Best lube for Quaife

[Chuckster]

I have a Quaife for a 1020# w. driver 180HP solo car (not FSAE) and it is the B16 Civic unit encased in a steel shell with 4 Zerks fittings.

Quaife themselves says heavy gear oil, not grease but..this is Solo.


Anyone have experience or ideas? A search here of past posts on this forum only turned up that grease probably seemed OK-

One DSR road racer says that they wear out quicker with grease than oil road racing.

I'm naturally interested in maintaining the internal operation as a true limited slip whilst not incurring too much wear or loss.

It would be nice if the diff doesn't act like a open diff or a totally locked depending upon oil selection and heat.

Thanks!

[Chuckster]

I have a Quaife for a 1020# w. driver 180HP solo car (not FSAE) and it is the B16 Civic unit encased in a steel shell with 4 Zerks fittings.

Quaife themselves says heavy gear oil, not grease but..this is Solo.


Anyone have experience or ideas? A search here of past posts on this forum only turned up that grease probably seemed OK-

One DSR road racer says that they wear out quicker with grease than oil road racing.

I'm naturally interested in maintaining the internal operation as a true limited slip whilst not incurring too much wear or loss.

It would be nice if the diff doesn't act like a open diff or a totally locked depending upon oil selection and heat.

Thanks!

[vreihen]

Have you seen this post (http://p070.ezboard.com/Pro-Sport-Quaife-questions/fsocalpeepsfrm12.showMessage?topicID=42.topic) from one of the sports racer forums?

Don't know what the core LSD is in the Radical, but Quaife apparently wants grease in it if you believe what's posted.....

[Chuckster]

Thanks for the reference.

I would think that these are built to run in a variety of ATFs, heavy oils, and greases because of all the different street car transaxles and diffs they live in when they aren't in can for a chain drive race car.


Sounds like the safest bet is to do as Quaife says.

Anyone have any other ideas? I did find this:


ViperSpeed's Quaife differential.
'03-'06 SRT-10 and Coupe

Sold as exchange only for a simple bolt-in swap. Dramatically minimizes snap spins while enhancing acceleration both in-line and out of corners. Also eliminates "hunting" or loose rear end feeling under hard braking. For drag racing, the Quaife has proven to be almost unbreakable. Don't wait to crash your Viper or destroy your diff! This part is that good!

Used in SCCA World Challenge, Viper Days, SCCA T1, Viper Racing League, V-10 Nationals, and many, many street cars.

$5400 exchange w/usable core. Core charge $1350.

ViperSpeed recommends Redline 75W90 gear lube. $9.25/qt.

[PedalOnTheRight]

We used to run the same diff packed with axle grease and never had a problem. Keep in mind that we're making less than half your power with (most likely) a lighter car. My advice would be to follow Quaife's advice, even though it may be a bit of a pain to seal the system. The guys at Taylor Race (www.taylor-race.com) are invaluable when it comes to the Quaife diffs, you might shoot them an email as well.

Best of luck!

[vreihen]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by PedalOnTheRight:
The guys at Taylor Race (www.taylor-race.com) are invaluable when it comes to the Quaife diffs, you might shoot them an email as well. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

If memory serves me correctly, they are one of the few authorized Quaife distributors in the USA. Plus, they manufacture their own chain-drive diff lines, so they must have dealt with this question before. Scotty?

I'm actually curious about this answer and rationale, but for a different reason.....

[Scotty]

Chuckster,

I would take the diff apart and machine O-Ring grooves in the stub Axle bores.There should be some sort of seal surface area on your stubs.Then plug the holes.
I would then go back with a good synthetic 75w90.

This will make it a sealed oil diff.The way it was intented to run.
I am not a fan of grease packed diffs.

As for the Viper diff,
We have many many hours of development in that project.

[Chuckster]

Scotty, thanks. I have looked into o-rings and it may be better to do them outside the diff since the axles have external snap rings on the ends that would probably tear up a diff's internal o-ring on the way in or out.

There is one item that still bugs me:

What about the damping of the worm gear/worm wheel mechanism operation from the aditional pumping loss with grease in the diff?

I'm wondering if the unit may behave more progressively with the added loss.

[Scotty]

Chuckster,

You could through drill your stub axles.
And retain them to each other with a long AN bolt through the center.
This is what we originaly did on the first Vipers.
now we made a small threaded biscuit plate that is retained in to the center of the diff.
One for each side , this now lets us ratain each stub axle independly.
This comes in handy if you twist off a stub axle.
The axle will just loose drive and spin.
Better than coming out and ripping the car to shreds.

I do not see any performance changes in the diff between oil and grease..I think oil is just a better lubricant in this situation.

E-mail me if you want some pictures of the threaded biscuits.

Scotty
scotty@taylor-race.com