocks. shouldnt be any problem on normal roads then .
 
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This is also a good video explaining the install from the same people.

Cheers

1WD


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found i think good short example how locker works its not on subaru its same design for all cars. still not explains all situations that could happen there. so it unlocks when one wheel needs to spin on diff speed and wont slip or smt. thats all good what if one wheel is on snow and other on asphalt and i want it stay locked all time as i would drive slowly there. will it unlock then or not ... ?
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and i bet you can break it if you try hard or just drive like maniac on locker. because i can think in my head hars situations where one wheel maybe cant spin because of reasons and locker will try to still turn it and something that is weakest point must brake does it ? maybe axle, maybe something else. then on another point subarus doesnt have so much torque to wheels so its maybe better for locker if it wont have so much power ...
 
Best way to answer all the questions....buy it, test it and report !
 
As mentioned before, the Torq locker doesn't act like a diff at all and doesn't lock and unlock. When the wheels are turning at different speeds in just sends all of it's drive to the slower turning wheel. Initially I was thinking that would halve your rear grip while turning because you are only powering one wheel, while an normal diff splits the torque between the two wheels. But when you spin wheels with an open diff you usually only spin one wheel anyway. So maybe there isn't that much reduction in grip with the Torq locker :shrug: Either way I'm guessing Nachaluva's car couldn't light up the rear before the locker anyway. EJ25 can spin wheels in the wet without too much effort. So now I want to see someone do it in a more powerful car. I know what I"m going to be doing when my mates get one. Another point on sending drive to the slower wheel instead of averaging across the two wheels like what will still be happening at the front, is that there will be more slip in the centre diff. No idea if that will be noticeable or not. And the only disadvantage offroad is that it will be hard finding challenging tracks without breaking the car. Would have been nice to see how far you can get with an open diff and then lock the diff to drive out. But you'd still be able to do that if you could lock and unlock the centre.


...thoughts of Red.
 
I'm guessing Nachaluva's car couldn't light up the rear before the locker anyway. EJ25 can spin wheels in the wet without too much effort.


With the tyres Nachaluva has fitted to his SF I’d like to see any non turbo do better on stock internals and bolt ons with the same equivalent m/t tyres!

With a difference of around 35-40hp between the EJ22 and EJ25 I don’t think that increase in hp would help with anything but understeer whilst having mud terrain tyres fitted.

I’m guessing your spinning the wheels in the wet with half worn street or average a/t tyres and not Mud terrain tyres.

If you wanna see something more powerful try light it up, your best bet would be a GT or a H6 imo, although I don’t think that would help us all decide if the locker is good for Offroad purpose at all, the fact that Nachaluva tried hard to break traction and couldn’t is good enough for me, if you owned a GT,XT or H6 I would be more worried that it might brake traction, but for the rest of us 2.0,2.2 and 2.5 N/A owners, I wouldn’t be worried unless you push the car very hard.

Cheers

1WD


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Would be nice to see on gravel road will it lock or unlock in turns if its not too loose gravel because with locked rear car 2ould wann just go straight. If its that easy to unlock locker then it might just work ok on roads. Guess they will do more testing before releasing it for sell.
 
As the slowest wheel is the one that gets the power, I reckon it's wanting to go straight.
If the fastest wheel got the power, it will tend to turn.
Which would go some way to explaining why someone invented the open diff, better for going around corners. :)

That's the way I see it anyway, i'm certainly no engineer.
 
My 225/70r15 tyres are HT's less then a year old. MT's have far lower grip in the wet compared to HT's so I reckon I could spin them quite easily in the wet. And an EJ253 is much closer in torque and power to a GT then it is to an EJ22. An extra 35-40 HP is noticeable. Just the difference between EJ251 and EJ253 is noticeable. I also have lower 4.44 diffs that help.
 
I’m not saying the difference in power isn’t noticeable at all, the difference in power between the EJ22 and EJ25 of 35-40hp would be noticeable for sure, I’m saying that it won’t be enough to spin the rears in the wet unless you have worn a/t or road tyres, and because of this I think Nachaluva’s video showing him trying to spin the rears in the wet and not being able to with M/T tyres shows that it’s safe on the road in wet conditions for n/a 2.0’s,2.2’s and 2.5’s.
Imo only a GT,XT or H6 would be able to spin the rears in the same situation, so a similar test should be done with a higher output Subaru with the locker installed for people with those engines.

The only reason this test was done was to evaluate on road handling and safety and not the ability to spin wheels, which so far have proven to be safe, if Nachaluva’s SF had spun the wheels and kicked the rear out that would have made a lot of people uncertain of the safety and handling as a majority of people don’t want this to happen.

The real test will be Offroad as that’s why most people are interested in these lockers to begin with, and we all know Nachaluva already does well Offroad with his setup so I’m sure he will put his SF through its paces Offroad to make sure this is a worthy upgrade for all interested.
Can’t wait for his next video !

Cheers

1WD




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Imo only a GT,XT or H6 would be able to spin the rears in the same situation, so a similar test should be done with a higher output Subaru with the locker installed for people with those engines.

It was breif but at the end of one of powerofyourbrains's youtube videos they have the locker in a wrx and it definately kicked the rear out.

My 225/70r15 tyres are HT's less then a year old. MT's have far lower grip in the wet compared to HT's so I reckon I could spin them quite easily in the wet. And an EJ253 is much closer in torque and power to a GT then it is to an EJ22. An extra 35-40 HP is noticeable. Just the difference between EJ251 and EJ253 is noticeable. I also have lower 4.44 diffs that help.
(Forward to below paragraphs:See my earlier post where I quote [MENTION=3214]Subaru[/MENTION] Off-road's comment on powerofyourbrains's youtube video if unsure what i mean by 'squared off middle parts' and why I mention them)

Also, fwiw on the subject of kick out. i thought about it last night, and counting the number of teeth the ratchet has, and assuming the difference in width of the squared off middle parts of the locker is roughly 1 tooth wide (though it looks like less than that), that would mean that after breaking traction the inner rear wheel would travel at most 1/20th and at least 1/40th of a rotation before it catches up and transfers torque to the outside wheel. What exactly that means for added force I'm not sure but i can't imagine it would be much more than the torque that was being put to the inner wheel pre-breaking free, especially considering that after noticing slip your guna let off the gas. This is of course assuming that the difference in rotational speeds of the two wheels is small enough that it's overcome almost instantly once the inner wheel spins free.

There is probably a trade off. since while turning the car is trying to push its self outward with an open/lsd diff the outer wheel is going to have more downward force on it and is probably going to be a bit harder to lose traction on, however if it is lost the inner is already less forcefully on the ground and less capable of absorbing the sudden added demands on it. With torq-locker the inner wheel is going to have less downward force and may be easier to break free but after doing so the extra downward force on the outer wheel will likely make it better able to absorb the new demands.

So i think kick out will depend on wheather the outer wheel is on a more grippy portion of road or not. if all you did was hit a slick spot then it's probably just going to take over until the inner regains traction, and if it's on an equally slippery bit of road then i think it likely that all of the rear-of-car forces being suddenly transfered to it wouldn't be any different than an open/lsd diff suddenly giving them to the inner wheel. Added torque or no the latteral force from the turn it's self would more than likely be enough to get it to slide a bit on you.

After realising that, my fears of way too much added squirly-ness were eased. i suppose i may be wrong but i think 1wd foz is rite; unless your going hard enough that you'd already be halfway expecting it before locker install, or driving on a known unstable surface, these things are likely going to be fine.
 
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As the slowest wheel is the one that gets the power, I reckon it's wanting to go straight.
If the fastest wheel got the power, it will tend to turn.
Which would go some way to explaining why someone invented the open diff, better for going around corners. :)

And then you have the helical differential, its just a masterpiece but it also has some defaults, it can't overcome a wheel spinning in the air. And its not a locker either, only an LSD.
 
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as i learned your torQ and russians lock-right its almost same thing and it was confirmed . but then they have that one-click which locks just one 1 positions not 20 so after it unlock it needs to turn about whole circle to lock again. but then its quiter in city on turns and such which can be good thing. some of our local club guys gonna order those and try.
 
To kick the rear end out due to the locker being locked (not in the process of unlocking) you’ll have to overcome the traction of one of the front wheels first, then have the centre diff transfer sufficient power to the rear end to then break traction on the inside wheel or the wheel that’s powered.

The WRX would be more than capable of that, especially if it doesn’t have an operational front LSD - and it comes down to driving style too.

My only concern is on snow. But I don’t travel up ther often enough to worry about it. The L series is easy enough to swap the rear diff if need be anyway.

I just need to come up with a diff stub axle solution for the locker to work with.

Cheers

Bennie
 
I’m guessing your spinning the wheels in the wet with half worn street or average a/t tyres and not Mud terrain tyres.

Can confirm, EJ253 can spin 4 stock sized HT tyres in the wet without clutch dumps on occasion when flooring it and very easily with enthusiastic clutch usage. With my DCCD I suspect this locker would be very interesting as the DCCD is open with a rear bias. I can already get my open rear diff sideways around almost any corner in the wet with a bit of throttle on ATs, something my old car and its crappy EJ202 had next to no hope of doing. I think chances of spinning with the auto locker would greatly increase particularly as it will also try "lock" on lift off.
 
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